Author: Phill

The Road to God

/ Phill

Decision making in the marketplace
Phill Sandahl

A web design class I took recently analyzed people’s decision making process. They found that people had different decision making styles.

Using the Myers-Briggs instrument they identified 4 different decision making styles – competitor, humanistic, methodical, and spontaneous. Appropriate material was created in different parts of the page to help each make a decision. My point here is not to discuss web design, but to recognize the principle that there are different decision-making styles which need different approaches to bring people to a decision.

Different people are “wired” differently. That’s the way God made us. He uses different communication styles to draw individuals to himself. Consider these examples:

• Ethiopian Eunuch – While searching Isaiah he was approached by Philip who explained, “that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus”
• Thomas the doubter – show me
• Andrew through family relationship – I have found the Messiah, you must come and meet him too
• Paul the Apostle through a power encounter – Lord, what would you have me to do?

Jim Engel a number of years ago gave us the Engel Scale which recognized that coming to Christ, and growing in Him, was a process and not just a single event. To this we need to add an understanding that depending on a person’s decision-making style the necessary steps along that path may vary. How they come to their relationship with Christ is not as important as that they do.

Sociologists and religious leaders over the years have studied the conversion process and found many different ways people have come to make a religious conversion. Often there is a combination of messages/experiences. Among the most frequently mentioned: preaching and persuasion, reading and study, deeds by other believers, healing and miracles, cultural practices, visions and power encounters. Different cultures will be more receptive to some than to others. But God is not limited by one culture’s preference.

So what does this have to do with tentmaking? We need to recognize that in the marketplace we will come across people with all kinds of decision-making styles. God wants to connect with all of them. To do so he has a toolkit with a variety of communication methods. We need to have our eyes open to what God is doing and not assume that our favorite tool (method) is best for all people and situations.

The Tentmaker’s role:

• Be faithful in your witness
• Give the Holy Spirit room to work
• Rejoice in those he brings to God 

Those are my thoughts. What are yours? I would welcome dialog on this thought. 
Write me at phill@globalopps.org

Tentmaker Development Worker’s Dilemma

/ Phill

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A tentmaker working for an international relief organization writes (us) about her frustration and pain as she struggles to deal with issues of poverty and justice while providing aid to people in the country where she is serving. How do you respond to the abject need? Does giving money to the beggar help meet his need, or just enable him to remain in a dependent state of poverty.

Welcome to the world of development and issues workers have agonized over for decades. Every thoughtful, caring development worker sooner or later in his career faces these issues.

Just having compassion is not enough. History is rife with stories of well-intentioned efforts to “fix” a problem by jumping in with western “can-do” spirit and changing things. The truth is there are no simple, one size fits all, solutions. Workers need to learn the culture and appropriate ways to live out their faith in it.

Thoughtful people in recipient countries are beginning to recognize that simply giving away stuff does not bring about lasting change. Two years ago a conference of African leaders begged Bono (See the “Africans to Bono”) and well meaning groups like his to stop giving Africa money and material aid. They requested instead assistance in developing skills and systems to help take care of themselves.

A work team from North America came to “help” construct a school for the children in a poor rural community. They had grandiose plans for how quickly, with their expertise, they could build a school for the community. They were very upset when told they could not bring their power tools and finish the building in a week. Nor would they take their picture in front of the new school before leaving. It was a blow to their egos.

Rather, they would work along-side the villagers using the hand-tools available in the community. Concrete would be mixed with a shovel and block cut with a machete, instead of the power tools they were accustomed to using. The school would not be completed while they were there so that the villagers would finish it after they left. The community would know that they had done the project themselves and would be able to do it again when necessary. The work team came to help and share of themselves with the village, not to do for the village.

As they worked along with the parents and took breaks to play with the children new relationships were formed. When these accomplished craftsmen left, their project was not yet finished. But there was a special link with the people of the community and tears of sadness at their departure. They came to build a school and instead built bonds of love into the community.

Fundamental change has to take place internally if we are to see lasting results. People have to take ownership of their problems. There must be a change in worldview or mindset. This kind of change takes time and personal relationship. These deeper transformations will lead to changes in the internal social structures and result in real change.

While not written specifically for development workers, LifeWork: A Biblical Theology for what You Do Every Day, discusses God’s plan for followers of Christ to live out their faith in everything they do. When Christ’s followers live out their faith, the transformation the world needs will follow – at home or abroad.