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Contextualizing Church Planting Among the Oromo Society: with Particular Reference to the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY)

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Contextualizing Church Planting Among the Oromo Society: with Particular Reference to the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ChesterRep Contextualizing Church Planting among the Oromo Society: With particular Reference to the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy By Tesso Djaleta Djaldessa June 2011 1 Acknowledgments At the end of this project, I would like to express my heartfelt thankfulness to all whose support has enabled me to complete this work. I extend my deep appreciation to the Rev. Dr. Ruth Ackroyd who has played an important role in securing full scholarship for our family in negotiating with the Vice-Chancellor of Chester University and All Saints’ Church, Hoole, Chester. My sincere thanks are due to Ms Vicki Bulgin for offering her house for the first three years. I am also grateful to the group of people: Rev. Dr. Ruth Ackroyd, Ms Vicki Bulgin, Rev. Robert Evans, Mr and Mrs Roy and Sheila Greenwood for offering us a house for the last two years. I am very thankful to Rev. John Kirkland, vicar of All Saints’ and his family, All Saints’ PCC, prayer groups and the Church community as a whole for their love and all the help they have given us during the period of our stay in Chester, England. My sincere thanks are also due to Professor Timothy Wheeler Vice-Chancellor of the University of Chester for waiving the tuition fees. I articulate my great thankfulness to my main supervisor, Dr. Wayne Morris, who has been tolerant and generous in his supervisory provision and carefully moderated the research. He has also made himself available for advice and provided critical and valuable comments over the years I have been with him. Once again I utter my sincere thanks to Rev. Dr. Ruth Ackroyd who generously read and offered constructive comments to improve the thesis. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Elaine Hemmings for helping to correct my English and proof-read the manuscripts and the whole family for their continual and friendly dispositions. I am thankful to all staff of the Graduate School at the University of Chester for their trustworthy correspondences and communications over the past years. The Theology and Religious Studies Department staff at Chester have been superbly helpful all through my sequence of studies. I am also very thankful to the Library staff. Appreciation must also go to the numerous relatives and friends in Ethiopia, here in the UK (London), USA, Norway and Germany who have emailed us words of encouragement and prayed for us during our study leave. Special gratitude goes to Mr. Abera Ameyu and Adde Yadate Kitla and family, along with Obboo Fetene 2 Regassa and family our close relatives: Obboo Desalegn Djaleta and Durbbe Dinkinesh Jirra, who have looked after our son who was left back at home in Ethiopia over the past years. I owe special thanks to Obboo Wube Geneti and family from Australia who have been encouraging and helping him from such a distance. I would also like to record my acknowledgement to my wife and ‘true yoke fellow’, the Reverend Bekure Daba, and children Ebenezer, Yosiah and Darara Tesso for their magnificent encouragement, particularly, my wife's pastoral and critical support was given at the time of her own studies towards an identical award. My thanks also go to my father Djaleta Djaldessa and my brothers and sisters.. Ultimately, I thank Almighty God for giving me the strength, health and energy to undertake this study. To all who read this piece of work and derive something from it, I would like to say thank you. Tesso Djaleta Djaldessa 3 Contextualizing Church Planting Among the Oromo Society; With Particular Reference to the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) Abstract This thesis aims to explore and analyse the success of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) strategy for Church Planting among the Oromo community in the wider social and cultural context of Ethiopia in general, and Oromia in particular. Since the 1970s the Church has made considerable efforts to effectively evangelize the diverse unevangelized peoples of Ethiopia and to create new Christian communities in their own cultural and religious contexts by developing what the EECMY calls ‘Church Planting strategies’. I argue that EECMY Church planting has been only partially successful in that, while the EECMY has approximately three million Oromo members, after one hundred and ten years of its evangelism in Ethiopia, the main reasons for this growth have been due to existing Church members having children and through members of other Christian denominations joining the EECMY. The expansion of the EECMY has mostly not