A Strange Aversion to White Guy Monologues

One of the most curious examples of poor contextualization in Central Asia is how opposed most missionaries are to preaching. By and large, missionaries feel strongly that the indigenous church plants and churches in this part of the world should replace preached sermons with participatory Bible discussions. And they feel even more strongly that if preaching must be present at all, then it should absolutely not be the foreigner doing it.

The reason this is poor contextualization is that these feelings and opinions seem to be based entirely on the missionaries’ own opinions, culture, training, and baggage, and not on that of the locals at all.

Yet very few missionaries seem able to see this.

Most foreign workers here would heartily resonate with the idea that, as I heard it put yesterday, “I didn’t come here to reproduce white guy monologues.” But few are asking themselves why they feel this way – and crucially, whether or not any of their local friends feel the same.

Instead, much of the missionary community has become an echo chamber, reinforcing the idea that preaching, and especially foreigners preaching, is bad contextualization – and therefore to be discarded. As it turns out, however, this is a huge assumption. And one, as I’m increasingly convinced, without any local evidence to back it up.

See, on the level of cultural values and practices, our Central Asian locals highly prize experts and expertise. Whether in the realm of education, government, medicine, art, or religion, when locals want to learn or teach something, they seek out an expert who will proceed to educate the community (often giving out certificates when they’re done). This teacher, ironically, will almost always do this by means of a monologue, a lecture. In fact, the same word is used in our local language for any kind of public teaching like this, whether it be an address, a speech, or a sermon. Every day, all day long, this kind of public oratory is happening here on television, on the radio, on social media, in tribal gatherings, in schools, and in meeting halls. The idea of the wise expert is so prominent and respected here that in our community of Caravan City, one of the most honorable ways to greet a random man on the street is to address him as “Teacher” – whether he actually is a teacher or not.

But perhaps, one might think, it’s different in spiritual settings. To the contrary, week in and week out for 1,400 years, locals have been going to a mosque to hear a monologue, an Islamic sermon. Well, what about before Islam came? Our area had a strong presence of ancient Christianity. Weekly Christian sermons would have been happening in local churches here for 500 years before Islam arrived, with some of the most famous preachers being originally from other nations in the region. What about before Christianity, then? Turns out our area also had a strong Jewish community, which means that weekly Jewish public reading of the Law & Prophets and teaching based on it would have been taking place in the local synagogues for several hundred years before the coming of Christianity. This is quite the history. We are looking at over 2,000 years of local precedent for preaching of one sort or another.

Not surprisingly, given this precedent, if you were to gather a group of our Central Asians today who want to learn about the Bible and then ask them what they expect that kind of activity to look like, they would tell you that they want to be taught (i.e. lectured) by a religious expert. And if possible, they would prefer that the expert be a credentialed foreigner.

Do most missionaries listen to them when they express these expectations? Do they honor this contemporary local preference, one backed by thousands of years of local precedent? Nope. Instead, they assert that preaching is Western, not actually contextual. And they then proceed to import a form that is radically foreign – informal, inductive group study, casually facilitated by a “coach” or “a trainer of trainers” – someone who is not supposed to have the authority of a teacher or an expert. Then, these missionaries go on to assure themselves that they are, in fact, using methodology that is so much more contextual and effective than previous generations of colonial missionaries with their imported Western methods.

To be clear, our locals do not gather on their own for informal, inductive study of a religious text, facilitated by a “coach” or “trainer” or some other Socratically-minded sort-of-but-not-really-leader. There is no local precedent for this kind of methodology. So, when locals are told over and over again by the foreign Christians that they have to do this in order to be good disciple makers, they initially find it very disorienting. This disorientation leads to questions like, “Why are we awkwardly meeting in a house and not in a church or official space?” “Who is in charge here and why aren’t they taking charge of this time?”, “Why won’t the person who is supposed to be the teacher tell us the correct answer instead of hinting and asking us these unfamiliar questions?”, and “Do you know a real priest or pastor who can actually explain things to us?”

Sadly, our locals are also not trained by their education system in critical thinking. This means they can’t easily jump into reading a text, summarizing it in their own words, and finding its main point. And because they’re from a high context, high power distance culture, they often don’t know how to comfortably navigate these informal, “organic” times of group Bible study. Yes, they can certainly learn how to do these things over time. I myself have trained many local believers in group inductive group Bible study (for reasons I’ll get into below).

But the key thing I want to draw out first is the sheer magnitude of the disconnect going on here. Many missionaries in our region are convinced they are doing something closer to the local culture by choosing informal, inductive group study instead of preaching. And yet in reality, the exact opposite is happening. This can only mean that the missionaries are deceiving themselves, importing a radically foreign form that is far stranger to locals than preaching would be, and all the while believing they are doing the complete opposite.

Once you see how upside down all of this is, you can’t unsee it. It would be like a foreign exchange teacher coming to the US who is convinced that bowing is the more authentic way that Americans greet one another, and that waving or shaking hands are outdated foreign forms. So, he insists on bowing and making all of his American students bow also when they greet him and one another. The American students don’t know why this foreign teacher keeps insisting that they bow to one another, since it’s not something they’ve naturally been brought up to do. This teacher is not operating in the normal cultural code of form and meaning as they understand it. But the teacher tells all his colleagues back home that he has adopted this method of greeting in order to be more American in his relationships, more like the locals. It’s not just that he’s getting it wrong. He’s confident in his take on American culture, when in reality, he’s actually deluded, the one who is, in fact, guilty of importing the foreign method. To make our analogy even more complete, imagine that the vast majority of foreign exchange teachers in the US believe this same thing.

Why is the blind spot regarding preaching so powerful among missionaries among the unreached, especially if it’s not being reinforced by the locals themselves? Here, I think a number of powerful factors are combining. First, there is the place where Western/global evangelical culture currently finds itself – a place of overreaction to the structures and methods of the past. This pendulum-swing away from the methods of our forefathers includes strong negative vibes regarding things like institutions and preaching. Missionaries are misdiagnosing the unhealthy churches they grew up in and placing the blame erroneously on things like preaching and formal organization. They end up on the field, not exactly sure what a healthy church is, but awfully convictional about the fact that they don’t want it to look like the churches back home, the very churches that are funding them.

Second, popular missiology and missions training drill into new and veteran missionaries a false narrative about what is and is not effective and contextual on the field. Even if a missionary personally benefited from preaching and enjoys sitting under it themselves, all the loudest voices from missiology and pre-field training tell them that that 45 minute sermons are something must be left back in the homeland, and not something to introduce among the baby churches of their focus people group – who, it is claimed, deserve the opportunity to do church in a more pure, New Testament manner, unsoiled by modern Western accretions like preaching.

Third, missionaries bring preconceived notions with them about people groups in this part of the world. They carry deeply held assumptions about what is normal for Muslim people groups, such as the belief that they will prefer to meet in house churches and do discussion-based study, if only the foreigners would get out of the way and give the locals the chance to be true to themselves and their culture. Preconceived notions are unavoidable. But they must be tested once we are actually living among a people group, and if necessary, discarded.

In the face of this powerful triad of their own cultural baggage, the voices of the missiologists, and their own assumptions, missionaries can spend years on the field completely blind to the fact that their aversion to white guy monologues is mostly a reflection of themselves, and not really a reflection of the locals at all.

However, preaching is good contextualization. I believe this, yes, because it fits with the desires, expectations, and forms of this particular culture. But that point only matters if the form itself is, first, biblical. I firmly believe it is biblical, although when it comes to this question in particular, the theologians and pastors do not agree with the missiologists. Whenever this happens regarding biblical interpretation, I’ve learned you almost always want to trust the theologians and pastors, not the missiologists. This is because the former group is more gifted and wired to be careful with the text of Scripture, while the latter group is often gifted and wired as passionate pioneers and practitioners. This otherwise good gifting comes with an unfortunate downside – the temptation toward sloppy use of the text to justify mission methods. For example, when mission leaders claim that faithful preaching as we’ve known it in church history is not required because it’s not a method rapid or reproducible enough to “finish the task.” As the logic goes, 1) Our church/disciple multiplication methods must catch up to the rate of lost people going to hell, 2) Preaching isn’t rapidly reproducible enough for this exponential rate of growth, therefore, 3) Preaching must not be biblical and should be replaced with participatory Bible studies not dependent upon a qualified teacher – just like we see in Acts!

