Part 3 of a 3-part series based on an inspiring interview with Shodankeh Johnson, a pastor, church planter and reformer from Sierra Leone, West Africa
Several times during my interview with Shodankeh Johnson leader of New Harvest Global Ministries in Sierra Leone he said: “We do whatever it takes to bring the Gospel to people”
It is a compassionate, community-needs-based approach that has resulted not only in thousands of new churches planted in Sierra Leone and beyond, and in the raising of hundreds of thousands of disciples but also in community transformation on a significant scale impacting the spheres of education, health, agriculture, business and more.
“Through this holistic approach to disciple making we have been able to establish schools in communities where there were only Quranic [Muslim] schools.
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“Today, as I talk to you, we have established 110 schools in different communities with thousands of kids and more than a thousand teachers,” he explained.
In addition to a reliance on prayer and fasting, one of the pillars of this holistic approach is to discover the felt needs of communities they reach out to and then to serve the people in those areas with a practical demonstration of God’s love.
To this end, New Harvest Global Ministry teams include educationists, medical and dental service providers, agriculturalists, business practitioners. The list grows as needs are identified. And importantly, all of these people who bring solutions to communities are trained and experienced disciplers and in most cases also seasoned church planters.
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“If a community needs water, we provide water but we also provide living water. We have a seed bank and give seed to farmers and we are very intentional to plant the seed of the Gospel that we grow alongside the natural seed,” said Shodankeh.
The “whatever it takes” has resulted in the likes of trade schools, radio stations, a microfinancing initiative, theological training institute for church planters, and even an outreach soccer team.
“We’re using soccer as a platform [for sharing the Gospel], you know, because in this part of the world soccer is a religion,” he said.
Reading through some of Shodankeh’s own articles written for ministry partners — of which there are many — I came across some remarkable testimonies of how their holistic approach has led to breakthrough in “hard areas”.
For instance, in one report he wrote: “When Ebola struck [Sierra Leone] in 2014, we could not stay in safe places and not engage the disaster that was all around us, especially in Muslim communities where burial rites were causing the epidemic to explode in many villages. People could not even touch dying parents or children.
“In that context there were several New Harvest leaders who volunteered in the most hazardous places. Some survived but several lost their lives serving others — mostly Muslims.
“The Muslim chief of one communities was discouraged by people trying to escape the quarantined village and amazed at seeing Christians coming to serve. He privately prayed this prayer: [God, if you save me from this, if you save my family, I want us all to be like these people who show us love and bring us food.’
“The chief and his family did survive and he kept his promise. Memorising passages from the Bible, he began to share in the mosque where he had been an elder. A church was birthed in that village, and the chief continues going village to village sharing the Good News of God’s love.”.
In another testimony Shodankeh wrote: “There was a large community in the southern part of Sierra Leone that had been very difficult for us to penetrate.
“They were extremely hostile toward Christians. It was difficult even for people who identifed as Christians to enter that place. So we prayed for that town. But time passed and none of our strategies worked.
“Then suddenly something happened! The national news began to report that there was a health problem in that town and young men were becoming ill and dying. It turns out that they had determined that the infections related to the fact that the village never circumcised their boys.
“As I was praying about the problem I felt the conviction of the Lord that this was finally our opportunity to serve this town. We gathered a volunteer medical team and went to the community with the proper equipment and medications and asked if they would let us help them.
“It was wonderful when the town leaders agreed. In the first day they circumcised more than 300 young men.
“Over the next days the men were just healing and that was our opportunity to begin Discovery Bible Groups during the healing days. The response was remarkable and soon Kingdom multiplication began happening with churches being planted.
“The place where Christians could not enter was transformed in just a very few years into a place where the Glory of God was manifested. The compassion of God’s people, the power of much prayer, and the transforming Word of God changed everything.”
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