Excerpts from "Cross-Cultural Ministry"

“An attempt to belong to groups whose standards are in conflict with ours produces emotional stress within us and antagonism in our relationships with others. For this reason, most of us choose to belong only to those groups within which we find people who have standards and values similar to our own.”

“We include those people who reaffirm our values and relationships, and we exclude those who in some way do not measure up to our standards or do not fit within our prescribed sphere of social relationships. This pattern of inclusion and exclusion often prompts us to fear and even reject the very people we are sent to serve.”

“Cultural blindness makes us ineffective communicators in alien contexts and leads us to assume that the problem lies with others rather than with ourselves… We become certain that our way of doing things is the proper way, and we are blinded to the possibilities of doing things differently or of engaging in new behaviors that might be beneficial to our community.”

“Missionaries, by the nature of their task, must become personally immersed with people who are different. To follow the example of Christ… means undergoing drastic personal re-orientation. They must be socialized all over again into a new cultural context. They must enter a culture as if they were children – ignorant of everything, from the customs of eating and talking to the patterns of work, play, and worship. Moreover, they must do this in the spirit of Christ, that is, without sin.”

“Discarding or setting aside something of one’s American-ness is almost sacrilege to many people… We must love the people to whom we minister so much that we are willing to enter their culture as children, to learn how to speak as they speak, play as they play, eat what they eat, sleep where they sleep, study what they study, and thus earn their respect and admiration.”

“Becoming incarnate in another culture will be a trial by fire, a test of inner strength, of personal faith, and most of all – a test of one’s love. An individual who is not ready to give up being an American for a time and to begin learning as a child is not ready for the challenges of cross-cultural ministry.”

“We must release our attachments to home, income security, convenience, significance in work or ministry, and even comfort of family. We must enter a new community of strangers, often without many if not most of the comforts and symbols of home, and begin as children, learning at the feet of those we have gone to serve. We must be willing to become world Christians. The challenges will shape us; the changes will trouble us. Our bodies will get sick, our minds will suffer fatigue, our emotions will sweep us from ecstasy to depression. Yet the love of Christ will sustain us.”

“A failure to grasp the meaning of cultural cues (for example: knowing when a conversation is about to begin) results in misunderstandings, confusion, and oftentimes interpersonal conflict.”

“The key to growth and maturity in cross-cultural ministry is incarnation with complete submission to and dependence on God… Becoming incarnate in another culture will lead to sin only if we lose our sense of dependence on and unwavering trust in God and His Word.”

“(We must recognize) that culture defines the contexts for daily activities and relationships and that in the world there are hundreds of contexts, all of which are valid and useful to the people who share them… We must suspend our commitment to the context in which we have lived all our lives, enter a cultural context that is strange to us, and see that new context as the framework for our life and ministry. Peter speaks of this as being aliens or strangers in the culture to which God sends us… This significant change in our thinking will allow us to enter into relationships with people whose values and lifestyles are fundamentally different from our own. “

“We must accept the value priorities of others. We must learn the definitions and rules of the context in which they live. We must adopt their patterns and procedures for working, playing, and worshiping. We must become incarnate in their culture and make them our family and friends. We must do all this empowered through faith and freedom in Jesus Christ and living in the Spirit and not in the flesh.”