In reality, the biblical case for preaching is really not that hard to establish from even a cursory overview of the New Testament. Jesus preached monologues to his disciples and others, such as the sermon on the mount (Matt 5-7). The apostles preached evangelistic monologues, as recorded in the book of Acts, as well as preaching to groups of only believers (Acts 2, Acts 20). The book of Hebrews is a good example of a local church monologue, a sermon for believers, adapted into a written form. The New Testament church found its primary model in the Jewish synagogue, where preaching and teaching – monologues – were taking place weekly in the first century (Acts 13:13-43). Finally, add to all this biblical witness the uniform witness of church history that preaching is an apostolic practice (1 Tim 5:17) handed down to us from generation to generation of God’s people.

Because we can draw clear lines like this connecting preaching to the Bible, and clear lines connecting preaching to the strengths and forms of our local culture, I therefore believe that preaching is sound and important contextualization. Yes, even if it’s a foreigner doing it. That leads me to the position that those on the mission field who reject preaching are, in fact, doing poor contextualization. This is because they are missing, first, that it’s biblical, and second, that it’s locally effective. Good contextualization should be able to see both, but for some reason, many missionaries can’t yet perceive either.

Okay then, since I believe preaching is a sound method, does it then follow that group inductive Bible studies are poor contextualization? Not at all. Inductive Bible study is, in fact, sound and important contextualization as well. First, this is because it can also be easily grounded in the Bible (Acts 8:26-35, 17:11, 18:26). But second, when it comes to how inductive Bible study connects to the culture, the way in which it is good contextualization is different from the way that preaching is good contextualization. Inductive Bible study is good contextualization because it directly connects, not with a strong precedent in the local culture, but with a crippling weakness in the local culture. Remember, good contextualization will not only utilize redeemable inside forms but also introduce outside forms intentionally when there is an area of the local culture that is non-existent or woefully underdeveloped.

This is why, over the years, we have labored to preach and to raise up preachers while also laboring to lead inductive Bible studies and raise up locals who can do the same. Both forms are good contextualization because they are both biblical, though one runs with the grain of the culture while the other runs against it. Both, ultimately, serve the church. They are not meant to be pitted against one another, but to powerfully work hand-in-hand.

To do contextualization well, we must be able to see the local culture for what it actually is. Unfortunately, the scales of our own cultural background, assumptions, and training can blur our vision and prevent this kind of clear-sightedness. This is what seems to be going on given so many missionaries’ opposition to preaching in unreached places.

Today’s missionaries among the unreached overwhelmingly have an aversion to preaching, to white guy monologues, or even local guy monologues, for that matter. Missionary echo chambers keep reinforcing this belief. My hope is that someday they will come to see this for what it truly is – a strange aversion indeed. And one that is not ultimately serving the local believers.

We need to raise 32k to be fully funded for our second year back on the field. If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can do so here through the blog or contact me to find out how to give through our organization.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

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Consciously Multilingual Mesopotamia

This is a region of so many world firsts for linguistic innovation. Unlike Egypt, China or India, its cities and states had always been consciously multilingual, whether for communication with neighbours who spoke different languages, or because their histories had made them adopt a foreign language to dignify court, religion or commerce. This is the area where we find the first conscious use of a classical language for convenience in communication, as a lingua franca, an early apparent triumph of diplomatic pragmatism over national sentiment.

-Ostler, Empires of the Word, p.34

Here, Ostler is referring to ancient Mesopotamia. This is a region – like our own area of Central Asia – that has been ‘consciously multilingual’ for as far back as we have records. This is a different posture toward language than many of us are used to who come from societies more in the monolingual tradition of ancient Egypt or China.

In a multilingual culture, a person is raised to assume that multiple languages will be heard and used on a daily basis. To gain a competitive advantage, as well as just for the convenience and joy of it, many will pick up two or three other languages in addition to the mother tongue spoken in their home. These societies do not assume that language use is a zero-sum game, where the use of one language inevitably means the demotion or withering of others. Rather, there is often a pragmatic long-term bilingualism or trilingualism. In one city close to us, many are even quadrilingual, using four languages on the regular. And they’ve been like this for countless generations.

Given the strengths and weaknesses of different languages, I prefer this approach that chooses to have not just one, but multiple tools in one’s toolbelt of tongues. For example, English may be fantastic for its motley plethora of specific nouns and adjectives (case in point – motley and plethora). On the other hand, English is a rhyme-poor language. So, for poetry, I’ll take our Central Asian tongue.

The Jerusalem Talmud would also concur with this position that languages have unique strengths: “Four languages are pleasing for use in the world: Greek for song, Latin for battle, Syriac (Aramaic) for dirges, Hebrew for speech.” Even God himself must have, for reasons of his own, chosen Hebrew and a short detour into Aramaic for biblical revelation until the coming of Christ, and then chosen Greek for the revelation that followed. Among his many reasons for this, one of them must have had something to do with the nature of the languages themselves – not that they were more holy or somehow superior, but that they were somehow more useful.

When it comes to missions, all this means that when sharing the gospel with a multilingual people group, we should be like the ancient Mesopotamians. We should feel free to share as soon as possible in a language they understand, even while we gauge over the long term which language might lead to the strongest advance of the gospel among them. The ancient inhabitants of Ur had a ‘diplomatic pragmatism’ when it came to their language use. Our own ‘spiritual pragmatism’ in language use should be shaped by whatever leads to the clearest and most compelling proclamation over the long haul. That might mean learning two languages, perhaps first a dominant (and often easier) trade language to see some friends come to faith and then a much more difficult minority mother tongue to see those friends formed into a church that goes on to multiply faithfully among its people group.

We also need to be careful that those of us from predominantly monolingual societies don’t impose limitations upon our multilingual friends that simply aren’t present in their language worldview. For example, the churches of one of our sister people groups hold all their Bible studies and church services in two languages. Their mother tongue is used for worship, prayer, discussion, and preaching. But the Bible is always read and studied in the national language. This is because they cannot read or write in their mother tongue. Yet because of the school system, they are highly literate in the national language. So, they simply switch back and forth as needed. To outsiders like us, this may seem a highly inconvenient or unsustainable system. But to a multilingual people group, this is fine. “We use this language for this part and that language for that part. What’s the issue here?”

We need to be careful that when it comes to big decisions like who gets a missionary and who doesn’t, who gets a bible translation or not, and whether or not we will make the costly investment to learn a second language, we are truly seeking to understand how ‘consciously multilingual’ people groups actually function.

They have a kind of freedom toward language that may be hard for us to grasp at first. It may challenge some of our categories. But if we can join them in that freedom, then we may be able to leverage it for the spread of the gospel.

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can do so here.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

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Good Contextualization Introduces Outside Forms

Many missionaries assume that contextualization means learning the local culture so that you can do things as the locals would do them – that good contextualization means not introducing outside, foreign forms. But what happens when the local culture and the local ways of doing things actually prevent indigenous believers from obeying the Bible? In this case, contextualization means learning how the local culture is weak and what must be added to it so that Christian faithfulness might result. Yes, there is a time when the good contextualizer intentionally brings in outside forms for the sake of the indigenous church.

We must sometimes import things like structures, forms, and methods from other cultures in order for a locally specific Christian culture to emerge. If our missions paradigm rules this out from the beginning, then our contextualization will be half-baked and we will find ourselves stuck in work that never breaks out of the chains imposed on it by our people group’s particular brand of fallenness. Herein lies another common blindspot of contemporary missions.

