The Mahafaly started with a deep respect for God’s Word. This seems to have been built into their culture. When we began sharing Bible stories with them in their own dialect, they recognized these stories as God’s Word, and they responded in obedience . . . we were somewhat floored by this. We’ve grown up hearing God’s Word, yet rarely obey it with this level of respect.

 

So, once we began working through stories from the book of Acts with our villages, they noticed the progress and decisions and activities of the early church. Whether or not they should follow this example wasn’t really a question--the questions centered more on the how. How and when to baptize in the midst of drought; what elements to use for the Lord’s supper, and why; etc.

 

A few dynamics, we believe, helped this process for our people. These wouldn’t necessarily be transferable everywhere, but they were significant for our groups:

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• First, our people were in villages without, for the most part, any active churches of any kind. Many of our villages have church buildings, but they don’t have regular church meetings or communities. Our people didn’t face the question of joining any other pre-existing church. If they were going to practice what Acts taught about church life, they were going to have to do it themselves, starting from scratch.

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• Second, our groups were already natural community groups. Our villages came to Christ together, as groups. In most cases, the leaders of the new believing community were already the leaders in the village. The natural dynamics of group cooperation and leadership were already in place.

 

As we continued in Acts, we repeatedly returned to Acts 2:42-47, and the description of the first church. We drew circles in the dirt with pictures describing the elements present in that first church, and regularly checked in with our leaders about how they were practicing each of these elements. We did follow up teaching where there was confusion. Some groups are still moving toward church, and some churches have dissolved. Still, we’ve been amazed at the power and clarity of God’s Word to challenge new believers to follow Him to form churches!