It's interesting to see how other religious groups view outreach. Of course, most religions tie mission efforts very specifically to the growth of their particular church and denomination. This analysis reviews a decade of mission in Madagascar and points to lessons learned and strategy for the next phase of work. I highlighted sentences of particular interest as I think about mission and strategies which seem consistent anywhere in the world with any religious group. It is also interesting to wonder if we might think this way about Africa or Asia and fail to look at the opportunities in the United States in a similar way. Of course, some groups do operate in this consistent style no matter the location.
I found this online here and share the whole article as it is a brief synopsis:
LDS Outreach Expansion
in Madagascar
Author: Matt Martinich
Overview
The LDS Church in Madagascar has
arguably experienced the most rapid national outreach expansion of any country
in the past decade. In 2002, the Church reported no wards or
branches outside the capital city Antananarivo yet by early 2012 the Church
operated wards, branches, or groups in 12 additional cities, towns, and villages.
This essay chronicles the progress of the LDS Church expanding outreach in
Madagascar and identifies opportunities, challenges, and prospects for future
growth. A comparison of LDS outreach expansion in Madagascar and other
African countries is also provided.
Background
In 2005, the Church
organized its first branches outside Antananarivo in Antsirabe, Fianarantsoa,
Fort Dauphin (Taolagnaro), and Toamasina (Tamatave). In 2009, the Church
formed a branch in Mahajanga. Since 2010, the Church has created branches
in Sarodroa, Anjoma, and Manandona and groups in Ambositra, Ankazobe, a few
villages nearby Manandona, Moramanga, and Toliara. The number of cities
with an LDS congregation increased from one in 2000 to five in 2005,
approximately seven in 2009, and 13 in early 2012.
Successes
The Church has
accomplished several impressive outreach expansion feats. In less than a
decade, the number of cities with an LDS presence increased from one to
13. This represents one of the greatest outreach expansion achievements
for the Church in the twenty-first century that has been unmatched in any other
country as no other nation had only one city opened to proselytism a decade ago
and today has close to as many cities with LDS congregations operating as
Madagascar. The Church has opened multiple large cities to proselytism
throughout the country even if these previously unreached cities were
geographically distant from cities with established LDS congregations. In most countries, the Church
restricts outreach expansion to cities within close proximity of locations with
an established LDS presence to minimize the demands of long distances on
the often already large administrative burdens taken upon by mission
leaders. In Madagascar, the Church has effectively dealt with these
difficulties without any noticeable impact on the quality of missionary
performance and ecclesiastical accountability for new converts. Several
small towns and villages in remote, rural communities are opened to missionary
activity with groups or branches established whereas the Church in most African
nations has no presence or a tiny presence limited to a handful of small towns
and villages. The establishment of multiple congregations in rural areas
demonstrates some of the most significant progress to date as 70% of the
national population resides in rural areas and the rural populations of most African
nations are almost totally unreached by the LDS Church. Outreach
expansion has also occurred within lesser-reached communities and neighborhoods
of the most populous cities. Within the past decade, the number of wards
and branches in Antananarivo tripled from six to 18 and the number of branches
in Toamasina increased from one to five.
Rapid outreach expansion would not be possible if the
Church had not developed a reasonably high level of self-sufficiency in local
church leadership. The Church has
maintained reasonably high standards for the organization of branches by
requiring groups to sustain self-sufficiency in local leadership for a period
of at least six months before a branch is formally organized. Many
outlying groups and branches have maintained prebaptismal standards that
mandate regular church attendance for an extended period of time before
consideration for baptism. Many group leaders have seriously investigated
the Church for a long period of time before joining the Church and have
demonstrated faithfulness in following the recommendations given by mission
leadership to progress toward become a branch. This in turn has reduced
convert attrition and improved the functioning of congregations in meeting
their local needs with little or no direct involvement from full-time
missionaries. The Church in most African countries has not come close to
replicating the recent prolific outreach expansion in Madagascar due to lower
levels of local leadership sustainability in established church centers that
siphon full-time missionary resources to adequately meet administrative and
ecclesiastical needs.
Opportunities
Some of the most
populous cities remain unreached by the LDS Church. Five cities have over
50,000 inhabitants and no LDS congregations (Antsiranana, Ambovombe,
Antanifotsy, Mananara Avaratra, and Amparafaravola). Long distances from
established church centers appear partially responsible for no LDS presence in
these cities today. All five of the most populous unreached cities present
excellent opportunities for introducing an official church presence as tens of
thousands are concentrated in a small geographic area. High population density
permits the Church to extend outreach with fewer mission outreach centers. Mission leaders capitalizing on high receptivity in cities
already opened to proselytism appears another contributing factor in no LDS
presence in these cities today.