The brokenness and beauty of every culture mean that certain biblically-necessary categories and forms remain, ready to be discovered and redeemed – while other necessary things have long since disappeared or been gutted entirely. Take language as one clear example. Some unreached peoples, incredibly, retain a good word for atonement. However, others have no word for grace. The former word/form can often be redeemed, filled, and clarified with biblical meaning. The latter word/form must be introduced – and that from the outside.

Sometimes the issue is not language but what a culture lacks in terms of forms or models of organization. Our locals have the hardest time prioritizing the weekly gathering of believers. Local believers are willing to meet in their own homes for years on end with foreigners, but will not prioritize the weekly gathering with other locals if left to the structures, models, and motivations of their own background. Without the right kind of contextual intervention, they end up stuck in this disobedience for the long term.

There are several reasons for this problem of gathering that have to do with our local culture. First, when it comes to Islam, mosque attendance is optional, with prayer at home being a ‘good enough’ equivalent. In addition, there is no such thing as mosque membership. Mosque worship, as it turns out, is a surprisingly individualistic and casual affair, despite what it looks like from the outside when we see those rows of bodies bowing in unison. Political party membership does exist locally but it is a purely patron-client relationship, where locals are paid small monthly salaries to secure their loyal vote and occasional attendance at party events (which may include election-time vehicle convoys that honk and dance their way down our street at 1 am).

The one place that locals will show up regularly and religiously is family gatherings. It might be the weekly family picnics that happen in the spring and fall. Or, the weekly family visit to the grave of a sister who tragically died in her youth. But when Mom or Dad say it’s a family gathering, you have to be there. Locals will cancel everything else in order to be in regular, faithful attendance at family events.

All this means locals have no good indigenous models or tools for exercising committed attendance and membership outside of gatherings of blood family. Add to this the massive issues of trust that exist in this culture – and it’s easy to see why locals won’t/can’t gather weekly with the church. That is, unless they are pushed and helped to do so.

The two indigenous churches that we’ve been a part of have largely cleared this hurdle. How? In addition to the steady drip of faithful preaching and discipleship on these topics (“The local church is your true family!”), they have also introduced foreign structures such as church membership, church covenants, and church discipline – all of which helpfully require and reinforce regular attendance. Remember, none of these are structures that could be sourced in the local culture. As I wrote above, there’s no real model for meaningful membership and faithful attendance here outside of physical kinship. As for church discipline, locals are shocked when they learn about Matthew 18 and often swear that it would never work here. And as for covenant, the only local shell left of this crucial concept is the twisted doctrine of jihad.

This lack meant that the missionaries connected with these two churches made the choice to introduce these foreign structures and concepts (which I would contend are universal biblical concepts that always require local expression). This was not because they were ignorant of the local culture or secretly believed in the superiority of Western ways. No, it was because they were working hard to go as deep as possible in the local language and culture. And while they were doing that, they contextualized. They learned that local culture didn’t have the forms and structures necessary for obeying Jesus. So, that practically meant that forms needed to be borrowed, introduced, and adapted as needed.

The ironic thing is that many missionaries initially look at the use of outside structures like this and think it is sloppy colonial-style missions that just wants to copy/paste what’s been done in the West. What they are missing is that good contextualization shouldn’t merely do as the local culture does. Neither should forms or methods be ruled out simply because they feel old-fashioned or Western to us, the missionaries. No, real contextualization learns a local culture so well that it sees where its weaknesses are, and then it responds accordingly. It’s not about us or our baggage or our desire for some kind of pristine and isolated contextualized Christianity. It’s about helping the locals obey the Bible and working with them to find faithful ways to apply biblical principles in their context. If an imported form fills a crucial gap that would not have otherwise been filled, then so be it. Introduce that word for grace or that helpful process for interviewing those who want to be baptized. Trust me, the locals will find a way to make that form their own anyway. They always do.

Yesterday, we heard of some friends who are going to introduce a system of formal membership into the network of believers they’ve been working with for years. Now, these missionaries are some of the most knowledgeable and deferential when it comes to the local language and culture. They are veterans of great skill and experience. But the locals they’ve been discipling, like many of those we’ve worked with, will not of their own initiative prioritize the weekly gathering in the way they should. So, after years of teaching, modeling, and pleading with these locals, our friends are now going to roll out a system of church membership and see if that helps. They are bringing in an outside form in order to free their local friends from their specific cultural weaknesses – so that they might better obey Jesus.

My prediction? It will work. Not only that, but they will find this to be one of the most contextual things they’ve done so far.

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can do so here.

Two international churches in our region are in need of pastors, one needs a lead pastor and one an associate pastor. If you have a good lead, shoot me a note here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

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A Culture of Spontaneous (And Divine) Affirmation

Recently, something took place here that was so spot-on for our people group that I knew I’d simply have to write about it.

Mr. Hope* – as his name translates in English – is a local believer who reminds me of a gnarled old war veteran. He’s not fought in a literal war himself, but he has been a believer since the 1990s. This means that he’s been a part of four or five local Central Asian churches that have imploded and, eventually, disappeared. Now in his third decade of faith, he has been a direct witness to the brokenness and messiness of the bride of Christ as it has struggled to take root in the difficult soil of Mr. Hope’s people group. No doubt he also contributed to some of these implosions. The difference is that he has, unlike so many others, been willing to give the local church yet one more try. And praise God for that.

Mr. Hope carries himself as a man worn down by trials and by lots of disappointment. He often wears a bit of a scowl on his broad, wrinkled face. He manages to crack a smile and respond with honorable greetings when addressed by others. But you can sense that he’s still wary of trusting the others, especially the other local believers. He also occasionally drops bombs – and does so publicly. He might try to take over a service with some unexpected strong objection, opinion, or warning that leaves the leadership struggling to know how to respond to him respectfully and yet still help the meeting continue in the direction it really should be going.

This happened again at a recent meeting. My wife and I are currently members at the international church, so although we attend all of the services of this local language church plant in order to lend support to our teammates and lead worship, we were not at this members-only meeting. According to the missionary pastor, Mr. Hope stood up in the middle of the meeting and dramatically announced that because of serious and various concerns he had decided to leave the church plant and join another group. Then, he simply left.

The rest of the members present were left somewhat confused. Where had this come from? Even though Mr. Hope had had some friction with other members and the leaders from time to time, most thought things were at a relatively good place, all things considered. Regardless, the member’s meeting needed to continue. Among the important items on the agenda that night was a vote to begin devoting a portion of the church’s giving toward pastoral support – a massive weakness in the churches of this region and a vital form of obedience that would need to be learned in order for this church to one day be truly be healthy.

The day after the meeting, the pastor called Mr. Hope to see what he could find out.

“Is everything okay, Mr. Hope? We weren’t sure what had happened to make you decide that you are leaving the church.”

“Oh yes, everything is fine,” Mr. Hope responded. “I just wanted to know if people truly loved me.”

“But… Really?… What do you mean?”

“Well, I knew that if I left a meeting in that way and no one called me, then that would mean the other church members didn’t really love me. But because you and several others have called to see how I’m doing, now I know that you really love me.”

“So… you’re not leaving the church?”

“No! Of course not.”

Our friend the pastor was left both relieved and likely a little perturbed. I couldn’t help but laugh when he told me the story later that week.

“That is so like our people group!” I laughed, then turned to explain to some of our newer teammates.

“We’ve also had a lot of this kind of thing happen to us. It’s like locals’ somewhat extreme way to fish for affirmation. They might call you up, tell you they’re upset with you and say all kinds of things that feel to us like shaming and blaming. But most of the time they just want to hear that you love and respect them and really value their friendship, even though it’s been a while that you’ve been able to call. Simple affirmation usually defuses most of it.”

