Breakfast with Jon & Moses

Moses Musukubili has been voluntarily pioneering Life Groups in and around Katima Mulilo, Namibia as a ‘mission pioneer’ since 2014. He is also one of the leaders at Arise and Shine, one of the local churches. Recently, Jon and Moses met for breakfast and had a far-ranging discussion. In it, they considered what Moses has learnt over the year, what Life Groups are, which methods they use, and how they intersect with churches.

By encouraging other people to step up, you have more influence, you could say. You’re able to do more. People end up doing things because of something you encouraged them in. In some ways, I wonder if that’s what true leadership is? ~ Jon

JON: Before we start to discuss what’s been happening in Katima Mulilo, do you want to give me a little background? You know, just to set the scene.

MOSES: I believe that coming and settling here at the age I am is what God wants me to do. I work hard in this region. I’ll spend half the month in one place and the rest of it visiting other places. I see the same need in every community. I look for people who have the potential to help people in their community step up and take leadership positions. I mean, just someone who will say to them (as you said to me), ‘Why don’t you have a go at this? You have the potential to, but - maybe because you didn’t think you could - you haven’t been doing it.’

For example, when I went to Divundu, I wanted to start a church there. Because I was given permission from the governor, I managed to organise some services. This was during the pandemic, when the world was in lockdown, so I would get alongside the people and encourage them. I saw a need there. People in Divundu were so immersed in tradition and had mixed up different belief systems. They really didn’t understand what church is, so I ran a crusade. They needed a building, and they needed a pastor, but they didn’t know Jesus.

I spoke to the lady I had contacted there and asked her to look at Dignity’s Living the Light programme and materials. Then I and one other person went to speak to the people in the village. To begin with, I’d been told, there would only be few of them at meetings, but when we got there, we found that they had gathered more pastors. People had understood the concepts in Living the Light and a local Life Group had really grown.

The second development was when Dignity came up with the Village Journey book that has now replaced Living the Light. Its approach was more practical, more down to earth. The old one was perhaps better for more established areas and groups, but Village Journey starts from the very beginning. It looks at how your group can grow and how you as an individual might discover the potential inside you to grow, too. Alongside that, the programme looks at how you go about raising up leaders within the group, so that the work does not rely on you. You see, we’re trying to share the responsibility from now on, rather than one person having to carrying it. We’re handing on the light.

I think God is working in me, and one thing I’ve come to realise is that I don’t want to be up at the front anymore; I want to encourage other people to come forward. Even when I take a step back, though, I know I must keep monitoring those who come forward and take up leadership positions. I need to keep following up, and I know that there’s a point where I’ll be able to tell whether they’re handling things the right way, if they’re understanding the programme properly.

It looks at how your group can grow and how you as an individual might discover the potential inside you to grow, too. Alongside that, the programme looks at how you go about raising up leaders within the group, so that the work does not rely on you. ~ Moses

JON: By encouraging other people to step up, you have more influence, you could say. You’re able to do more. People end up doing things because of something you encouraged them in. In some ways, I wonder if that’s what true leadership is? You exert influence, and people follow you, not because they have to, but because you’ve helped them to see what they need to do. I think that’s leadership: you create something in them rather than holding onto it yourself. And some leaders aren’t like that, are they? Some are all, Me, me, me. I’m the man of God. Yes, they have some influence and achieve things, but it’s all about them.

So… moving on. You help to lead a church, Arise and Shine. As an Arise and Shine person, not a person doing Life Groups, can you talk a bit about how Life Groups in the community interact with Arise and Shine? How do you view that relationship?

MOSES: For me, the church and the Life Group are equal partners. The church is basically led by pastors and the membership is to an extent just an audience, and perhaps only help in the services in minor ways. In that model, the pastor is the main person, the only person God can use. The Life Group, though, is a learning space in which everyone can have a role. In it, you discover your place, discover who you are, discover your potential, and every voice is listened to.

I suppose I came to realise that people at Arise and Shine may leave a service with their questions unanswered. They may leave without being heard. But in a Life Group, everybody is allowed to voice their opinion, everybody is allowed to contribute. This is not the case in the church, I feel, because the teaching is kind of imposed on the congregation. The congregation receives a message, and they’re expected to follow it.

JON: So, you think Life Groups are useful?

MOSES: Yes. They’re helpful for the church, and for the people. Like here at Arise and Shine, I’ve got to know the people in my congregation more closely through them being involved in the Life Groups. We meet at the church service, and when I find out the group’s location, I will come along and attend it, and we can pick up on things that have been said in the church services. We discuss aspects of the teaching in the service that they want to understand better.

Now we need to come to listen and look at how we’re going to grow. Now that we’re getting more mature, now that we’re growing in the faith, are we using our full God-given potential? Are we fulfilling our calling? ~ Moses

JON: So how does it work with people from other churches who go to the Life Group?

MOSES: Arise and Shine and the Life Groups are closely connected, but other churches will sometimes try to stop their people coming to a Life Group. The pastors might be worried what will happen if their members attend a Life Group. You know: This is for our village, our community, and we are its only church.

