A few thoughts on an early Tuesday, California morning for current & future church planters, missionaries, missiologists & missions organizations. May it help & bless somebody.
Theology examines the human experience of faith and how different people-groups and cultures express it. Suffice it to say, there is no culture-free theology. Every theology is fused with a people’s sense of reality and that reality is what is called culture.
Culture, therefore, is a people’s ethos, their matrix or their milieu. Culture is the ‘waters’ in which a people swim. Culture creates their sense of normalcy. Outside of it, their sense of decorum or balance (homeostasis) is either lost, destroyed or compromised. Sociological, economic or emotional breakdown may occur as a consequence.
Cultural relevance and competence are vital to missional effectiveness, esp. on the foreign frontier or turf. These can only be achieved, however, through the careful study, understanding or appreciation of a people’s sense of reality (i.e. their culture).
Exporting one’s sense of reality (cultural baggage), imposing it on a people-group, and calling it “missions” simply amounts to Cultural Imperialism. Europe’s encounter with the 2/3 world (esp. Africa) was sadly fraught with much cultural ‘demonization.’ Along with this demonization, came the imposition of various aspects of European culture in the name of Christianity. Thus, Richard became my ‘Christian’ name. I’m not sure, though, how Christian it is. It seems to me it is more European than Christian – aloo, anaa?
The cultural baggage and ‘burden’, thus, imposed through our missionary enterprises, creates what Alan Tippett calls: “Riding Two Horses.” This is a scenario where a people give cognitive acceptance to the gospel but run to other gods e.g. witch doctors, voodoo or juju practitioners for help, comfort or solutions when existential issues, such as, famine, sickness, barrenness, death etc. hit. The problem is, they received the message of the gospel intellectually i.e. with their heads; not their hearts.
Real gospel conversion or transformation notably occurs, not at the superficial or surface level, but at the heart, core or worldview (i.e. deep) level. Any supposed conversion that does not go deep is only shallow and presumptuous.
Unfortunately, this is the issue or underbelly of contemporary missionary enterprises. Missionaries have not found a way to “incarnate” the gospel by first understanding the cultural context they operate in. Bible schools, Seminaries and Missionary Training Centers have compounded the problem by providing generic answers, training their students to function in a ‘world’ that is no longer existent, without due regard to the seismic socio-cultural shifts occurring on the missional landscape, especially in the West.
Thus, we have become like 8-Track gramaphones, typewriters, polaroid cameras i.e. antiquated religious dinosaurs, attempting to engage a postmodern, digital & MP4 world. We have, in most cases, become peripheral and ineffective in the contexts to which we’re called, only touching and impacting those who are culturally like us. By the way, there’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s all you believe you’re called to do.
Ironically, we begin to realize that even those very people we thought would be just like us, culturally, would have changed with time, having themselves become acculturated and assimilated into the culture of the new and foreign terrain. Those who gallantly resist the acculturation process, out of love for and patriotism to the ‘Motherland’, sooner or later realize that their kids are increasingly getting ‘bored’ with church the way we like it and, probably, did it back home before migrating, having been raised in this new cultural environment. Not only do they begin ‘resisting’ going to church with their parents, but inviting their ‘American, German, English or Norwegian friends to church (i.e. their parents’ church) is an absolute “No,” “No.” They’re caught in an awkward cultural feud or battle, with the one they’ve either been born into or raised in, on one hand, vis a vis, their parents’ home culture. Here, the gospel is definitely not the problem; it is its packaging and delivery that is, not to mention the ‘foreigness’ or ‘weirdness’ to them of the cultural environment of their parents’ church.
Oftentimes, parents are not even aware of what is going on; we simply assume that the kids are either backsliding or becoming rebellious. It’s amazing watching these same kids ‘come alive’ when in a different church environment with their peers. They’re more at ease and comfortable, not because the preaching is better, but the environment and delivery methods or systems are ‘culturally’ better suited to them.
It is important to reiterate the fact that ours is an UNCHANGING GOSPEL in a rapidly CHANGING WORLD. Effective incarnation of the gospel that leads to Christ-centered transformation, must begin with the immersion of the missionary in the people’s cultural matrix, for the effective communication of a transformative gospel. This is, and must become, our missional imperative, if we’re to penetrate the cultures to which we are called and sent, and become/remain relevant. The alternative is to be marginalized, only scratching the borders or periphery of the missional context.
Paul’s Missionary Strategy: “…to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are outside the law, as outside the law toward God, that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I HAVE BECOME ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN, that I might BY ALL MEANS SAVE SOME.” (1 Cor. 9:19-23).
The Apostle Paul’s missionary strategy underscores my message or point above. His approach could easily be interpreted by the naysayers as “Gospel Compromise,” but “No,” it wasn’t. It was “Cultural Adaption” at its best, for the effective communication of a new way of life, one centered on Christ, the Lord. Remember, “that I might at all cost win some” was his divine motive and goal (v. 22). Cross- cultural missionaries cannot afford to do any less. The times call for serious praxis…
Some questions worth pondering:
1. Who are we really called to reach on this foreign terrain?
2. Do we know and understand their worldview?
3. What are the contours of the missional context to which you’re called?
4. How would you describe it? How similar or different are the contours from your original cultural context?
5. What are the implications of the above (contours of the context) for your missional thrust?
5. What is your incarnational methodology for reaching the culture and people groups in it? Is it effective?
My Burden & Prayer: May we undertand the times we live in & the foreign terrains to which we’ve been called, that like the children of Isaachar, we may know what we (the Church) ought to do (1 Chron. 12:22-32).
Build your Church Lord…
KINGDOM BLESSINGS!
Rick D. Donkor (Rev)
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