Dave White, originally from the US, has been serving as a missionary in the Philippines since 1985. Four years later he became NCD’s National Partner. Learn how he helps Filipinos grasp and apply the NCD paradigm.
Being aware of the cultural gap, one of Dave’s major focuses in ministry has been on bridging that gap by developing contextualized tools for NCD. These tools have been carefully created to fit the situation of Philippine churches. He has taken the principles of NCD and developed guidelines, making it easier for Philippine churches to apply the universal principles in their own way. The most crucial tool has been The Philippine Implementation Guide to NCD.
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“I remember reading NCD’s implementation guide,” Dave recalls. “As I read, I kept saying to myself, ‘This won’t work here. This won’t help Filipinos. They won’t get this.’ The principles themselves were very insightful and extremely helpful to me. But the way they were presented just wouldn’t connect with many Filipinos.”
As Dave continued reading, the Lord gave him insights and ideas on how these same principles could be presented in a way that might be more clear, helpful, and more easily applied by Philippine churches. He also studied the implementation guide from NCD’s National Partner in Australia. This tool gave him even more ideas, and further clarified an approach that could be tried in the Philippines.
“Theoretically, our implementation guide is optional,” Dave reflects. “What is essential are the principles of NCD, with or without this particular tool. The reality, however, is: Not much happens in churches that try to implement NCD here without the implementation guide. Because the tool is very Filipino, it is attractive, clicks with the implementers, and works well.”
Dave has also produced tools for strengthening the 8 qualities. Bob Logan’s Unleashing Your Church’s Potential was an extremely helpful source.
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Most recently Dave has created a contextualized version of Color Your World with NCD.
“It is not just a translation,” Dave explains. “The concepts needed to be explained in a way that Filipinos can more easily relate to. It was a lot of work, but worth it.”
“I know that the NCD materials have been translated into many languages. I’ve always wondered if these wouldn’t be far more helpful to churches if they were contextualized, and not just translated.”
We concur with Dave’s thoughts. Conceptualized NCD tools – that’s exactly what we at NCD International would like to see. There must be hundreds of NCD practitioners in many countries who have developed effective contextualized tools. Maybe you! We encourage you to share your tools with your national partner. He can then make them available to the body of Christ in your country. Or perhaps you could develop a needed tool, or contextualize one of the existing tools from NCD International.
Perhaps God would greatly multiply your impact as you develop and share contextualized tools.
Dave White serves as NCD National Partner in the Philippines.
Contact: davewhite@oci.org
Web: NCD Philippines
