An Anglican Bishop Listens to His Conscience
In 2008, Anglican bishop Charles Mithowa walked into a Presbyterian bookstore in Blantyre, Malawi, his native country. His eyes landed on a 500-page book titled, The Disciple-Making Minister authored by a guy named David Servant. Although we had published that book in Kenya, Uganda and Burundi, I have no idea how a copy wound up in Malawi. It seems, however, that it was providential in light of what has transpired since then.
As an Anglican bishop, Charles oversaw ten churches in Malawi and seven churches in neighboring Mozambique. He had an Anglican robe, a growing status, job security, and a decent income for Malawi. But he was challenged by what he read in the opening chapters of The Disciple-Making Minister, because he began to realize that he was not making disciples, teaching them to obey all that Jesus commanded. Rather, he was conducting liturgical church services and building a career in the Anglican Church. He told me a few days ago that my book was initially very painful to read!
But he kept reading and checking the scripture references that were cited in the book. He eventually yielded to what he could not deny was simple biblical truth. He decided to start making disciples who would meet in houses. He would equip those disciples to disciple others. And he planned to target, not city people with money as he had previously been doing, but to go to the poor in Malawi’s remote villages. His Anglican clergy friends, for the most part, told him he was crazy. But he persevered and trusted God.
In 2010, Charles wrote me a letter using the address he found on the last page of The Disciple-Making Minister. He asked for a visit from myself or other Heaven’s Family staff members. Providentially, we had two staff members who planned to be in Malawi in just a few months, and so they visited Charles and began trying to add some value to what he was doing.
I returned with one of those staff members in 2013, at which time that staff member, Dick Samuels, introduced him to Farming God’s Way (FGW), which he whole-heartedly embraced. Prior to that, he had never succeeded in growing enough maize (corn) on his small plot of land to feed his family for a year. But his first FGW harvest was three times as much as he had ever harvested before. Charles gave his excess to struggling widows in his fledgling house churches. And the yield of every harvest since then has increased as his soil has continued to improve through applying FGW methods (see the photo at the bottom of this blog).
When we learned about Disciple-Making Movements (DMMs), Heaven’s Family’s African director, Jerry Jefferson, taught the concepts to Charles, who again whole-heartedly embraced them. Jerry and Dick encouraged Charles to launch house churches that combined worship, prayer, Bible study and Christian community with FGW training. Dick named them “God’s Love Groups” (GLGs).
Charles worked tirelessly as doors opened all over southern Malawi for FGW training due to the ongoing drought. Rural Malawians who adopted FGW enjoyed annually-increasing harvest yields while their neighbors who practiced traditional agricultural methods watched their crops die for lack of water and soil nutrients. Charles always used FGW as a means of planting GLG house churches. In many Muslim villages, scores of Muslims who joined FGW GLG’s found the Lord.
When I last visited Charles in Malawi two years ago, his movement had grown to a total of 80 GLG house churches, of which 40 consisted entirely of Muslim-background believers (MBBs)! We visited a few of those MBB GLGs that year and listened to former Muslims tell us how their lives had changed though finding the Lord Jesus Christ and FGW. (Now you know four abbreviations that Heaven’s Family staff members frequently use: FGW, DMM, GLG, and MBB!)
When we arrived in Malawi a few days ago, I asked Charles how it has been going since my last visit. He said that there are now 460 GLGs, and 150 of them are comprised of all MBBs!! The “M” in DMM has become a reality….it is a “disciple-making MOVEMENT” that is self-perpetuating. That has been due in part because of Heaven’s Family’s strategic partnership with Charles and his team of FGW/DMM trainers, as we have better equipped them for their tasks in various ways.
The Malawian federal government has taken notice and thanked Charles for eliminating so much hunger in southern Malawi through his efforts. Because of that, Charles received some exposure on Malawian television, and as a result, 126 village heads from all over Malawi have contacted him, requesting FGW training in their villages!
So that is the next challenge before us. This is an unprecedented opportunity to permanently end Malawi’s hunger season while at the same time plant thousands of disciple-making house churches across the nation. And there is little doubt the movement will spill into neighboring Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania. (Heaven’s Family already has full-time and part-time FGW/DMM trainers in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.)
If you are a member of Heaven’s Family’s Compassion Club or have invested in our Food & Farming Fund, rejoice, because you’ve had a part in all that I’ve just described. If you would like to become a member of the Compassion Club, just click the banner at the bottom of this blog.
In my next blog, I can’t wait to tell you the story of one very special Muslim “head chief” whose life has been radically transformed. (Below are two more photos from the day.)
