An enormous part of cross cultural missions is the examination our worldview and our behaviors. In order to separate our own cultural understanding from the Bible’s message, we’re duty-bound to carefully study both the Bible and our own cultural perspectives. Additionally, we must find ways that our non-biblical cultural views (time, money, family, nature) differ from local views. We change how we act in the non-essentials of life while holding firmly to what we believe to be true about the Bible.
Simple to say, yet not easy to accomplish. However, since we are changing our thinking and behavior, it really isn’t impossible.
What happens, though, when the problem is not your thinking or your behavior? Suppose the real quandry is that who and what you are causes you not to fit into a specific culture. Far from being a behavioral issue, this is instead a problem relating to the reality and nature of your existence.
Confused? Consider the following actual situations.
– Bob and Ellen move to Zipponia. They take with them their three children, two of whom are adopted. They notice locals dote on their “real”child more than on their adopted kids. Gatherings of multiple families make more obvious the degree to which their adopted children are ignored. After 18 months in the country, Ellen realizes locals do not believe a reasonable mother would ever give up a good child for adoption. Therefore, Zipponians assume that Bob and Ellen have two problematic, untrustworthy, and possibly dangerous children. The children are heart-broken while Ellen is stressed. Bob wants his family to be a godly testimony, but knows that two of his kids are not very welcome in the community.
– LeeAnn, a single 28-year-old, enthusiastically moves to the Republic of Salami. She discovers there that a single woman has an important role: work in the home of her parents and brothers, helping to manage the household until the day she marries and moves into the home of her husband’s family. LeeAnn is continually frustrated because she cannot spend time with men, and all the single women with whom she expected to connect have no time for her. Married women have the usual family stuff plus kids, so forget that. The men dislike that she is unattached and outside of male supervision. The women don’t trust her because she apparently doesn’t work; that is, does not manage a family. Her work opportunities are limited and her friendships are non-existent.
– George and Beth relocate to Engordia, a country whose residents value gregarious, boisterous families filled with children. Beth and George, however, have never felt the burden to extend their family beyond the two of them and, in fact, feel as though their childless contentment is a sign that this is what they were made to be. The Engordian people view the newly minted missionaries as selfish, cold individuals who cannot love anyone since, apparently, they don’t love children. Nationals never invite the transplanted Americans to social gatherings, since apparently these foreigners hate kids, and George’s sermons on loving one another fall flat in light of his apparent lack of love for families.
– Dalton and Gloria, along with their 4 kids, pack up and move to one-child China. You get the picture.
– Grant and Zoe, who has a port-wine stain birthmark on her left temple, move to Smogaria. Smogarians view obvious physical defects or marks as being indications of Allah’s displeasure with the individual, the individual’s family, and by extension the society at large. The people usually respond by routinely beating, neglecting, or even killing children born with such defects. Any who survive to adulthood are shunned. Grant is viewed with an attitude that roughly approximates awe for his fearless love of divinely-cursed Zoe. Zoe, on the other hand, is unwelcome in people’s homes. Grant struggles to teach nationals of God’s acceptance of all who approach the cross; struggles, that is, in light of the assumption of God’s apparent rejection of Zoe and all other marked people.
– Jeremy and Stacy – deaf to varying degrees, multi-lingual, college-educated – move to places where people assume deafness causes idiocy. Predictably, life is difficult. Doctors don’t listen to them. School teachers talk down to them. Taxi drivers refuse to take directions from them and routinely drop them off at the wrong address. Shopkeepers assume they don’t know math and give incorrect change. Things they teach from the Bible are doubted and double-checked. Stacy loses most of her independence. The work isn’t hindered, but life really stinks sometimes.
All of these situations are true; with the exception of the final one, certain details are different in order to hide identity. What’s more, none of these situations happens in a vacuum. Each limited or ignored missionary gets to see other colleagues who are free and unrestrained by this clash between who they are and where they live. They see the impact in their work (“How can I share with people when they have no time for the likes of me?”) and in their families (“Mommy, why do the neighbors play with my brother but not with me?”). The clash takes a financial toll (“Cheated me again!”) and carries an emotional punch (“I hate it here!”).
Now…what’s the solution?
What responsibility does the missionary have in all of this? One could argue that the missionaries in question should have done their homework first. Someone else would reply that God calls us to specific places regardless of our limitations; He will accomplish all things to His glory. Then someone points out that this does little to comfort the missionaries and their families on a daily basis. That leaves us with no solution.
