Case Study: Crestwood Church Adopts Maaye People of Somalia

Crestwood Church in Richmond, VA began investigating adopting a people in 2007. The church mission committee initially thought they would adopt a group that one member of the congregation had a special interest in. After some inquiries, they discovered this lady’s special interest group was already “reached” for the Gospel, so they moved on.

The Missions Committee had encouraged church members to take the 15-week missions class entitled “The Perspectives Course” offered in Richmond in the Fall of 2007. The chair of the committee asked Lindsay Durette to pick a group “they could go visit”, possibly close to some of the missionaries the church was already supporting in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Linsday spoke to a staff member of Anglican Frontier Missions who showed her the list of the 25 largest, least evangelized people groups. She picked the Maaye People of Somalia because of their proximity to Crestwood’s missionaries, but also because of their inaccessibility and their *unreachedness*.

Either in late Fall 2007 or early 2008, Lindsay gave a report to the Mission Committee about the Maaye People based on her class project about the Maaye. The Senior Pastor invited those who had taken the course to have dinner at his home after the course had ended. He asked them “So, now you’ve taken this course, what are you going to do about it? What’s the next step?” The 12 members of the Mission Committee decided to set aside 6 months to pray for the Lord to guide them to a people group. During that period, they heard reports from the Miao People of SE Asia and other people groups.

After 6 months, the Mission Committee had a blind ballot vote and all had voted for the Maaye People of Somalia. They were delighted that God had called them to such an unreached, inaccessible group.

In the summer of 2008, the Mission Committee presented to the entire church the needs and opportunities of the Maaye People. This followed a Spring missions conference in which the church had been made aware of missions in general. Once Crestwood had decided  on the Maaye, they contacted   

the Joshua Project to register their church as having adopted the Maaye. They encouraged the entire church to get engaged with the Maaye People in a variety of ways:

• To celebrate a Maaye/Somali “holiday” (akin to Independence Day in the US) one Sunday in church
• To have the senior pastor and associate pastor pray publically and regularly for the Maaye People during Sunday services
• To hold a special prayer meeting once a month for the Maaye People hosted by the Mission Committee but inviting members of the congregation  to join in
• To make A “Daily Prayer Guide” for the Maaye People available for private devotions and made available
• Somali recipes and traditional foods were prepared and offered during a Sunday
• News about Somali pirates has grabbed peoples’ attention about Somalia

Crestwood’s engagement for the Maaye People is through prayer at this point. They have no particular plans to send a team to visit Somalia. There is some interest in finding out if there are Maaye refugees in the US (and reports indicate that there are and that some have converted to Christianity) and if the church could invite some to speak at Crestwood. As of Spring 2009, the church needs some fresh ways to inject momentum into their adoption of the Maaye. They are encouraged, though, that the Lord is in control and it was He who clearly guided them to the Maaye.

Comment:

Crestwood is an excellent example of a prayerful process of selecting a people group. The senior leadership empowered individuals and owned the people group publically from the front of the church regularly on Sundays. The mission committee did research, provided materials, created ways to engage the church. After their initial *honeymoon* period, it would seem that the leadership needs to evaluate how to continue in 2010 and beyond e.g., through video awareness of what’s happening today in Somalia, through visits to Crestwood from Maaye People or missionaries close to the action, to attend a consultation meeting for missionaries in that region of Africa, development of children’s Sunday School curriculum, envisaging Youth getting plugged into the Maaye (similar to the Invisible Children’s Project several years’ ago from Uganda?) or by sending a church member to take a look at the situation on the ground, etc. My assumption is that there is a line-item in their missions budget for the Maaye people.

Case Study Maaye People.pdf