Three men leaned close together in a crowded bus on its way from Burundi’s capital city to Rwanda. As it bounced along a rutted road, its three passengers ignored the heat, the other passenger voices, and the jostling, examining a sheet of paper printed with an array of seemingly jumbled illustrations.
Talking and pointing at the drawings, the three men spent the hour-long ride memorizing the theological themes of the Gospel of Mark’s 16 chapters.
The three men were Africa French Equatorial Field Strategy Coordinator Chanshi Chanda, Child Sponsorship Coordinator for the French Equatorial Field Manasse Ndayegamiye, and Stéphane Tibi, field education coordinator for the French Equatorial Field.
The leaders were learning with a new picture-based learning tool that Tibi has developed for teaching biblical principles.
This scene is replayed many times as the tool -- called the StudyMap -- sweeps Africa.
With a StudyMap for the Church of the Nazarene's 16 Articles of Faith published and being widely used, Tibi is focused on developing more StudyMaps that outline the Bible’s themes, as well as themes of its individual books.
Tibi dreams of someday completing an entire StudyMap Bible. With the help of Global Nazarene Publications, it may be just three years before that is available, too.
Urgency of discipleship
According to the 2009 World Mission Department Report to the General Board, the Church of the Nazarene is expanding rapidly in Africa, adding 293 churches and more than 45,000 new members since 2007 – a more than 10 percent membership increase in one year.
In areas like the West Pioneer Area – now Ethiopia West District – a year ago the Church of the Nazarene did not exist. Today it is home to 100 organized Nazarene churches.
Integrating these new members is an urgent task.
“A church will undergo rapid and profound changes in its identity if it brings new people into its membership faster than it catechizes (teaches doctrine to) them,” said Stan Ingersol, denominational archivist. “For that reason, the church’s teaching ministry is vital, and the critical step lies in how it balances the evangelistic principle and the catechetical (instructional) principle.”
That’s why educating new believers and members in the denomination's shared beliefs is pivotal.
“We need to know what it is that we Nazarenes believe. We need to truly understand the basic tenets of being a ‘saved’ Nazarene,” missionary Sarah Reed, Africa East Field Children’s Ministries coordinator, wrote in an e-mail from Kenya.
Reed has used Tibi’s 16 Articles of Faith StudyMap to teach the articles to her own family, as well as personnel working at the field office. She’s not alone. Throughout the Africa East Field, Nazarenes are teaching the 16 Articles of Faith to each other using the StudyMap.
Nazarenes throughout Africa are learning the 16 Articles of Faith through missionary
Stepháne Tibi's StudyMaps chart.
“It’s a very good tool for evangelism, a good tool for discipleship,” said Daphne Mathebula, Africa regional coordinator for Sunday School and Discipleship Ministries (SDMI). “The pictures enhance memory and understanding as you explain to the next person what each picture stands for.”
Why the StudyMap?
Tibi’s StudyMap was borne from his own struggles in studying theology after his salvation. Creating the illustrated charts first to teach himself, he has been developing the StudyMaps learning method for the past five years.
A former robotics researcher, Tibi drew on his scientific study of the way the brain integrates new information to develop the picture-based method.
The StudyMap is a chart of pictures arranged in an order that helps the learner rapidly understand new concepts, as well as how these concepts relate to each other. It’s this intentional arrangement that sets apart StudyMaps from other similar learning tools.
“By connecting the pictures together in a single graphic, you are connecting different elements of what someone knows and so you put the picture in their memory,” Tibi said.
The tool has a number of advantages:
- Neither facilitators nor learners need to read or write.
- It can be utilized among most language or people groups.
- It can be used with most age groups.
- Learners go beyond rote memorization to learn key concepts.
- Learners comprehend how concepts are interdependent.
- The only supply required is the StudyMap image.
Tibi’s 16 Articles StudyMap is receiving widespread accolades from pastors, district superintendents, and other mission workers in Africa for its effectiveness in teaching and training.
“I now know that I am a visual learner,” wrote Reed. “If I had tried to memorize these tenets from the words of the Manual (of the Church of the Nazarene), it would have been extremely difficult and probably would not have happened.”
Using the StudyMap for the 16 Articles, Reed and fellow mission leaders in the Africa East Field are teaching and quizzing each other.
“It is colorful, easy to understand, attractive to the eye. Children, old mamas who cannot read or write, and even university professors can learn from these maps,” she wrote.
Reed gave copies of the StudyMap to security guards at the field office and explained the graphics’ meaning and relationship to one another.
“In a matter of minutes they had quickly learned them,” she said. “Now they have them posted on their wall to refresh their memories as they are sitting throughout the night or day.”
Tibi emphasizes that StudyMaps are most effective when learners communicate the new principles to others. He expects learners to immediately teach what they’ve learned to someone else.
This, at heart, is discipleship, notes Mathebula.
“That might be one of the easiest ways to disciple the next person because once you hear the story and you share it with the next and they share it with the next, you get the information from the same picture, so you keep telling the story.”
The 16 Articles of Faith StudyMap arranges 16 graphics into two rows. It begins with a triangle inside of which are an image of a kneeling man and a white bird. The triangle represents the Triune God; the man represents Jesus the Son, and the white bird represents the Holy Spirit.
The arrangement, which Tibi calls “theological spacing,” visually illustrates that the Triune God encompasses all three Persons inside Himself – the Trinity.
Numbered images continue throughout the chart to illustrate each of the 16 Articles and how these truths are interdependent.
The original chart includes brief English descriptions for each picture. Tibi has also created versions with the words translated into French, Portuguese, and other languages originating in Africa. A blank version removed the writing for use with preliterate learners.
Teaching style is key
It would be easy for instructors to simply make learners memorize the symbols and the words or concepts to which they are connected, turning the StudyMap into nothing more than an illustrated list.
This method would miss the point.
“Most of the time, lecturers risk to be linear—from teaching one element you move to the next one. With StudyMaps, the goal is to network the learning process (and thus the memory), allowing an accelerated move from a short-term to a long-term memory because understanding and memorization happen together,” Tibi said.
Part of this interactive teaching style means instructors must be aware of how learners understand the concepts they are memorizing.
“Some of these words are extremely difficult for the unsaved or new Christian to understand – especially when trying to translate into different languages,” William Otieno told Reed, referring to doctrinal terms such as “entire sanctification.” Otieno is the Africa East Field maintenance assistant in charge of JESUS Film equipment.
“The pictures are very good if care is taken to explain what each symbol means. If you only teach the word and show the picture, the teacher may not know if the learner really understands the true meaning.”
Reed experienced this for herself.
“Once after teaching, I had a deeper discussion with my students and realized they truly did not understand baptism. They thought baptism was what washed their sins away,” she wrote.
Tibi has written a facilitator’s guide to help teachers avoid such pitfalls.
The future of StudyMaps
After finishing the 16 Articles of Faith StudyMap, Tibi got to work on several more StudyMaps:
- The Gospel of Mark
- The Gospel of Matthew
- 10 Commandments
- Outline of the 66 books of the Bible
Each StudyMap is still in development, as Tibi refines the icons, their spacing, tests them with classes in Africa, and works with Global Nazarene Publications to acquire copyrights for some images and for the StudyMaps as a whole.
"We see that it (the StudyMap) has usefulness outside the Church of the Nazarene to all Christians," said David Hayse, Global Nazarene Publications director, who is partnering with Tibi to complete and distribute the StudyMaps. "I very much believe in it.”
To read Stéphane Tibi's testimony, click here.