It’s true. Our locals have inherited a culture where causing drama is one of the more common responses to feeling a lack of affirmation. To those of us coming from the West, it can feel a bit like we’ve gone back to junior high. Do we really need to resort to these kinds of tactics just because you’re feeling insecure about yourself or our relationship?

While some of this is in fact due to unhealthy – even destructive and exhausting – strategies of communication and relationships, part of it is also due to the fact that our locals live in a culture where friends, relatives, and even mere associates are constantly affirming one another verbally. This clicked for me at a recent Simeon Trust preaching training. Several times during breaks, one of my local friends would come up behind me, squeeze my shoulder, and say something to the tune of, “You lion brother of mine!”

As I thought back on my close friendships with men like Darius* and Mr. Talent*, I realized that they were always doing things like this as well. Spontaneous, poetic verbal affirmation was consistently coming out of them toward those around them, and towards me. Having grown up here, this is now second nature to them.

We’ve long known that our people are hyper-sensitive to criticism or even loving critical feedback. But what I’ve now come to realize is that they are also sensitive to the absence or even decrease of spontaneous verbal affirmation. It seems that one of the primary ways our locals stay encouraged and keep hopelessness at bay is through these kinds of constant verbal exchanges.

Needless to say, Westerners are usually not very good at this kind of on-the-fly poetic affirmation. When I think of those Westerners who are my closest friends and colleagues here, we barely ever compliment and affirm one another directly. Rather, most of our affirmation for one another is implied, understood, indirect. Every once in a while, we’ll come out with some direct affirmation, but it’s not super common, and it’s certainly not second nature.

Alas for the local believer who becomes good friends with a Western Christian. While the local has been programmed by his upbringing to expect heartfelt affection to result in a positive deluge of direct verbal affirmation, he must now learn the hard way that when it comes to his Western mentor, he’ll have to read this, most of the time at least, between the lines. It’s a bit like the classic confused husband who thinks his wife should be able to simply intuit his love for her because he works hard to provide and protect. Wait, she needs me to tell her regularly that I love her? Doesn’t she know that already? The wife, on the other hand, can’t understand why her husband doesn’t love her anymore.

If Central Asian believers need to grow by not creating relational drama in order to get affirmation (and they do), then Western believers need to grow in their willingness to regularly verbalize bold affirmation. I’m not very good at this, but I’ve been experimenting recently, especially with my local friends who work regularly with Westerners here. So far, the results are good. The effect of a spontaneous shoulder squeeze and proclamation of “Ah, my only begotten brother!” seems as if I’m giving them a glass of cold water while they wander in a parched and desert land. They light up.

I don’t know how much of this dynamic played into the situation with Mr. Hope. But now that I know of his recent stunt at that member’s meeting, I’ll be more careful to show verbal appreciation for him in future interactions – and pray that over time, his knowledge of Christ’s affection and stunning statements of love for him will ground him when he’s feeling insecure or unappreciated.

He may be a grumpy and gnarled veteran of church implosions. But in Christ, he is a son, an heir of the kingdom, a royal priest, a beloved brother, and even a future judge of angels. These are stunning titles, rich and even divinely sanctioned. I have the sense that even Mr. Hope would light up were we to spontaneously put an arm around him, and proclaim them over him.

If you have been helped or encouraged by the content on this blog, would you consider supporting this writing and our family while we serve in Central Asia? You can do so here.

For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.

*Names of places and individuals have been changed for security

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Toward a Biblical Understanding of Trust

“Where is your ID card, teacher?” demanded the soldier at the checkpoint.

“By the Qur’an, I… I must have left it back in my car at the university. I’m just riding along now to drop these guests off in Caravan City and then returning right away,” responded our host from the front passenger seat, clearly kicking himself for forgetting this important piece of documentation.

“Where are you from?” the guard asked, eyes narrowing.

“I’m from this city. I’m of our people. And I’m a member of the _____ tribe, a well-known and respected tribe, as you know.”

“That’s right,” our driver chimed in. “He’s one of ours, from here, this city. And everyone knows his tribe’s reputation.”

“Elder brother, you need an ID, or I can’t let you through,” the guard said. “Do you at least have a picture of your ID?”

Our host searched his phone frantically for a picture, telling the guard he should have one somewhere.

As the guard waited impatiently, our driver tried a different strategy.

“I know Mr. Muhammad. He used to work here. Is he still around?”

Dropping the name of someone in authority here, I thought to myself, worth a shot.

The guard ignored him.

Unable to find a picture of his ID on his phone, our host tried another approach.

“Can I leave anything with you as a pledge that I will return tonight? My phone? Anything?”

The guard shook his head. Alas, three traditional strategies seemed to have failed – the appeal to tribal reputation, the appeal to a relationship with an authority figure, and the attempt to leave something valuable as a pledge of keeping one’s word. No, at this checkpoint separating regions, ethnicities, and political factions, modernity and its demands for photo IDs seemed to be winning the day. And yet there’s enough of a tug of war between the modern ways and the older ways in this part of the world that you never can quite predict which one is going to prevail.

“Come inside and talk to the captain,” ordered the guard.

Our host, it seemed, had one last shot. If this didn’t work, he’d have to leave us and taxi alone back to the city we had just come from.

A few minutes later, he reemerged, smiling and relieved. Turns out the current authority figure at this checkpoint was willing – after enough honorable haggling, that is – to bend the newer laws in favor of the much older ones. The mustachioed men with AK-47s decided to take a risk on our ID-less host because they were able to socially map him, attaching him to a broader community that they had been taught they could trust. Because our host belonged to a certain group, a certain tribe with a solid reputation, he was extended trust, even though they knew almost nothing about him as an individual.

The ironic thing was that we were all worried we’d face trouble at the checkpoints because two of us were Americans. In the end, the soldiers seemed not to take any notice of us at all, fixated as they were on whether there was still enough credibility in the name of our host’s tribe to let our him through without proper ID.

“Thanks be to God for the reputation of the _____ tribe!” I said. “I think I need a tribe to adopt me.”

Our local friends smiled and chuckled. Of course, I could never really be adopted by a local tribe. The local worldview would never permit it. Bloodlines, fatherlines specifically, are still the be-all and end-all of identity here. Kinship is fixed by biology and viewed as largely unchangeable.

It was a curious thing that I had just that same day given a talk where I’d said this older strategy of tribal trust was actually keeping the country stuck, held back from the kind of trust between diverse individuals that leads to true and healthy progress. But here, this same sort of group trust had just made things easier, unstuck, at least for our little party with its simple mission of dropping us Americans off after a long day of conference activities.

I was reminded that there’s always a context for why a certain culture is the way it is. Even if certain traditions now seem hopelessly counterproductive, at one point they were adopted because they were needed, they worked, or they seemed the wisest of all the available options – perhaps the only option. Not unlike a counselor approaching relational strategies learned in childhood that are now causing havoc in an adult’s life, wise observers of culture should also be careful to give respect where it’s due. There are always reasons why certain habits or customs exist. These reasons may be good or they may be bad. But go deep enough and we will inevitably find that they have a logic to them, and often one that makes some decent sense.

There are reasons why our locals, now an overwhelmingly urban people, are still so tribal in their approach to trust. It was only a generation or two ago that the tribe was still everything, absolutely central to survival, let alone success. Your tribe protected you, arranged your marriage for you, and secured justice for you. Your tribe gave you your identity, an imputed reputation of honor and strength that meant you could navigate life with a name that carried weight, opened doors, and caused rivals to think twice before trying anything.

Of course, along with all of these benefits came solemn obligations. Show up to fight for the tribe when called. Advance the honor of the tribe through your own personal actions. Purge shameful members of the tribe when necessary. And yes, only truly trust those who belong to your tribe or to its close allies – never those who don’t.

Alas, now that our focus people group is 85% city dwellers, this old tribal strategy of trust is proving completely insufficient for the complex needs of 21st century life. Neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, governments, and even churches are now made up of those from different tribes. How do you effectively cooperate with others when the wisdom you’ve inherited is that you should never trust someone who’s not a tribal relative? How can any institution be healthy if you distrust almost everyone from the get-go, when the slightest mistake or sin by others simply proves what you already knew, that all these others are bad, untrustworthy types who are ultimately against you?

