Dealing with a very local life

Life for many people in Benjamin is very local. And I mean VERY local. When we had a thing for Mothers Day, the children commented that some of their mothers never left their house, and getting them to come was a real treat. Asunción, the capital is inly about 40 km away and accessible by bus, but some have never been there. The town has 15000 inhabitants, not very small but certainly not big, yet many people complain about the distances, walking a few blocks could be considered far. Basically, if you're not working and especially if you don't have a motor bike, you're not moving far, your house and street is often your world.

This affects church life. In response some pastors, like in many places, have "reuniones caseras", meetings in homes, mostly on weekdays. This appears to be popular and neighbours have the opportunity to come by. It gives the opportunity for people who can't or won't leave their streets to listen to the Word and fellowship. We have been thinking about this as well, since we also have contact with people that have a transport issue. And being used to working with house groups and such it's natural to us.

But the complaint from some pastors about these meetings is not that they don't work, it's that the people that come to these meetings don't then come to church, and some of the church members that attend also stop going to the services. And because of that some pastors stop with the meetings, slightly annoyed at times.

I have reflected about this. And it seems to me a bit like the difference between boxing and judo. You can confront something you don't like straight on, like in boxing, and spend a lot of power defeating your opponent. Or you can use the the movement of your opponent and bend it in your direction, like in judo.

Because if you take out the goal "people should go to the service in the church" from the equation, the problem disappear. If you instead work from a perspective that the group that gather in the home is in reality a small church, then the local life is no longer a problem. If you don't treat the meeting as a recruitment point for the "real church", which happens on Sundays, but as something that can grow and function as a New Testament church in it's own right, then you have bent the local mindset in your direction. And as such the culture can become an asset, not a hinder.

As we haven't tried this yet, it's more of a theory, but I'll come back and report the developments. A great thing about being a church planter / missionary is that we have a mandate to try new things, as long as we're happy to fail at times!