Last night while driving home from evangelism, I picked up a 25-year old Venda man who needed a lift. He had a good job and education. After some conversation, I asked him if he attended church.
Venda man: Yes.
Seth: If a man came to your church and wanted to go to Heaven, what would your pastor tell him?
Venda man: My pastor would pray with him.
Seth: That is important, but is there anything else that your pastor would tell him?
Man: Like what?
Seth: OK, what if my friend Nyiko came to you and said, “I want to go to Heaven.” What would you tell him?
Man: He should pray.
Seth: Do you think you will go to Heaven?
Man: Yes.
Seth: How do you know?
Man [speaking in Venda]: Ndo dzhia “sinner’s prayer.” [Lit. I took the “sinner’s prayer.” Spoken sacramentally as if this action brought grace.]
Seth: What are you forgetting?
Man: I don’t understand you.
Seth: Today before we picked you up, we had already picked up 4 other different people and asked them the same question. 3 of the 4 said they were Christians, and they all gave answers similar to yours. But they all forgot this one great Thing. What did they forget? Now, I will tell you, but when I tell you, you will immediately say, ‘Oh, I knew that!’ But for some reason you didn’t think of it before I told you. If you can’t think of it before I told you, it means you are lost. You are in darkness. You are not born again. You are a goat.
Would you like one last chance? What did you forget? You forgot Christ, His Cross, His blood, His keeping the law, His praying for His people, His promise to come back on a white horse. You thought nothing of God’s Son. And this is proof that you are lost.
Man [surprised as he is about to get out of the vehicle]: Where is your church?
His line that he “took the sinner’s prayer” was instructive and sad. Though I am now hearing from time to time, “I received Jesus Christ,” my experience and conversations lead me to believe that most Tsongas and Vendas and Shonas trust some kind of sacrament to deliver grace to them like a sinner’s prayer and African traditional voodoo charms.
