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    Christian Developmental Presuppositions Today: Worldviews
    Christian Developmental Presuppositions Today: Worldviews
    Christian Developmental Presuppositions Today: Worldviews
    Ebook149 pages1 hour

    Christian Developmental Presuppositions Today: Worldviews

    By Jonathan Mubanga Mumbi

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    Worldviews, basic belief systems, basic assumptions about the world we live in are just as important to career goals as they are to personal prosperity. Christian development organizations have long recognized the value of basic assumption to the entire development enterprise. Inadequacies of development assumptions lead to resource wastage and poor relationships. Understanding the basic belief system and its basic assumptions is key to unlocking the potential of the local population as partners in their own development.

    Past paternalistic approaches of supra-governmental institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and Christian development organizations did not produce the desired development in sustainable amounts. They mobilized the communities for development projects but failed to cast the development project into the communities' economic and socio-spiritual desires. The multi-dimensional nature of Christian development work often requires a level of patience and inclusiveness that the average Western donor does not have. It takes time to inculcate a developmental mindset, but it is worth it.

    This small book is a supplement to a Lecture that this writer presents to missionary students hoping to work cross-culturally. The actual lecture includes role-plays of how respect, love, truth and teamwork looks like in some non-Western settings. This work is intended to be short and therefore does not treat points of great interest (or great controversy) in details. However, for the in-coming missionary to Africa and local African missionaries, it is hoped that this writing will help the missionary to a good start in missions. For the development worker, it is hoped that the book will be used to increase social-spiritual capital before too investing too much financial resources. Throwing money at development projects has not worked in the past and it is not likely to be different this time around.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJonathan Mubanga Mumbi
    Release dateNov 27, 2016
    ISBN9781370470570
    Christian Developmental Presuppositions Today: Worldviews
    Author

    Jonathan Mubanga Mumbi

    I am Jonathan M. Mumbi an ordained Bishop of the Church of God (World Missions Zambia). This is a denomination under the World Missions Department of the Church of God, Cleveland Tennessee, USA.I have been in ministry since 1988 and mostly a volunteer in Youth With A Mission (YWAM) +30 years. My wife, Jean Mumbi, and I have served at various levels in YWAM and in the Church of God. My passion is to empower young people through nonformal Christian tertiary education. My educational journey has been mostly through YWAM's University of the Nations but I am grateful to have earned a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theological Studies through Nations University. I am a Pastoral Counselor and a lecturer. We are a family of which the youngest is going twenty-three and her siblings are adult brothers.Special personal note: None of the organizations served or mentioned will endorse every opinion I hold, neither do I want to leave anyone under the impression that I writes for, or, under any other authority other my own passion to write what I feel inspired to write.

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      Book preview

      Christian Developmental Presuppositions Today - Jonathan Mubanga Mumbi

      Christian Developmental Presuppositions Today: Worldviews

      By Jonathan M. Mumbi Ph.D.

      Published by Jonathan M. Mumbi at Smashwords

      Copyright 2016 Jonathan M. Mumbi

      This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author (Bishop Jonathan M. Mumbi).

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      Acknowledgements

      Chapter 1: The Biblical worldview

      First basic assumption: God's existence

      Second basic assumption: God created

      Third basic assumption: God is perfect and absolute in every way

      Chapter 2: Assumptions about human beings

      Created in His image and likeness (Imago Dei)

      Created to be thinking, feeling, creative people with the power of free choice

      Created to steward maleness or femaleness

      Androgyny: a cherished Western value in marriages

      What about chimeras and hermaphrodites?

      Blessed to be: fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and have dominion

      Chapter 3: Assumptions about the kind of world system we live in

      Is it an open system?

      Is it a closed system?

      Is it a system at all?

      Chapter 4: Mankind and the earth's resources

      What is the earth about?

      Who is man in relationship to the world?

      What is the real value of people?

      Chapter 5: Assumptions about time

      Chapter 6: Assumptions about death: What is death?

      Chapter 7: Assumptions about work

      Chapter 8: Three worldview shapers

      God

      Human beings

      Fallen angels

      Chapter 9: The power of worldviews (Basic Belief Systems)

      Worldviews are neurobiological pathways to preset interpretations of events

      Worldviews differ

      Chapter 10: Why does poverty exist?

      Chapter 11: Why are some people-groups so prosperous?