No, in spite of occasionally getting you through a government checkpoint, the dominance of the tribal trust approach is daily undermining just about everything in this society, not to mention the establishment of healthy local churches. This problem of trust, when manifested between local believers, is one of the toughest nuts to crack for cross-cultural workers in this part of the world. In general, the local believers are still operating in a default mindset related to tribal trust. “I only trust family and those I grew up with” is a sentiment I’ve heard countless times from local believers, usually in a conversation where I’m trying to convince them to risk by gathering with and trusting other brothers and sisters in the faith.

We’ve learned to leverage a local proverb about trust to push back against this, which usually buys us at least a good conversation about Christian trust and trustworthiness. And we’ve also learned that this is an area where we cannot afford to wait for the locals to feel ready to change. Those who have waited have found that locals’ willingness to trust others (which they pray is just around the corner) never actually materializes on its own. They then end up stuck in an ever-growing network of secret, one-on-one Bible studies with locals afraid of meeting with others. No, this is an area where missionaries need to very proactively lead in terms of modeling, exhorting, and even pushing toward diverse, non-oikos gatherings from the beginning. Practically, this means the believers we invest the most time with should be those who are most willing to risk gathering with others. If locals want to study the Bible with a foreigner, they should mainly be offered opportunities to do this which assume the presence of other locals.

This “throw them in the deep end” trust approach not only fits the messy Jew-Gentile-slave-free composite churches planted by the Apostles, but for us it has also proved unexpectedly effective – if you stubbornly stick with it for a few years. Turns out that once the first solid core of believers emerges (usually after a couple of implosions) that has learned it is possible to build trust with one another, then it becomes so much easier for those who come after them. Yes, it’s a tough ask to make of the locals, but it doesn’t take too long before they come to experience the benefits of something they previously thought impossible – the slow and steady growth of trust between believers who have no natural kinship ties, but are together becoming a new spiritual family. Unfortunately, decades’ worth of movement-driven methods here that make more allowance for locals’ fears of gathering with one another have so far failed to result in actual churches that last. Once again, our corner of Central Asia proves to be where all the popular missionary methods come to die.

Long-term, what is ultimately needed is a biblical renovation of the local worldview when it comes to trust, one that provides better tools for understanding trustworthiness. These tools can lead to Christian flourishing within the local church. Then, as the church leavens its host culture there is also the long-term possibility of broader societal flourishing as even those who don’t believe go on to learn a wiser way to trust others.

We should be wary of the assumption that the biblical understanding of trust is basically synonymous with the Western approach, even though the way Westerners trust one another has undoubtedly been deeply shaped by the Bible. Western trust has some real strengths in its overflowing optimism and risk-taking nature, strengths that do indeed echo biblical ideas of “hoping all things, believing all things.” But Western trust also assumes a general culture of honesty. Again, this assumption is probably there because of the Bible’s long-term influence on the West. But this posture of assumed trustworthiness does not work so well in other cultures that value honor or craftiness over honesty. Western trust defaults can therefore put the local church in other cultures at greater risk of attack from deceivers and wolf-types. No, we do not want Central Asian believers to merely start trusting one another as if they were Westerners. Rather, we want them to trust one another as people of the Word.

For a long time, I have been chewing on the question of where to start when it comes to building a biblical theology of trust. At last, I think I’ve arrived at some initial clarity, or at least spotted a few trailheads, as it were, that can eventually lead to a more biblical understanding of trust.

First, a biblical understanding of trust must begin putting one’s trust ultimately in God, and not in man (Ps 62:5-8). Like many other paradoxes in the Christian life, the best way to learn to trust others is to realize that you can’t ultimately trust them. Only God is worthy of 100% trust. Everyone else will, at some point, let us down. This is because we’re all sinners, and we’re all limited. Only God is perfectly holy and perfectly infinite in his reliability. When we put the weight of our deepest trust on God and not on other humans we’re actually then more free to risk and trust others – because we don’t ultimately depend on them, but on God. The book of Jeremiah goes so far as to say the one who trusts in man is cursed, while the one who trusts in God is blessed (Jer 17:5-7).

Second, a biblical understanding of trust must be shaped by the wisdom literature. Scripture doesn’t often use the term trustworthy for people. But it does use other terms that are related to it, terms such as wise, upright, righteous, and blessed. These are all characteristics that are upstream from trustworthiness. The wisdom literature in particular is full of proverbs and discourses on what it looks like to be this kind of person. For the one on the hunt for what constitutes biblical trustworthiness, the wisdom literature is a goldmine. Consider Psalm 1, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly; nor stands in the way of sinners; nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the Law of the Lord; and on his Law he meditates day and night.” Or, Proverbs 9:8, “Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; Reprove a wise man, and he will love you.” Or, Matthew 5:7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” From these sample verses from wisdom passages we see that the trustworthy person is one who 1) is shaped by God’s word instead of being shaped by sinners, 2) happily receives correction, and 3) is merciful to others. Do you know someone like this? Chances are good you can trust them.

I also find it very interesting that the wisdom literature is so individualistic in its understanding of wisdom – and therefore trustworthiness. Ancient Israel was a tribal society and had a culture that was more collectivist than individualist, not unlike many Eastern cultures today. It could have very easily fallen into very unhealthy forms of tribal trust. In fact, some of the carnage in the book of Judges may be evidence of this. But whereas blessings and certain obligations are given out tribally, the wisdom literature zeros in not on the group but on the individual when it builds out its understanding of what is means to be wise, upright, righteous, blessed, trustworthy. This means a pivot toward assessing individuals’ trustworthiness rather than tribes’ is not a move toward becoming more Western, but toward becoming more biblical.

Third, a biblical understanding of trust must be shaped by the examples in the Bible’s narratives. Men like Joseph, Daniel, and Nehemiah, and women like Ruth are strong examples of what a trustworthy person looks like. In their stories, we see both competence and character, two key domains of trustworthiness when it comes to individuals. The stories of these faithful saints and others present us with real-life examples of what a trustworthy believer looks like, even under extreme pressure. The apex of all of these biblical examples is of course Jesus, the trustworthy human par excellence.

Fourth, a biblical understanding of trust must be shaped by the New Testament’s qualifications for leaders. The New Testament’s passages on elders and deacons (1 Tim 3, Titus 1, Acts 20, 1 Pet 5, Acts 6) set forward qualifications for leadership in the local church. As many have pointed out, there is nothing exceptional about these qualifications. Rather, they simply paint the picture of a believer who is mature enough to be able to lead God’s people well. As such, they are great standards for all believers to strive toward. But in addition to this, they also make a great framework for trustworthiness. Take the elder qualifications for 1st Timothy 3, for example. You can trust someone who longs to care for God’s people, is faithful to their spouse, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not a lover of money, who manages their household well, etc.

As I said above, these categories are an initial attempt to outline a biblical approach of trust. There are likely more ‘trailheads’ like these from Scripture that emerge as we dig deeper into this topic. But even starting with these four would help local believers – and let’s be honest, us Western missionaries too – think much more biblically about trust, rather than just going with the flow of our native cultures.

Tribal trust has been undermining the establishment of healthy churches in Central Asia (along with just about everything else in society). Therefore, local believers must learn how to move away from this binary group approach to trusting others where you are either ‘in the group’ and therefore viewed as completely trustworthy or ‘out of the group’ and so viewed basically as a saboteur waiting to pounce.

That being said, even tribal trust is not to be completely discarded according to the Bible. Let’s not forget Paul’s rather blunt generalizations about Cretans. And more importantly, if we observe the reputations of individual congregations in the New Testament (e.g. Col 1:4, Rev 2-3), we see there is still a way in which we can wisely bear a tribal name of sorts. And while belonging to a church with a sound reputation should not be the only or primary filter used for gauging someone’s trustworthiness, it sure is a helpful secondary category to lean on.

