Decisions

Rasheed* shares the story of how God used Southern Baptist missionaries John and Mary Harper* — and a vision of Jesus in a dream — to lead him to faith in Christ. “I would still be in darkness,” Rasheed says, if God hadn’t brought the Harpers into his life. “I always thank God because there are people like John among our people.”

In a society already open to new ideas, responsive to the technological, cultural and religious influence of the outside world, first Islam and then Christianity made an impact on Uganda in the second half of the 19th Century. But if the Buganda were so receptive to the message of a "world-religion," why did they not simply remain with Islam? How could Christianity not only mount an effective challenge to Islam but eventually become the dominant dini of Buganda, forcing Islam into the position of a small (but tenacious) minority?

Some missionaries who begin to seriously study Church Planting Movements occasionally find that they are simply off-track and wonder if it is possible to begin again. Of course it’s impossible to actually begin again, but it is possible to correct earlier mistakes and tip the scales of a movement in the right direction. Because Church Planting Movements aren't just sequential, step-by-step programs, they can be facilitated
whenever we stop doing those things that impede them and begin doing more of those things that seem to support them. This should be an encouragement to anyone who hopes to see a CPM unfold among a people group.

It is therefore of the highest importance that the faithful should easily understand the sacramental signs, and should frequent with great eagerness those sacraments which were instituted to nourish the Christian life.