      Chapter 12: Impact of worldviews in missionary organizations

      Relational issues left unattended destroy missionary service commitments

      The question of assertiveness and aggressiveness

      Chapter 13: Getting along when things do not mean the same things

      Body language across the cultural barriers

      Speaking the truth in love

      Being in love and communicating love

      Communicating respect and honor

      The meaning of family

      Joy and grief (celebrations and mourning)

      Dress code

      Chapter 14: God's First Developmental Question: Where Are You?

      How did we get here? (intentional deviation, or drift?)

      Where does one go from the place of total failure?

      Conclusion

      The End

      About the author

      Other books by the same author

      Connecting with the author

      Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Acknowledgements

      I am a debtor to God, from whom all blessings flow, without whom nothing else matters. I also want to acknowledge my wife and our children who allow me some space and time to write and share with God's larger family. I want to acknowledge friends in the University of the Nations who have been inviting me to speak on the topic of Biblical worldview. The topic is not exactly my most favorite, but it is the one that most Discipleship Training School leaders have chosen for me. This small book is intended to answer the question of notes. At the end of my presentations students often ask me for notes. This work is intended to fill that need. God bless you! Jonathan M. Mumbi.

      Chapter 1: The Biblical Worldview

      Basic assumptions are the building blocks of core beliefs. Core beliefs are the basis of religious and philosophical beliefs on which ideas of how the world works are based. For the purpose of the lecture, on which this book is based, a biblical worldview was defined as, A biblically defined view of how God designed the natural and spiritual dynamics of the seen and unseen world to fit and function together (or, simply, ‘seeing God’s world the way God intended it to be seen’).

      First Basic Assumption: God's Existence

      Genesis 1v1's, In the beginning, God…, and John 1:1 are similar in the sense that both of these explanations take for granted the fact of God's existence. The Bible does not explain God's beginning. It explains the beginnings of the world in non-scientific language that the first hearers could understand without complicated explanation. As hearers who are at a distance both in time, space, and technology, the message of the Bible may be difficult to understand. It was intended for us as the secondary audience, therefore, it will make sense today; but, it did not need as much interpretation to the first hearers as it does today. The first hearers shared the same culture, and the same basic assumptions and languages with Moses, God's messenger. In the beginning there was an adequate, rational, and personal First cause and the universe as we know it is the effect.

      Adequate Cause

      This beginning is not the beginning of eternity because eternity has no beginning. It is the beginning of time, space, and matter. Before time there was no yesterday, today, and tomorrow. There was no Sabbath, no morning, no evening, no day, and no night. Who is equal to such a gigantic task? God (Psalm 45:6; Lam 5:19; Eph 1:23)!

      God existed outside of space and time before he created space, matter, and time. God exists as spirit (non-matter) without the need for space, time, or matter. Heaven is a supernatural subject of time and space. The material universe is a subject of space, time and matter. Neither the spiritual Heavens nor the natural heavens are eternal. All eternal entities are Un-caused Causes making the continuity between the material universe as we know it and its originator logical. What does this mean? It means that people who love God with all their minds will use their minds to look for a transcendent Adequate Cause.

      God made space, matter, and time in such a way that he can be inside (immanent) and outside (transcendent) of space, matter, and time. The physical universe is a gigantic Effect, so also, the spiritual heavens. The Christian basic assumption is that these effects are so huge they require no less than God himself to be their source. The Bible even goes on to state that looking at the effects will point people to the search for an adequate cause and the only logical conclusion to the search for an adequate uncaused Cause (or First Mover) is God.

      You are the LORD, you alone. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you. (Nehemiah 9:6 ESV)

      To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,... (Psalms 19:1-4 ESV)

      "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools,...(Romans 1:19-22).

      Intelligent Design vs Random and spontaneous designs

      Is nature as we know it, a product of someone's mind or, is it a product of random natural forces. Are hot, sterilized, volcanic rocks an adequate cause for the production of the first life forms on earth? Is the genetic make-up of the first life-forms on earth an adequate source of the bio-diversity of all fauna and flora on earth?

      Witchcraft is partly, magical thinking and partly a surrender of the rational use of one's mind to embrace the beliefs that have highly disproportionate relationships that are not based in natural or spiritual realities. In witchcraft, it is acceptable that a cause that is so small can cause astronomically disproportionate effects. It is not strange

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