Yes, even though I can’t be adopted by a Central Asian tribe, I have over the years been adopted by several local spiritual ones. This reputation will not get me through government checkpoints (not yet, anyway). But, man, does it result in joy and trust with other brothers and sisters who have heard of the faithfulness of the different churches we’ve been members of. “You were members at _____ Baptist Church? We’ve heard of it. Solid preaching! And solid people.”

We may yet have a long way to go in building a biblical theology of trust. But by the grace of God, we are on our way. And once we and the local believers learn how to trust one another according to the Bible, well then, the gates of hell better watch out.

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The Important Role of Foreign Stabilizers

“I’m worried about us local believers,” a new local friend said to me yesterday as we sat in a cafe dating back to the 1880s, sipping a brew made from wild tree nuts.

“We don’t know how to be steady. We are concerned with so many things and get upset so quickly and leave the church.”

“That’s not too unusual for new believers,” I responded. “And it points to one way the foreigners can help in this season. We model stability until, slowly-slowly, the local believers can also become stable.”

The ironic thing is that missionaries are some of the least stable and most transient people I know, at least in terms of physical presence. We move constantly. We take a lot of trips in and out of the country. We get uprooted by family needs or leadership gaps or security crises. At first glance, we may seem to make poor examples of being “steadfast, immovable.”

And yet one of the most important roles for missionaries in places like Central Asia is that of the stabilizer. We may be familiar with the concept of a foreign agitator, some kind of spy whose presence is meant to stir up discontent and division among the locals. Well, when it comes to our posture among the local believers, I am more and more convinced that we are to be foreign stabilizers – especially in terms of spiritual stability. To put it in terms of being on a journey, when surrounded by our younger brothers and sisters who want to sprint, grumble, fight, go off trail, give up, or go back, we simply keep plodding and modeling the “long obedience in the same direction.” We are, or should be, a lot like faithful, stubborn turtles.

When it comes to the believers from our particular region, there really is for a good many years a restlessness, a spiritual and emotional flailing around, a great struggle with steady commitment and contentment. Many stumble over the simplicity and repetitive, quiet nature of true spiritual growth, whether that’s the growth of an individual or that of a local church. Like adults with traumatic childhoods, some internal part of them tends to freak out and go on the attack when finally offered true stability – even when that’s what they most desperately long for and need.

Now, add into this mix Westerners’ expectations of speed and results and their fear of wielding spiritual authority and you get one very destructive brew. The very last thing my local friends need is a foreign missionary who himself is restless because he’s overcome by the immensity of the lostness, or, who is terrified of ‘contaminating’ the locals with his culture. Or, even worse, those willing to turn to money to catalyze some kind of ‘movement’ because they’re doing the math and realize unhappily that at the rate of fifteen believers after five years they won’t ever reach their goal of one million believers they’d set back when they were fundraising in America.

No, what will truly serve my local friends is if we set our course for faithfulness – and simply keep going whether they join us or not. In order to really help them, we must be honest appraisers of the lack of stability that is currently there, while at the same time being incredibly hopeful about the fact that Jesus really will eventually create the needed spiritual steadfastness in them. We must not depend on them when it comes to our own initial role of modeling faithfulness and healthy church, while also constantly reminding them that it is our heart’s desire that someday we will depend on them completely. We must ourselves be the stable core of the local church plant that will, Lord-willing, one day, fully thrive without us.

This kind of posture may be offensive to other missionaries. After all, it places the foreigner at the visible beating center of the work, sometimes for a good long time. In the short run, it may draw accusations of paternalism or building one’s own kingdom or not trusting the Spirit. But if the missionary takes on this role of foreign stabilizer for the sake of loving his currently unstable brothers and sisters, then time will show that this kind of foreigner-leading-by-example-as-long-as-it-takes model is actually the one that best raises up locals in the long-run. Missionaries are afraid to take charge like this because it looks bad. But good missions work should always be less concerned with optics and more concerned with what’s actually most loving for others.

This sort of model is not without its dangers, of course. But the alternative – attempting to stay in the background and using salaries to prop up locals prematurely – is far, far more dangerous. Ministry salaries follow spiritual and emotional maturity. They cannot create it.

The traditional analogy for missionaries is that we are like scaffolding – temporary, only present until the permanent structure of the indigenous Church can be built. This is a great analogy in many ways. But at least for our context, its focus on external support doesn’t communicate well the necessity of the missionary’s central stabilizing role. A better analogy might be that the missionary is like some kind of planet orbiting a star that by nature of its own gravity pulls other renegade space rocks and moons into, first, its own orbit, and then eventually into that of its sun. I’m not very good at science illustrations, so if this would never happen in the real universe, you’ll have to forgive me. But I think you see my point.

I don’t presume that every unreached context will need the same thing. Due to differences in how common grace has been dispersed, some people groups will not have the same kind of radical spiritual instability that ours do. But I do presume that there are other contexts out there a lot like ours, where missionaries have been told they are not supposed to be front and center, that this would be taking a step backward as it were, who are now confused because being the stable center seems to be the most loving and effective way forward.

If this is you, then my encouragement would be to forget what it looks like. Love your local friends by being the stable example they need. Teach, preach, lead, counsel, worship, rebuke, gather, host, visit – do the work of the ministry in a steadfast, immovable fashion. Your local friends can eventually ‘catch’ Christian stability by observing you. So, be the kind of steady believer they have never seen before. Be an example, and thereby, a foreign stabilizer.

If you would like to help us purchase a vehicle for our family as we serve in Central Asia (8k currently needed), you can reach out here.

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Define: Contextualization

This brief video from the Great Commission Council puts forward a solid definition of one of the more fought-over aspects of missions: contextualization. It’s a huge topic, but this definition is a great place to start – Contextualization is the task of making the message of the gospel comprehensible to all cultures and contexts.

In case you’re wondering, each of these GCC teaser videos will also soon be followed with a published article going deeper into the topic. Many of these articles will be rolling out in the next few months. We got to be a part of the discussions that led to these articles and got to read the rough drafts – and they are so good. I can’t wait for these thoughtful and biblical resources to be made available for the churches and missionaries.

The final item we need to raise support for is a vehicle to use while on the field. If you can help us fund this practical need, you can shoot us a message here. Thanks so much!

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On Being a Language Pragmatist

The goal of language learning and language use for any missionary should be effective spiritual communication. The goal is not the language itself, but rather faith that comes by hearing. Because of this, language is the necessary tool, the vehicle by which a missionary is able to achieve effective communication.

Now, if you have been reading this blog for a while you will know that I think language itself is a stunning and wonderful thing – but that it’s also a limited thing. Humans in general are not usually awake to the wonder of language. And many missionaries don’t learn the local language nearly well enough because doing so can be such hard work. However, many missionaries also like to fight about language, elevating language learning and language usage choices to the level of dogma, seemingly believing that it will make or break a ministry or church planting movement if you don’t get it perfect.

But because we love language and yet are also very aware of its limitations, we are language pragmatists. This posture means we will happily use whatever language makes for the deepest understanding of the truth we are trying to communicate. In this posture of language pragmatism, I believe we have a precedent in God himself, who in the Bible happily switches from Hebrew to Aramaic to Greek and also throws in 80-some Persian loan words for good measure. In this, the God of the Bible is refreshingly contrasted with the deity of Islam who rigidly confines the language of heaven and prayer to one earthly tongue – 7th century Arabic – and demands that all his followers do the same now and in the life to come. As if the weight of eternity could possibly be borne by one human tongue alone.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This posture of language pragmatism doesn’t make us care less about language learning. It actually makes us more serious about our study of a given tongue. Again, when the goal is effective communication of God’s truth, then you can’t help but notice when the majority of the population isn’t being reached by the global, regional, or trade languages being used by most Christian efforts among your people group. These other tongues might be good for reaching a subset of the population who have second or third-language proficiency in them. But if they are ineffective in carrying gospel truth to those inner places of the heart and mind where true understanding takes place, then the language pragmatist will adjust accordingly and try to master the indigenous tongue. He’ll be bad at it for a good long while, but that same filter of effective communication will drive him forward until he reaches a higher and higher level in the local language – or whatever language he needs in order to fulfill his ministry.

