WHEN YOU CROSS CULTURES - World Evangelical Alliance

CHAPTER ONE
LEARNING ABOUT CULTURE
Culture is God’s idea. We see God’s work among peoples from Genesis to
Revelation. In Genesis 10 and 11, He scattered the nations over all the
earth. The nations which comprised ethnic groups are shown as having families
and tribes within themselves. They occupied their own territories and spoke
their own languages. God did this, according to Paul in Acts 17:26-27, so that
men would seek Him.
The Book of Revelation gives a portrayal of a great multitude of redeemed
people from every tribe, language, people and nation before God and the Lamb
(Revelation 5:9; 7:9). Revelation climaxes with the Holy City where God will
live with this multitude. He will be their God and they His peoples (Revelation
21:3).
Christ’s Great Commission is a command to disciple the nations.
Crossing cultures is therefore very much a part of fulfilling that Commission.
Cross-cultural workers obviously have to go from one culture to another. Culture
should not be viewed as a “barrier” to the Gospel. It is in fact a “carrier” through
which the Gospel can be made known. If we are serious about obeying Christ’s
Great Commission to disciple all nations, then cultural learning is imperative.
Every witness to the Gospel has a cultural context. This is where
contextualisation comes in. A missionary must learn the local culture. Otherwise,
his or her work could be irrelevant, even after spending years or sometimes a
lifetime among a people.
When I was a missionary trainee in Vietnam in 1960, a missiological term
such as “contextualisation” 1 was unheard of. Missionaries from Western
countries found a haven in their “missionary compound”. Within this compound
where they lived, they basically continued their own cultural practices. When
outside this “compound”, they tried to identify with the local people by learning
the local language. However, without sufficient orientation to the local culture,
they were likely unaware that they were practising a form of “cultural
imperialism” in the way they did their ministry.
Having grown up under British colonial times in Singapore, I could also
sense the cultural imposition of Western missions. Methods and approaches
that were familiar and workable in their home culture were used with little
change. Hymn tunes were the same. Church buildings were similar to those
1 According to David Bosch, the term “contextualization” was first coined in the early 1970’s. David J Bosch (1991), Transforming
Mission, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, page 240.
3