I Thought This Wouldn't Work Here

by Younoussa Djao

Photo by Anna Blake on Unsplash

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“This Won't Work Here”

In March 2005, I sat in a training and listened to a man teach principles for making disciples and starting new churches.

I remember thinking, “This is good for India, not my country. It will not work here.”

So when the training ended, I put the material aside and went back to what I already knew, sure that whatever worked somewhere else could not possibly work in West Africa.

But a colleague kept asking me to try. I decided to try so I could fail and tell my colleague that it won't work here.

I gathered a small team. We sat down around the material together, discussed it, and made sure we actually understood the principles before we did anything. Then we selected a suburb in the city and said, ”Let's try this here.”

In five weeks, meeting once a week, we started a new church with six families. In Africa, when you talk about a family, it is not two or three people. It can be five, six, even eight.

That first church became the proof I needed that the principles could travel.

From One City To A Continent

When I saw it work in my own city, I assumed that was the exception.

So we tried it elsewhere. In Niger. In other countries across the continent. People sometimes think Africa is one country, but it is a continent of about fifty-five nations, and some of them are large enough to fit all of Europe inside their borders.

Everywhere we implemented these principles, new cycles began, and new churches were planted. We even carried them to people groups who had resisted the gospel for decades, in some cases more than fifty years of missionary work with nothing to show for it.

Zero.

And we began to see growth where there had been none. I brought these same principles to my own tribe, a people historically resistant to the gospel and known for spreading Islam across the region.

Today we are present in about twenty countries, and in some of those countries we are seeing what I would call a movement: at least a hundred churches spread across four generations of multiplication. I will unpack what "generations" means another time.

For now, what matters is this: I came to the point where I said, “Wow, I have found the golden key that can unlock movement.”

And it is still happening today.

Turning To Jesus' Method

I have learned a lot about movement over the last twenty years - too much to share here! In this article I will focus on one of the most fundamental principles - how we engage with those we wish to reach.

I discovered these principles in a story I already knew well: Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). Jesus made a deliberate decision to travel through Samaritan territory. This was not a small thing.

Jews and Samaritans were divided enough that most Jews would not even cross into Samaritan land. But Jesus decided to go anyway, because he knew his Father loved the Samaritans too. Every tribe on this earth belongs to God, and the reason we exist as God's people is to help nations come back to him.

If we are not doing that, we are missing the very thing God made us for.

So Jesus arrived at a well outside a town called Sychar. His disciples had gone into the city, and he sat there alone. Then a woman came to draw water.

Ask, Don't Offer

Notice how Jesus started that conversation. He asked her for help.

Both of them were strangers to each other, and Jesus wanted to build a connection. He expressed a need of his own: “Give me a drink.”

When you ask someone for help, that person experiences you giving them importance. You are honouring them.

But if you come to someone acting as though you have the answer to their problem before you even know them, the response is different. In my own context, when people sense that you are trying to show them they need you and you do not need them, they pull back. I am not familiar with your context, but I suspect it is not so different.

It starts with a posture: ask before you offer, so people feel honored.

That posture is the door into everything else Jesus did with that woman — and it's the same door I have watched open again and again since.

Getting practical

As you think about God's vision for your city and/or affinity group:

1. Which of these observations resonates with you?

2. Where have you assumed that a certain approach to disciple-making "works elsewhere but not here"? What would it take to test that assumption?

3. In your own relationships, do you tend to lead by offering solutions or by asking for help? What might change if you asked for help more often?

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Younoussa Djao is an experienced Disciple Making Movement Catalyst in West Africa who has seen thousands of faith communities form amongst people groups that previously had none. He is passionate about empowering God’s people to follow Him and make disciples where He has placed them.

© 2026 Younoussa D. All rights reserved.

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