Many who populate
larger cities originally relocated from towns and villages in rural
areas. The Church has the opportunity to reach these individuals who may
later return to visit their home villages and share the gospel with family and
friends. Success in retained
converts sharing the gospel in their home towns and villages results in a
natural expansion of LDS outreach that is self-perpetuating and independent of
foreign full-time missionaries. This
process appears to be one of the driving forces for outreach expansion in rural
communities today as the Church has not appeared to initiate any missionary
activity in rural areas which had no previous contact with the Church from the
friends or family.
The most populous
cities in Madagascar continue to present excellent conditions for the Church to
localize church congregations in individual neighborhoods that are lesser
reached or distant from meetinghouse locations. Some of the most populous
cities have only one LDS congregation, such as Fort Dauphin, Mahajanga, and
Toliara. Opening additional groups
or branches in each of these cities closer to the homes of members can
accelerate growth and accelerate outreach expansion. Antananarivo has ten times as many people as
Madagascar's second most populous city. The LDS Church has yet to take
greater advantage of expanding outreach in lesser-reached communities.
With 18 wards and branches, the average unit has over 100,000 people within its
geographical boundaries whereas the average branch in the second most populous
city (Toamasina) has 52,000 people within its geographical boundaries.
Missionaries report that receptivity in the largest cities appears fairly
consistent and continues to be high, suggesting that the Church can anticipate
ongoing rapid outreach expansion in the most populous cities where mission
resources can be easily and efficiently distributed.
There remain scores of
medium-sized and small cities within close proximity of Antananarivo without
LDS outreach. Soavinandriana, Arivonimamo, Antanifotsy, Faratsiho,
Betafo, and Ambatolampy each have over 20,000 inhabitants and are located
nearby or between Antananarivo and Antsirabe. One of the more distant
communities from the city center of Antananarivo with an LDS presence, Sabotsy
Namehana was opened to missionary work in the late 2000s and experienced steady
growth resulting in the group maturing into a branch by 2010. Few surplus
leadership resources in operating wards and branches within Antananarivo pose
the biggest obstacle to capitalizing on prime opportunities for outreach
expansion in these easily accessible locations. Notwithstanding this
challenge, local leaders and missionaries can mobilize to investigate and test
the waters of the scores of lesser-reached and unreached communities that
circumscribe Madagascar's most populous city. Intermittent proselytism campaigns in which local
leaders hold cottage meetings, organize service projects, and distribute church
literature in lesser-reached neighborhoods, suburban communities, or rural
villages within their geographic jurisdiction foster self-sustainability in
church growth and efficiently utilize limited resources available for spreading
the gospel to additional locations.
In addition to the
scores of urban centers within close proximity of Antananarivo, there are
hundreds of villages in rural areas that present good opportunities for church
planting and growth. The Church has experienced excellent growth and
self-sufficiency in rural villages with LDS congregations such as Manandona, Sarodroa,
and Anjoma. Distance
from established church centers and infrequent contact with full-time
missionaries has required local members to learn administrative tasks and
exhibit commitment to follow church teachings and keep commitments in order for
additional visits and guidance from mission leadership to continue.
The Church has demonstrated flexibility and resourcefulness in finding places
to hold church meetings in these rural communities, which has included
constructing tents and makeshift structures from available materials.
Although the recent introduction of the Church into rural communities has been
encouraging and impressive, only a handful of villages have been reached.
The degree of success and progress achieved in these villages may be representative
of the potential success that could occur in other unreached villages.
Challenges
Reliance on foreign missionary manpower to open
additional cities constitutes the primary barrier to national outreach
expansion. With the
exception of a few groups or branches in small towns or villages, the Church
has assigned full-time missionaries to every location prior to the organization
of a branch. The number of Malagasy members serving missions remains too
small and relatively insignificant compared to the over 20 million inhabitants
of Madagascar and thousands of cities, towns, and villages which remain
unreached by the LDS Church. To effectively expand outreach without drawing upon limited worldwide
mission resources, the Church will need to retain youth converts, provide
missionary preparation, and educate local leaders in the methods and process
for recommending members to serve missions.