Perhaps some stories will help illustrate what this looks like on the ground. During the beginning of our first term, our supervisors told us explicitly not to share the gospel in English. They were worried that if we got into this habit, we would lack the motivation to learn the local language well enough to be able to share in it effectively. And also, that our local friendships would stay forever fixed in the language they began in.

The problem was we were English teachers. So, while we were still speaking the local language like toddlers, some of our advanced students were reading English versions of Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, and wanting to discuss it with us. When the doors opened for spiritual conversation with these advanced students, we felt conscience-bound to switch to English as often as necessary for the sake of clarity and understanding. Our supervisors, in their zeal for the local language, had fallen into a kind of rigidity that caused them to confuse the goal with the means.

In the long run, we found that our local friends were also language pragmatists. They were happy to switch to whichever language led to deeper understanding or relational connection. To this day, we still might bounce back and forth between advanced local language and advanced English as needed in a given conversation.

Consider another example. One of our sister people groups speaks their mother tongue at home and with one another, but is only able to read and write in the dominant regional language. This means that their Bible studies are always a bilingual affair. The Bible is read in the regional language but the discussion takes place in their oral mother tongue. Our colleagues who work among this people group have taken the wise (and pragmatic) approach of seeking to learn both languages.

Some language purists might object that the real goal should be to get these locals reading and writing their own language. And this may very well be an excellent long-term goal. We fully support increased literacy all around, especially when it comes to the language a person dreams in, prays desperate prayers in, and yells in when they stub their toe. But in the meantime, use the tools you have, and don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

While using those good tools, ask these two questions continually: 1) Is effective communication currently taking place? And 2) Would our communication of spiritual things be more effective were we to use a different language? These questions keep the missionary safe from the risk of assuming communication is actually taking place – an assumption that is all too easy when you’ve been told by others the ‘right’ language in which to do ministry.

But hold on, isn’t pragmatism bad when it comes to missions? Only sometimes. Only when we are being pragmatic about things the Bible would have us be principled about. Using ministry salaries to bribe people into becoming Christians is pragmatic in the wrong way. Using whichever language is best to communicate a concept such as atonement is being pragmatic in the best sense. When the Bible gives freedom to follow practical wisdom in a given area, then Christians should walk in that freedom – enjoy it, even – rather than creating their own little missiological laws to then be bound by.

The wonderful truth is that the Bible does not demand we use any given language in order to do God’s work. Instead, we are completely and utterly free to use any of them to effectively communicate the gospel. Each of the world’s 6,000-plus languages has a unique glory all its own, one that will shine forth in worship in this age as well as in the age to come. This means they each belong to us, the heirs of that resurrection. And we can grab any handful of them that we need to (as our limited brains allow) in order to preach the gospel, plant churches, and disciple the saints.

So, consider joining us in becoming pragmatists – language pragmatists, that is. It’s really quite freeing.

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Pray for Missionaries to Enjoy The Culture

Try as I might, I simply cannot enjoy the taste of cooked peas. I like pea soup. I like snap peas. I like those dehydrated pea pods that are allegedly a healthier option than potato chips. But there’s just something about the taste of cooked green peas that makes my tastebuds twang and my body shudder.

This, in spite of the fact that I am, if anything, too convictional about the importance of being able to enjoy every good edible gift that God has given for our sustenance. When my kids call a certain food disgusting there is a part of my soul that registers that as a major problem and a worrying portent of a less joyful future for them. My wife, thankfully, is always on hand to remind me that disliking certain foods is quite normal and not something that always needs to be addressed as if it’s a great injustice against the Creator and against us, the vice-regent parentals he has appointed for these particular offspring.

Yes, the humble cooked pea reminds me that even when we have tried our best, the freedom to enjoy something is, at the end of the day, a gift from God. In this fallen world, we simply cannot always bring our bodies to enjoy everything that is, in fact, made for our enjoyment. There will always be some things that are fundamentally good that our bodies will register as bad, that we just won’t like. Sometimes we can change this. Often, we can’t.

When it comes to missionaries enjoying the local culture of their people group, these dynamics are also present. Missionaries are only partially responsible for their ability to enjoy the good parts of the local culture. But much of that ability is simply the mysterious gift of God.

It’s a grace and a help when a missionary is able to enjoy the good aspects of the local culture. Missionaries labor in what some studies have shown to be the most stress-inducing roles on the planet. Along with the normal troubles of life and ministry, they must also constantly reject and navigate the dark, twisted parts of a foreign culture – and there’s often much of this in a place that’s been cut off from God’s word and his people from time immemorial. These dark and distressing parts of culture are present in all kinds of unreached contexts and seem to be especially highlighted in isolated, tribal cultures.

Yet every culture retains aspects that still, somehow, beautifully reflect the image of God. These might be the outer layers of the culture, things like food and clothing and customs. They might be the inner layers, things like values and preferences and what is understood to be real. These are the aspects of the culture that point back to a good creation in the beginning and point forward to the strengths of the future Indigenous church. These parts of the culture are worthy of delight, even if they are significantly different from the good parts of the native culture of the missionary. When a missionary is able to delight in them, his life and work will be easier. When he’s not, it’s an extra burden that he must carry.

Now, I’m persuaded that missionaries should earnestly seek to appreciate and even enjoy the good in their focus culture. I believe that the effort to do this is the natural outworking of mature missionary love and humility. If a missionary does not even try to taste and see the goodness of a culture that is, for example, more people-oriented than time-oriented, then something is likely going wrong at the level of the heart.

But I also concede that this mature posture and effort of a given missionary may not produce the desired result. A missionary may try his hardest to enjoy the local music or local cuisine and, after years, still find himself barely able to keep it down. They may labor to know and understand the upsides of impromptu house visits, but still only feel them as incredibly stressful intrusions. When this happens, a missionary has come up against the wall of God’s mysterious sovereignty as it applies to our freedom or lack thereof to enjoy his good gifts.

This is why you need to pray for your missionaries to be able to enjoy the local culture. Because a significant part of their ability to do this is not in their hands at all, but in God’s. I have a good friend who served in a neighboring country in Central Asia. This friend, a godly brother, simply hated tea, yogurt, and olives – all major staples of his region’s diet. He tried his best, but nothing he did could change these preferences. On the other hand, I have known missionaries who were strangely drawn to the cultures of a different part of the world from the time they were children. What accounts for the difference? Certainly, nothing that they did. It was a gift given or not, plain and simple.

I genuinely enjoy many aspects of our Central Asian culture. Some of this is the result of intentional effort, tastes that have been acquired as it were. But some of it I can’t explain. Why should my heart come alive in the Central Asian bazaar when some of my expat friends hate the crowded, loud, and smelly nature of it? Why should I enjoy fizzy fermented yogurt water sprinkled with dill when it makes so many want to gag? I can’t explain these things other than they are gifts that I must learn to steward well. Perhaps someone has been praying for me.

Missionaries’ lives are full of so many things that are hard, that are draining. Small as it might seem, when they are able to find some measure of delight, joy, and even refreshment in aspects of the local culture, this makes a difference in their ability to remain on the field. When they don’t just know that something is technically good, but they are free to also feel its goodness, this is a real grace. And it’s encouraging to the locals as well.

So, pray for missionaries to be able to enjoy the local culture. Pray that they would be able to appreciate and delight in all of the good aspects, even if they’re wildly different from the good aspects of their own culture. Pray for me and my family in this area as we get ready to head back to the more culturally difficult of the two cities we’ve lived in in Central Asia.