been among Oromo people unacquainted with Christianity. This thesis, therefore, carefully examines and analyzes why and how EECMY Church Planting has been ineffective among the vast majority of Oromo people. Findings from my fieldwork demonstrate a number of reasons for the lack of success of Church planting among the Oromo people. Notable examples include: Oromos’ strong preservation of their culture and tradition, fear of the persistent Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC), persecution of evangelical Christians and the EECMY mission approach, EOC collaboration with the suppressive Abyssinian colonial system and the Western missionary cultural influence which was adopted and is still being practised by the EECMY. This study argues that a combination of a high regard for traditional Oromo culture and religion and widespread negative experiences of Christianity as a religion of repression and colonization has left many Oromo people feeling alienated from, and afraid of, Christianity. Recognizing the current ineffective nature of the EECMY’s Church planting strategies, this research then seeks to make a response by constructing alternative, contextually informed Church Planting approaches which do not disregard Oromo language, culture or tradition. In order to achieve this, the thesis develops contextual methods of mission, notably a ‘translation’ model of contextualization. A contextually appreciative approach to mission, it is argued, will in turn help to change perceptions of Christianity among the Oromo people and open up opportunities for a more successful mission praxis among Oromos. Tesso Djaleta Djaldessa 4 Contents Introduction page 1 Chapter one Oromo Society and culture, Western Evangelical Christianity and the EEC MY traditional Church Planting strategy page 7 Chapter two The Impact of Colonial Mission Models page 43 Chapter three Research Methodology page 70 Chapter four Reasons for the lack of success of EECMY Church Planting among the unevangelized Oromo people page 105 Chapter five Contextualizing Church Planting strategies for the Unevangelized Oromo people page 157 Conclusion page 206 Bibliography page 215 Appendices page 238 5 Introduction 0.1 Background to and motivation for the research This thesis aims to critically evaluate existing evangelistic mission in the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY). In particular, it seeks to examine their ‘Church planting’ strategies. Although recognizing that Church planting has had some success in Ethiopia more widely, it has nevertheless largely failed to engage with the Oromo people in particular. Given this situation, this thesis seeks to understand more about Oromo culture and traditions, through fieldwork, in order to develop a more contextually sensitive and appropriate mission strategy for Church Planting among the Oromo people. The Oromo have been ‘mission targets’ for the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC), Western evangelical missionaries and the EECMY for many years. Historically, the EOC has approached the evangelism of the Oromo people with the strategy of political expansion and subjugation as a part of Abyssinian colonization and, therefore, has undermined their strong socio-cultural values and language (Eide, 2000, 6; Staffan, 2000, 18; Aren, 1999, 19). With the help of the western evangelical missionaries, the EECMY has also engaged in Church planting which involves evangelism accompanied by the establishment of facilities to provide educational and social action through which the Church might support its programme of evangelizing the Oromo people (Sadi, 2003, 133; Aren, 1978, 424-429). More importantly, since the 1970s the Church has moved to develop further Church planting methodologies and plans to evangelize among the non- evangelized diversified communities of Ethiopia including the Oromo people (EECMY MS Articles 5:3 and 5: 8). I argue that the EECMY Church planting has been successful to some extent in that it has reached approximately three million Oromos after 110 years of missionary activity (EECMY DMT 2009, 50; Ujulu, 1999, 47). However, I further argue that the strategy of the Church has not been successful among non-evangelized Oromo people, if tested against its objectives and Church planting targets, since millions of unreached people in Oromia and beyond have not yet been evangelized. 1 The project arises out of my own ministerial experiences and personal observations as an ordained minister within the EECMY, working in various areas of evangelistic ministries for the last two decades at local, regional (Synod) and national Church levels. In particular, during my EECMY evangelistic outreach ministry, I was personally conversing with different Christian and non-Christian Oromo individuals and communities and from that it appeared that there was a lack of success in Church
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