Due to the lack of
native members serving missions and limited numbers of missionaries assigned to
Madagascar, purposeful national outreach expansion efforts headed by local
leaders, mission presidents, and area leaders appear to primarily occur after
active members relocate to additional areas. Few, if any, cities have had
missionaries assigned which previously had no known Latter-day Saints. High receptivity, isolated
members in many unreached cities, and limited mission resources dedicated to
Madagascar have deterred mission leadership from opening cities without members
as it has been impractical to assign missionaries to a city without
church members when there are other locations with small numbers of Latter-day
Saints who request the establishment of the Church in their city, town, or
village. This reactionary approach does not appear to have stunted LDS growth
potential in recent years due to these favorable outreach expansion conditions,
but limited mission resources and reliance on foreign missionaries to staff the
full-time missionary force remain persistent challenges as the Church relies on
a series of fortuitous circumstances for the Church to open additional cities
to missionary work. Notwithstanding favorable conditions at present,
growth potential in the 1990s and early 2000s was significantly diminished due
to missionary activity restricted to Antananarivo. If LDS leaders had
assigned missionaries to additional cities and coordinated with local church
leaders to augment the number of members serving missions, the Church in
Madagascar could possibly have been established in every major city and most
medium-sized cities by 2010.
Remote location and
distance from established LDS outreach centers presents challenges for opening
additional locations to missionary work. Travel to rural villages can be
difficult and time consuming. Many of the most populous unreached cities
are located in the most distant areas from mission headquarters. Mission
leaders travel by airplane to visit some areas due to distance such as Fort
Dauphin.
The administrative
burden on the mission has grown enormously with the opening of additional
cities. The time and effort to continue to expand into additional
locations while simultaneously meeting administrative and ecclesiastical needs
in member districts and mission branches will require close collaboration with
senior missionary couples and mission presidency counselors to prevent burnout
or decline in leadership quality. If these needs are not promptly and
proficiently handled, a decline in the rate of outreach expansion may result
and be compounded by convert retention challenges.
The Church has faced
challenges finding locations to hold church services. Meetinghouse
allocation presents the greatest difficult in urban areas as it is more
difficult to find substitutes for meetinghouses when sufficiently large rented
spaces are unavailable. In Toliara, missionaries reported in early 2012
that the fledgling group had outgrown their current meetinghouse facility but
that it would be likely several more months before a larger meetinghouse could
be secured. In Manandona and Sarodroa, the Church has held meetings in
large tents outdoors as no buildings were available for lease. Meeting
meetinghouse needs in rural communities exact fewer challenges as church
services can be held outdoors or in makeshift structures until a permanent
building can be constructed.
Convert retention
challenges in some of the largest cities have siphoned missionary resources for
reactivation and administrative duties. Distance to church meetinghouses,
reduced standards for convert prebaptismal preparation, and the
over-involvement of full-time missionaries in heading finding efforts and local
church administration constitute the major causes for current retention
problems in some congregations in Antananarivo.
Comparative Growth
The Church in Madagascar experienced the most rapid
national outreach expansion within the past decade of any country in the world. Other countries which experienced
substantial gains in LDS outreach expansion were primarily in Africa. In
Mozambique, the number of cities with an LDS presence increased from three in
2001 to 10 in 2011. During this same time period, the number of cities or
villages with a church presence increased from one to three in Tanzania, two to
three in Malawi, two to seven in Botswana, three to nine in Uganda, seven to 14
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, nine to 11 in Zimbabwe, and 11 to
approximately two dozen in Kenya.
Other Christian groups report a presence in nearly every city
and often tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of members. The
Seventh Day Adventist Church maintains a widespread presence in Madagascar;
virtually every sizable town and city has an Adventist congregation. In
2010, Adventists reported 29,371 members meeting in 132 churches in Antsiranana
Province alone whereas the LDS Church had no presence in Antsiranana.[1]
Other denominations have relied on local members to open new areas to
proselytism and start new congregations whereas the LDS Church has relied on
mission leaders and full-time missionaries to head these efforts.
Future Prospects
The outlook for future
LDS outreach expansion remains highly favorable due to strong receptivity,
enthusiasm and vision to open additional locations to missionary activity, and
moderate to high rates of convert retention in most locations outside
Antananarivo. Due to the increasing administrative burden on the mission
presidency to effectively administer to rapid growth in virtually every area of
the country with an LDS presence, the organization of a second mission will be
warranted in the short to medium term. If the current pace of outreach
expansion continues, it is likely that the Church will have a presence in every
city with over 50,000 inhabitants by 2020.
[1]
"Antsiranana Mission," www.adventistyearbook.org, retrieved 2 March
2012.
http://www.adventistyearbook.org/default.aspx?page=ViewAdmField&Year=9999&AdmFieldID=NMAN