And, while you’re at it, pray for me to be able to enjoy cooked peas. If God has created something good, then I want to be free to taste it as such.

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Giving Culture Its Proper Weight

One of the interesting roles that God has given me is being the Reformed guy who tries to convince other Reformed guys that culture really does matter.

I cannot say how grateful I am for the Bible-loving, church-centered, missions-minded, theologically-robust Reformed circles that I have been a part of since college. The pushback that these circles have offered against the errors of popular missiology has been both courageous and necessary. That same pastoral and theological pushback has exposed my own missionary blindspots again and again, driving me back to the Word when I might have otherwise been swept along by the popular current.

When it comes to culture, for example, missionaries have all too often taken things too far. For example, they have taken something observably true like the homogenous unit principle – that the gospel naturally spreads along preexisting lines of culture and relationship – and made it into a prescriptive law: Serious missionaries should only share the gospel and plant churches in groups that share the same culture or are part of the same “household.” Or, popular missiology has elevated culture to such heights that it would rather missionaries disobey clear commands of scripture than risk “contaminating” the culture of the local believers with that of the missionary. In areas such as these, my Reformed, church-centered brethren have been absolutely right to sound the alarm. And I praise God that they were able to see these errors and speak up even if it meant upsetting the majority of their missionary friends.

However, the fact that culture’s role has been abused in missions often means that culture’s role now gets dismissed and discounted by those advocating for right and biblical priorities. It’s the classic pendulum swing, the baby getting tossed out with the bathwater. Or, as our Central Asian friends put it, the wet wood being burned with the dry.

Yet instead of being reactionary, we should seek to ask what kind of importance the Bible gives to culture – and to ourselves reflect that proper emphasis. If we study God’s book of creation, we will absolutely see that cultural differences exist and are very important. Indeed, entire disciplines (e.g. cultural anthropology) have arisen from studying this fact of creation. But what about God’s book of revelation?

One passage that helps us understand the weight the Bible gives to culture is 1st Corinthians 9:19-23, the classic passage on contextualization. Though even as I mention these verses I am aware that some may be tempted to tune out because this passage has been discussed in missions conversations ad nauseam. However, let me point out what a strange thing it is that we would effectively discount certain passages of the Bible because we’ve heard them referenced a lot. Regardless of whether passage feels novel or not, it’s the Word of God, and it still tells us about the nature of true reality. We must be on guard for the ways we are tempted to dismiss passages that have grown very familiar.

19] For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. [20] To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. [21] To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. [22] To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. [23] I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. (ESV)

In this passage, Paul tells us of his posture when it comes to the differences between himself and those he is trying to reach. It is the posture of a servant (v. 19). The differences specifically referenced here include belief, ethnicity, and conscience (Jew, under/outside the law, weak, etc). All three of these areas overlap significantly with our modern category of culture – essentially, that individuals and groups of people are significantly different from one another because of their underlying beliefs and external practices. But Paul even goes beyond these three specifics and lays out his broader application of this principle with his language of “all things to all people.” This means that if there is a difference that is a potential barrier between Paul and his hearer, and Paul can do so while still following the law of Christ, then he is going to bend to the preference and practice of the other. In this way, he serves others by removing unnecessary barriers. And he thereby gains a better hearing for the gospel message.

From this passage, we learn that cross-cultural interactions are opportunities for service. Biblically, the one who bends to the preference and practice of the other – when permissible and for the sake of the gospel – is taking the role of a servant.

Cultures are different. They do not come together and cooperate seamlessly. There is a necessary series of adjustments that must and will take place when someone from one culture is interacting with someone from another culture. This is happening whether we acknowledge it or not.

Especially when it comes to mutually exclusive areas of culture, you must choose one or the other. We cannot run a meeting that is time-oriented and relationship-oriented at the same time. Either we begin the meeting when we said we would or we begin the meeting when everyone has arrived. We must choose. We cannot be night-oriented and morning-oriented at the same time. Bible studies that don’t kick off until 11 pm are not compatible with a church service that begins at 8 am. We must choose one or the other. If the Westerners serve the Central Asians, our church become more relationship and night-oriented. If the Central Asians serve the Westerners, our church becomes more time and morning-oriented. Both can be good options for serving one another, depending on the way in which they take place.

If we are to be like Paul, then this act of service should be chosen, intentional, and taken on by the stronger as a way to serve those who are weaker. Too often, this fact that one must serve the other in a cross-cultural interaction goes unrecognized. What results is one party becoming the servant of the other without having chosen this. It just kind of happens. And this often means the weaker are made to serve the preferences of the stronger, simply because this is how power dynamics work in the natural world. So often it’s not even intentional on the part of the majority or dominant culture.

But Paul has his eyes open for these differences, these barriers. He knows that they can make a difference in his ability to win and save others, in his chance of sharing in the gospel’s blessings with new brothers and sisters. So Paul, doing ministry in a multicultural world and planting multicultural churches, chooses the posture of a servant. Whenever possible, he will bend towards the culture of the other. While Paul will never compromise the Word of God and the scandalous gospel message, he can bend in this way because he recognizes that not every difference in belief, custom, and conscience is a gospel issue. Jews are different from Greeks. And they can be built up into one new man even while they preserve their distinctiveness.

My contention is that in this area, as in so many others, we should seek to be like Paul. We should also recognize the cultural differences among those we minister to. And recognizing these differences, we should give them their proper weight and choose the posture of a servant as often as we can. This is especially true for those who are leaders in the church.

Now for the denials. By calling for us to give proper weight to culture, here’s what I’m not saying:

I am not saying that this means that culture is more important than simple and clear gospel proclamation.

I am not saying that cultural differences alone are sufficient for planting separate churches (though language differences are).

I am not saying that we shouldn’t try in each and every local church to show that the gospel overcomes natural human divisions.

I am not saying that you must become an expert in each subculture of your very diverse congregation in order to truly serve them.

I am not saying that it’s wrong for you to live in, appreciate, and value your own culture.

I am not saying that you must always be the one to serve others in this area. It can go both ways.

As in so many areas, to give culture its proper weight we must hold this principle in tension with other truths. I have often summarized this tension like this: The gospel serves every culture. And the gospel rules over and transcends all cultures. Both of these truths are wonderful and true and belong together. A Pauline worker is therefore one who seeks to serve others in their cultures while also planting and leading churches that create new hybrid gospel cultures.

My Central Asian friends need to glory in the fact that Jesus has entered into their minority language and culture for the sake of redeeming a remnant from it for all eternity. And they need to glory in the fact that the gospel is not just for their people, but for all the peoples of the world, even their oppressors. As they grow in maturity, they too need to learn how to bend toward the preferences and customs of others that they are seeking to reach and serve.

Now, some of us are called to study and put on another culture to a deeper extent than others. Cross-cultural church planters, I’m looking at you. But most are not called to this. Most Christians would simply be served to learn the biblical principle that they should strive to serve those who are different from them. And they can do this by learning about the cultural differences that exist and seeking to accommodate them as often as is loving. This is a very practical way to love others and small gestures in this direction often pay much bigger dividends than we’d ever expect.

“Is there anything about the way we do things around here that is difficult or strange for you?”

“How can we demonstrate respect and care for you according to the culture you grew up in?”

“What’s hard for you about being a minority in our church? What makes you feel like you don’t fit here?”

Basic questions like these allow us to become the servants of others in the practical, day-to-day love that really counts. Rather than pretending that cultural differences don’t really matter because cultural differences have been abused, we should seek to be like Paul. We should seek to be a servant of others, “for the sake of the gospel.” Yes, it takes some work to do this. But there is great joy to be experienced if we will take this posture. Like Paul says, when others are saved we’ll get to share with them in the blessings of the gospel.

So, Reformed friends, culture is not everything, but neither is it nothing. It really does matter. Let’s put it in its proper place and then take our proper place – the place of a servant.

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