TOWARDS A NEW VISION OF CHRISTIAN WITNESS

A. Effectiveness of Visual Aids in Christians Witness

People learn more easily from experiencing something then from reading or being told about it. The key lies in the mechanisms of information gathering. Humans have three main ways of acquiring information: through words (language either heard or read), through other senses (taste, touch, smell, heating), and through images (visually). Of the three, vision is the dominant method. Eighty percent of the information entering our minds is gathered through vision

Pictures and graphs are marvelous means of getting a person's attention. It is said that the human eye has 16 nerves for each one in the human ear; what we see registers on the mind more completely than what we hear. Because of visual aid, the listener can see what you are explaining, God's plan of salvation demonstrated in word and picture, using two senses instead of one.

Museum is all-important for all sorts of lives, literate and illiterate, educated or uneducated. For museum is a record of the old things for the future generation. Here a Chinese proverb may be quoted: "I heat and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand". A Chinese proverb also said, "It is better to see once than important and necessary to believe (Romans 10:14) but to remember and to understand you need to see with your eyes.

To understand the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, instead of hearing over and over again we need Christian Museum, especially for the uneducated and illiterate tribals. In the Old Testament we see effectiveness of seeing in I Kings 10:1-7.

In the New Testament we see another lining example of St. Thomas to believe in Jesus Christ in St. John 20:24-28.

According to Rev. Seikholet Singson (Retired), founder of Kuki Baptist Convention (KBC), the first missionaries namely: William Pettigrew, Dr. G.G. Crozier and Rev. U.M. Fox used flannel graphs, gramophones, big size pictures of Jesus, Old Testament story part I & II effectively in their ministries.

William Pettigrew used slide shows, pictorials and pictures of Raihao to every village and told them that he had accepted Jesus Christ. The Tangkhuls being patriarchy, when missionary asked them to follow their headmen, they had no choice except to listen to Pettigrew. Thus, the photo of Raihao was used effectively to propagate the good news amongst the Tangkhul Nagas.

On the other hand, in the Southern part of Manipur, Watkin R. Roberts used to spread the gospel by using pictures of the Old Testament Part I & II, Life of Jesus Christ (New Testament Part I & II). In those days, people were in the villages. This practice had become one of the most effective tools to spread the gospel to the villagers and to the illiterate people. Not only Roberts used this but also the other missionaries who came after him. Even after the missionaries left the local evangelists and pastors were entrusted to carry on with the same ministry. The same materials were handed over and were also supplied to them for the use in evangelism.

The Catholics too used visual aids in doing evangelism. Methods used in the Catholic mission in Manipur context were:

i) 1960-1985 were slides, Magic Lantern, View Master.

ii) 1975-1985 Super-8 Films projected on the screen, on Old Testament (creation, early prophets, Call of Abraham, Life of Moses), New Testament-apostles, Life of Jesus.

iii) 1985-2000 35mm screening of films was done. Now Videocassettes are used.

B. Christian Museum in Multi-Religious Context.

ACMC serves not only for Christians but also for the other faiths. Since it was established, a great number of people from various religions has visited. God has been using this place as a place to change the lives of many people. For some nominal Christians, it has been a place of turning point in their spiritual lines. Here are few extracts of the visitors' note and list of some who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour:

Mr. T. Mangpu Guite of Bijang, Churachandpur was a Christian by name. He spent his life in the worldly pleasures. On 19/03/1997 (Wednesday) he happened to visit ACMC. Seeing the visual aids and through counseling he realized his sinful nature against God. Instantly, with contrite heart he repented and decided to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour. He promised to give up unwanted behaviors like drinking wine, etc., and follow the footstep of Jesus Christ.