What duty does the commissioning church have? If Snot Rock Baptist Church proudly lays hands on and sends out Grant and Zoe, does the church have a responsibility to help their long-distance siblings in Christ get through all of this? Should they send volunteer teams just to spend time with Zoe and ease her loneliness?
I don’t think anyone would argue that the missionaries should quit. Nor is it reasonable to suggest that the missionaries can just work to change the culture; no one has enough time for that.
Well?
1. The duty is much greater than most churches assume: I mean, they prayed for them, they gave some money… what else should they have to do… they aren’t the missionaries.
2. YES, YES, YES. Daily Skype, weekly updates on how badly Univ of Arizona is playing, share watching a movie together on Netflix via xBox360 if internet is available (well, if bandwidth is available), etc. The church can and should provide means for maintaining contact… being a rope holder as it were. The pastor & DOEM should try to find other missionaries via the IMB or other evangelical organizations (yeah, i said other) that are also in country that can connect with Grant & Zoe.
3. Most definitely yes, even if it means partnering with other churches to get there. Support isn’t just “I’ll be praying for you” although if meant, that is the best thing, because with God all things are possible. However, we shouldn’t just send them out and only wonder what has been happening when they come back on furlough (or for good). WE don’t (or shouldn’t do it to our kids who go to college or the military or whatever they decide to do, we check on them. We visit, even when they don’t say they want it.
Jeremy if only .01% of your insight in this post were to be absorbed by the average church go-er, it would go a long way to maturing the faith of the “faithful.”
I know you are educating and not fishing, but how are you in need? What can I/We do? Or is there another family you know needs support?
FYI for the average reader – I answered #1 with some sarcasm.
Lector Caveat
Wow….I like you, Mr. Buchanan.
No time to answer more completely for now…Offspring #2 has a football…er, soccer game.
The names you came up with are priceless.
The problems you articulate are worth chewing on. Thank you.
priceless?
Snot Rock Baptist Church?
please
🙂
OK, in honor of Christiane…
The Church of Our Lady of Way Too Many Sins.
Better?
you tried
🙂
Well, there is even more about the differences being a problem. Just think how difficult it is to speak to someone concerning Christ as God who feels that it is an insult, a little motif that is beginning to really develop right here in the good old USA. Mentioning Christ as Lord is an offense to some and, therefore, others will not allow it. It is the same as the offense of Christmas, praying in the name of Jesus at a town council, a county commissioners meeting, etc. A friend withdrew from praying, because the ACLU threatened to sue the town council of a small city in our state if anyone dared to pray in the name of Jesus. He, being a Baptist minister, would do that very thing, and the city could not afford to the law suit. As the song says, I beg your pardon. And I add a little corrective: “That ain’t what one of my ancestors fought in a revolutionary war battle, the site just a fifty-five minute drive from where I am sitting right now.” How about charging the ACLU with high treason for even daring to try and deprive my friend and that council of their religious freedoms? The Capital city council, about thirty minutes from where I am sitting had Jews, Christians, and Moslems and even witchcraft practitioners to pray at their meeting, and the ones leading in prayer could pray int he name of whoever they pleased. Why then the treaason, the bald faced, arrogant criminal act of depriving people of their freedom? Why do not Americans flood the House and Senate and the Supreme Court with petitions for this to be brought to an end, and, any elected officials or appointed ones refusing, let them arrested for treason.
let them “be” arrested….correction in last sentence above.
I think the biggest failing in each of these is in the missions group that sent them. Obviously no research on local culture was done at all — otherwise these folks wouldn’t have been sent to places they were not compatible with. There should certainly be some support from back home beyond sending a check every so often.
Sad thing is that these situations are probably not uncommon at all — missionaries with little contact with the folks back home being sent to a place where they are completely out of the ordinary culturally.
I think you’ve got a valid line of questioning, and you folks should pursue it if you like. Personally I have little interest in discussing it. Sorry.
I’m not a part of appointment/deployment in my particular mission agency, and I have absolutely no experience in it. As well, I think the reason that particular avenue is of no interest to me is that I’m more concerned with what to do now that the missionary is there. I do have experience in that end of things.
Even so, you’ve raised an interesting point. I think most cross cultural missionaries are out of place, but relatively few of them absolutely do not fit as a result of something fundamental that they cannot change.
