Jah Rastafari! Have you noticed that the Rastafarian movement (1930) has more or less “just come town” and yet the movement is spreading across the globe at a fascinating rate? Have you also noticed that people of all walks of life, doctors, lawyers, politicians and the likes are embracing the religion which was once scorned upon? So what are they doing to get such growth and the Christian Mission rather than growing is dwindling into oblivion? They do not have a plethora of meeting houses like the church does. They do not go house to house and invite other to join the faith. They do not give out tracts or any significant amount of Rastafarian literature. They are not seen having crusades preaching the teaching of Rastafari. Here is how they do it – they have made it a point to become both audible and visible, which is something quite the opposite of us the Christian Mission. We are neither audible nor visible, preferring to hide in church every Sunday and be comfortable with that. In the mean time the Rastafarians are running rings around us, creating converts “on the fly”. Here is what the BBC noticed and it is true – “The development of Reggae music during this period made Rastafari audible and visible to an international audience. The work of Bob Marley (one of the most important figures in Rastafari) and Island Records was popular with a much wider group than the working class Jamaican culture from which it sprang. As the rock critics Stephen Davis and Peter Simon said, reggae propelled the Rasta cosmology into the middle of the planets cultural arenas, and suddenly people want to know what all the chanting and praying and obsessive smoking of herb [marijuana] are all about (Reggae Bloodlines). (bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/rastafari/history/history.shtml) Rastafarians do not need to distribute tracts or go house to house, their message is in their music and they produce music like rabbits produce young. Where is the music in the Christian Mission, where are the recording artistes, where are the CDs and other such productions? Where is the interest in even getting involved in this aspect of the ministry? There is no interest and hence the reason why the Rastafarian movement is licking the “stuffings’ out of us. Another reason for Rastafarian success and our demise is that they embed and integrate with their communities. Rastafarians are every where, involved in everything, communicating with everyone and being a part of whatever is going on. Within the CM, we tend to run and hide, get involved in nothing and frown on those who dare. Christ has called us to function like the Rastarians – take the ministry to the streets, be visible, be audible. Jesus began his ministry on the streets and never left, you could not miss HIM, he was both visible and audible. He had crusades of over 5000 men, challenged governments, cleaned up the temple and helped people get their lives organized. When are we in the Christian Mission going to adopt Jesus’ approach to ministry and stop the Rastafarian Movement from taking His prospective disciples?
Posted on: Sun, 05 Jan 2014 17:49:35 +0000
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