Here’s what happened in one of the other churches in Katima Mulilo. A lady who was a member of another church had joined a Life Group and grew in maturity. She began trying to help her church in various ways. The pastor of the church was surprised: she’d been in that church for almost 10 years and now she was suddenly behaving differently. He told her she was growing more than any other person there at that time and asked what had happened to her. She explained that she was part of the local Life Group. The pastor asked her what she thought she could do in the church, and when she told him, he appointed her as the youth leader. She asked if she could use the Village Journey material, and he said she was most welcome to, and told her just to ask if she needed anything else for the youth.

JON: Great. So, on a Sunday, you run a church service as normal, and then you have Life Groups happening in different places during the week. With what you said about church before, and what you said about Life Groups, why do you keep on doing things in church the same way when you’re not sure it’s reaching people as much as you had thought it would?

MOSES: It’s the culture. We grew up knowing that the church is the place where we can find God, the place where we can be forgiven. Activities that happen at the Life Group might be a little tamer. In the church, the activities are energetic – the dancing, the loud music – and people can behave a bit differently from the way they might at home. It’s almost like they feel Now I can go out, and I’m free! People will say they’re free and can do what they like, because it’s the house of God. They might say to you as a leader, I have come to God, not to you. They might even insult you and tell you that they’re doing so in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. So, for me, I just think that’s how the culture can be. People come together and form a big group and may be doing stuff that looks spiritual. That continues to be the kind of culture in our churches.

But now I take a different view of this. I feel that we’ve probably danced enough. Now we need to come to listen and look at how we’re going to grow. Now that we’re getting more mature, now that we’re growing in the faith, are we using our full God-given potential? Are we fulfilling our calling?

It’s about the kingdom of God. Are we building his Kingdom? We don’t want people to see growing in faith being something that’s to do with us. We want to enable people to see God and to come to him. ~ Moses

JON: So, where you have church and Life Groups, you see the two working together. I suppose the way we’ve thought about it - saying that Life Groups are mission within the community - I suppose that kind of works. You have the church and then you have the mission of the church. Are some of the things you see in Life Groups helpful within the church service itself, or within the business of the normal church? Or do you think they keep quite separate?

MOSES: No, no. They’re not separate. They are very helpful. And to be honest with you, over for the past two years, we’ve been using the Dignity Bible studies within the church. We don’t always have somebody prepare a talk on something random, something unconnected to the sermon the week before or the week after. Sometimes we use the Dignity books in the church service. This is useful and very interactive. And it has helped people. One of the church leaders might use some of the questions and maybe the memory verse exercise, too. Every Sunday, people come needing to be refreshed and reset, and to help with this they use memory verses from the previous week’s session. Some of the congregation are members of the Life Group and for them it might be a repeat topic, but it’s a refresher for them, a reminder of what was discussed in the group during the week. You find that they participate more. And those who come just to the church and not the Life Group will learn from those who are also in the group.

JON: So, it’s almost like you’ve got all the dancing and the music in the church service, but some elements of the Life Group have come into it, too.

MOSES: More than that! Because now they’re doing Dignity’s Foundations course which is giving them a good base of understanding. In the church I’m part of, they’re up to chapter 5 of Foundations.

JON: You could almost encourage people like the pastor you mentioned before, who saw the lady who had changed so much because of being in a Life Group. You could say, “Look this is what I’m doing in my church; couldn’t you do it in yours?” With you, what has happened is that you’ve started with people doing things in the community and then you’ve adopted these things in church.

MOSES: Definitely, yes. We tried to incorporate these teaching materials in church services and show how they’re really helping us. It’s not about Moses, or Moses’ family, or what we’re doing in the Life Group, though. It’s about the kingdom of God. Are we building his Kingdom? We don’t want people to see growing in faith being something that’s to do with us. We want to enable people to see God and to come to him.

JON: I think people in churches get a bit defensive sometimes. The thing is that what often happens is that NGOs want to come and work through the church, but to my mind, the problem is - and correct me if I’m wrong - that they work with a particular church, and then that church becomes protective of the NGO’s support, and it ends up not going any wider than that church; it just stays there. So, I think that what we’re doing, a little bit, is trying to unite with the church and broaden what it’s doing. That’s what I think we’re trying to do.

MOSES: Yes. Not all NGOs work that way. There are some missionaries that come once a year and give out bicycles, blankets and food. While the missionaries are here the churches are full. As soon as they leave, the churches are empty. We call them the churches for October because people just come when there is stuff being given out. They don’t really see God or help them grow to know God. There’s another group who came and brought lots of money for food and big influential speakers. When I spoke to their hosting pastor, he said clearly to me that they were his donors and he will use the money for his own recreational needs.

JON: What! I’ve seen a bit of that happening but not quite so extreme.

MOSES: Yep. I said, “What?!”

JON: Most people who come in like that don’t see what is goes on afterwards. They go home, and they don’t know about it. I’m always very aware that if we’re not careful, we could end up almost being the same, or being seen as the same. But I think from what you’re saying it seems a bit different from what happens when we go in.

MOSES: Yeah, I wish the next time you come I would like to introduce you to them.

For me, the church and the Life Group are equal partners...The Life Group, though, is a learning space in which everyone can have a role. In it, you discover your place, discover who you are, discover your potential, and every voice is listened to. ~ Moses