God’s ends and ours differ dramatically, at times. The key question that each of these families would need to answer is: have you followed the direction of the Lord, as best you have been able to determine? If the answer is affirmative, then both the cost and the possibilities have to be weighed. We are all in pilgrimage. Many times He takes us into confusing situations, not for the purpose of expanding the Kingdom, but for the purpose of making changes in us. Working through the challenge, constantly trusting in His purpose and faithfulness, is incredible faith building exercise. Sometimes He allows us into circumstances where a minor impact that we make is pivotal to the plan..and perhaps it requires the square peg not fitting into the round hole to accomplish that impact. The Father does not play games with us; if He leaves our certainty about things nebulous, there is reason to the uncertainty. I’ve walked in a good number of the places you have described. I’m thankful that(many times after the events), He has given me some perspective on what He was doing. It would be wonderful if we knew that there was always going to be someone who will come alongside and minister to us in the midst of our need. Yet, quite often what the Lord has asked of me is to walk the path alone…and then to be there for others who are struggling with the same issue. My heart goes out to those who have sailed off into the world, carrying the name of Christ, and who are being buffeted in the storm. I would remind them that He can sustain in the midst of the roughest storm and that we are no less secure in the midst of the storm as we are when the water is calm. (But, man, calm water is nice!)
Here is the principle:
The gospel carries with it a set of foundational cultural ideals.
I’ll unpack this:
We have freedom to vary as long as the gospel cultural ideals remain foundational. We also know that no human culture is perfect at doing this. Nevertheless, we are called to teach and live out the foundational cultural ideals that are inherent in the gospel as we proclaim the gospel.
So we have to make some practical observations for the purpose of generating a strategy:
First, our culture isn’t perfect. Second, the culture we are going into isn’t perfect. Therefore, it’s incumbent on us to identify those areas of each culture that are not part of the gospel ideal and whether those aspects are okay or whether they are in contradiction to the ideal.
Another observation is that we need to adopt enough of the culture we are going into in order to gain a hearing among people of that culture.
Additionally, we must recognize that our influence is going to call people to become counter-cultural to some degree. That means that as we change the culture, our need to adopt to the culture will change. Ideally, we need to resort not on the culture we come from, but on the gospel culture for ultimate communication.
The are where I see this was often not done is when Western missionaries from a couple of generations ago went out and required new converts to conform to the culture of Western-style churches. I think less Western missionaries do that now. I’ve been to some foreign churches where they sing Western hymns and some where they have learned to sing praises after the fashion of their own kind of music.
But, as a strategy, when a culture is first approached, it is best for the situation of the missionary(ies) to fit in the culture in such a way as to gain a hearing. Additional missionaries whose focus is on marginal sub-cultures may come in later. But they must also understand their limitations in the larger culture. The benefit is that their ministry will serve to challenge the cultural practices and sensibilities that go against the gospel ideal. In sounds like that’s the place that you have right now. Don’t fear it. You are reaching a sub-cultural group of people who otherwise wouldn’t be reached very effectively. You have colleagues who have the ear of the main culture. Their acceptance of your ministry as well as their careful teaching from the scriptures about accepting marginal people (Samaritans, tax collectors, adulteresses, etc) will change their thinking over time.
Thanks for interacting.
There’s a segment here that I don’t really understand, and I’m hoping you can help me out here. You wrote, “You are reaching a sub-cultural group of people who otherwise wouldn’t be reached very effectively.”
What are you referencing with this? I’m not seeing it.
Thanks.
It may be a misunderstanding I have with what you are doing. I’m under the impression you are ministering to deaf people in a culture who otherwise wouldn’t minister to them according to their ability to understand. If this is an incorrect understanding then I apologize.
Ahh….I see.
You’ve accidentally stepped on a toe or two. That’s all. I realize it is accidental, so don’t sweat it.
I don’t have a problem stepping on toes when it’s biblical to do so. However, I certainly don’t mean to step on any toes otherwise. Thanks for the grace, Jeremy.
Just wondering, Jim, have you worked on the mission field?
Dave, I haven’t been on the mission field long-term. Although I studied missions at Columbia International University I don’t have the credentials. However, I (and my family) have been heavily involved in short-term missions in South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East doing everything from assisting locals in church planting to street evangelization to conducting pastor’s conferences and training locals in discipleship. Oddly, not having credentials makes it easier to get into some places unnoticed.