WEAVERS – AN ANSWER TO THOSE WHO ARE ILLITERATE

– by JAMES TANG CH

First of all I wish to thank the Lord for the opportunity to learn Weavers EE under the guidance of Ed and Eleanor Beach. Learning Weavers EE is like coming through a full circle in the EE training. From the Adult EE which is classical, methodical, demanding and yet comprehensive, then I experienced the Youth EE, which I found to a large extent is similar to Adult EE, but has different stories and illustrations which are more suitable for the youth. After that I came across XEE which goes with time and trend, particularly intended for the Generations X & Y, who are generally portrayed as having the traits of being less organized, less discipline and most of all want things to be done instantly or in a short duration (can be an excuse for some prospects who does not have attention span). All these tools are excellent but I find that they are more suitable for those who are educated and literate. As for the Weavers EE, its approach can caters for the widest spectrum of society. In other words it appeals to the broadest base of people group, thereby making this tool appealing to a wider range of prospects.

In my opinion, Weavers EE approach has the following advantages:

1. It is relaxing, less target oriented and also can be used on same prospect repeatedly for OJT purpose. No pressure to complete sharing the gospel during each OJT.

2. It is more engaging as it requires more attention to build bridges with prospects and understand them before the gospel sharing starts. This is particularly important for oral learners (people who are illiterate or semi literate) who forms the bigger spectrum of people groups.

3. The gospel stories are Bible based, with the emphasis that “It is a true story” and not contemporary stories. For example, the story of creation emphasizes the perfect relationship between God, man and woman. This story is excellent to begin on a right premise, suitable for prospects from any religious background, even for an atheist.

4. Story telling is soothing, relaxing and appealing to most people. People generally like to hear stories.

During the OJTs, the above advantages were felt at first hand. Less educated, less literate people and oral learners need time to relate, to understand, to break the ice and to accept our sharing. However, once they are opened and engaged in the conversation with us, they began to embrace the Bible stories and totally convinced of the truth in it. In our first OJT, the gospel was shared over 2 days with the gardener cum cleaner of a school. The next day he brought with him a friend who was a security guard. It took quite a while for us to share the gospel stories as each time we were not sure whether he understood them. We have to keep guessing by observing his facial expression and body language. However, we were both surprise and overjoyed when he wanted to accept the Lord after we completed the gospel presentation.

On separate occasions after the Weavers training, I had the experience of sharing to different Filipino taxi drivers during my business trips to Philippine. All of them took a liking to the story telling and they enjoyed it tremendously. The result was three professions and one assurance. Praise God for the bountiful harvest!

Overall, I find the Weavers EE training was very helpful. It filled up the gaps I encountered in other EE tools, especially to the less literate and less educated oral learners. Back in my church, we are considering implementing Weavers next year. There are two groups that we intend to train. One is the English based group, where we find most of our members are more suited to the Weavers’ style and approach of gospel sharing. The other group would be the Bahasa Migrant Ministry. All of us who had attended the training will work with our Elder to introduce and implement this wonderful evangelism tool.

(James is attached to a corporate company as marketing personnel. His work requires extensive travelling on a frequent basis. James currently involved in the EE programme for his church, Emmanuel Evangelical Free Church (EEFC) and also the Migrant Ministry, which comprised predominantly Indonesian speaking members. His lovely wife, Grace; is also involved in the EE ministry of EEFC and she is an active volunteer at EE Malaysia)