Tomorrow evening we’ll board the first flight of our return trip to Central Asia. Yes, tomorrow! A lot has taken place in the last few weeks and the fast-paced developments have shifted us into quick-move-the-household mode and prevented me from writing as much as I would prefer.
In short, all of the sudden we are nearly fully funded. Many generous friends have come together to provide enough support for us to get the green light to buy tickets so that we’re on the ground a full two days before our kids’ school starts. The very last piece that we are working to raise is 14k for our vehicle (If you can help with this one-time need, let us know!).
In the meantime, we’ll be making use of our city’s over-abundance of taxis – and hopefully getting into some good conversations with them. You never know what kind of conversation you might fall into with a Central Asian taxi driver. Sometimes they may teach you some classic Central Asian poetry lamenting the pharisaical tendencies of Islam:
A wish for the days of homemade naan In a thousand homes, a pilgrim only one Now for all, “Pilgrimmy pilgrim” is claimed But pilgrims they’re not, nor their bread e’en homemade
Or, they may take things in a more political direction, complaining about the corruption in their government or telling me who they would vote for if they were an American citizen (Our taxi drivers strongly favor Republicans). Many will also ask if we know how they can get a visa to the West or even secure an American wife. That will be a negative on both fronts, my dear driver.
Somewhere in there, they’ll often ask us if we are Muslims. This of course is a wonderful opening into sharing what we believe. “You know, there’s a lot of external similarity between Christianity and Islam, but at the core, their messages about how a person is saved are completely contradictory…”
I hear we may even be getting fare meters on our taxis soon, which will be a nice change from the haggling typically required before you get in one (which I am particularly bad at). Now, if we could only help them to stop driving like they’re auditioning for a Central Asian version of The Fast and the Furious.
During an especially harrowing taxi ride through the mountains some years ago, I leaned over to a wide-eyed friend visiting from our sending church and hollered, “Times like this make you glad to be a Calvinist, eh?” Needless to say, the best of all possible worlds meant that we did indeed survive that ride, in spite of several close calls with oncoming semis. That same friend is now supporting us as we go back. I have a suspicion the taxis have something to do with this.
How did a post that started as an announcement of our return to Central Asia turn into an exploration of local taxis? I am not completely sure, yet here we are.
Tomorrow we get on a plane and so conclude twenty two months of transition. We came back from the field in late 2022, pretty certain we wouldn’t be able to return. Now, because of God’s kindness to us and the faithful friendships of so many brothers and sisters, we are not only going back, but are excited to do so. We covet your prayers.
As for the writing, I am excited to continue. Moving from one world to another is always a special time of being able to temporarily see things that will soon be overlooked as normal. I’ll be keeping my eyes open for these little glimpses of the absurd and the delightful.
And, more likely than not, a post or two will come from a particularly interesting conversation with a taxi driver.
If you would like to help us afford a solid set of wheels for driving around our corner of Central Asia (14k needed), you can reach out here.
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
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!
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
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.
If 22 more friends join us as monthly supporters, we should be 100% funded and able to return to the field! If you would like to join our support team, reach out here. Both monthly and one-time gifts are very helpful right now. Many thanks!
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
This is the story of the one and only exorcism that my parents performed while they were Baptist missionaries in Melanesia – at least the only one that they were aware of. We’ll have to wait til heaven to find out what other spirits may have been driven off unawares as my parents went about their normal missionary work of sharing the gospel and strengthening young churches in the Melanesian highlands. Given how dark and pervasive the worship of the spirits is in that part of the world, I for one would not be surprised to learn in eternity that much more of this kind of warfare was going on than was obvious and visible at the time.
One of the areas my parents worked in was about a half hour’s muddy drive up a mountain from where we lived – when the road was open and clear, that is. At one point, tribal fighting had broken out. In a bid to keep the police from burning down the warring parties’ grass homes, the locals had burned enough of the planks in the one bridge that crossed the river into their area to make it virtually impassable.
For a while, my dad went into the area on his own, to avoid putting our family at risk. He’d ford the river on his motorbike in order to still be able to preach Sunday mornings in the church plant. The river was just shallow enough to do this, although it was full of large river boulders – just as the road itself was shot through with large boulders, rocks, and ruts.
After the fighting settled down, I clearly remember us fording the river as a family in our 1980s Hilux truck and often getting stuck in the orange clay-mud on the far bank. We were regularly dug out by crews of kind villagers who placed large stones and grass clods under our spinning tires and pushed, laughing and knee-deep in mud, until our truck sprang free. This kind of thing could turn a thirty-minute trip into one that took two hours.
At times, my parents would bring their own wooden planks to lay across the bridge’s steel beams so that they could make two temporary tracks for our pickup to drive across. Eventually, the rainy season washed away all the soil on the bank attached to our end of the bridge, and we were back to fording the river.
This area of the highlands was deeply animistic. The people were still largely in bondage to the fear of the spirits of nature and of their deceased relatives, but a veneer of Christianity had been painted over all this by different groups. The Catholics and Seventh-day Adventists had claimed this particular area as their territory. At one point, an aggressive crowd of “Skin Christian” (so-called by the local believers because their Christianity was only skin-deep) Catholics and SDAs surrounded my dad, angry that the Baptists would dare to do ministry on their turf.
One of the regular attendees at the church plant was herself from one of these Catholic families. She went by the Western name of Janet and she was so faithful in her participation that my parents thought she had likely come to faith under their teammates who had begun the church plant.
One day, my parents had stopped to pick up Janet on the way to the church when her family told them she was ill and not able to get out of bed. Janet’s family had requested my parents to come see her on our way back from church. Unalarmed, they continued up the mountain to the church.
Once there, Janet’s friends at church told my parents how scared they were for her. Janet wasn’t just ill. Evil spirits had taken away her ability to speak. For some reason, one evening she had gone down to what was believed to be a dangerously spirit-infested part of the river, at the forbidden time of dusk. This was the same time of day and part of the river where her grandmother had also been attacked by spirits, losing her ability to speak and also to eat. Janet’s grandmother had quickly died afterward. The terrified church folks believed that Janet would suffer the same fate. The Catholic prayers and exorcism with ‘holy water’ had accomplished nothing. The other traditional tribal remedies had also been for naught. Could my parents – the Baptists – do anything to save Janet’s life?
My parents hadn’t been in the country long and had never faced a situation like this. They had thought Janet was a believer. How was this possible? Over the next several hours while the jungle cicadas screamed and my dad tried to preach over them, my mom prayed fervently. Afterward, we all drove part way down the mountain to the hut where Janet was living. My parents, not sure of what they would encounter inside, left us kids in the truck with some other local believers who were getting rides back to the area where we lived.
Going inside, my mom and dad saw Janet and began to try to speak with her. Janet could understand them but confirmed through nods and signs that she was completely unable to speak.
So, my dad got out his Bible. Not completely sure of what was going on, but knowing that evil spirits have no power over those who believe the gospel, my dad turned to one passage after another that proclaimed the good news about Jesus and about those who believe in him. He finished with 1st John 4:4, “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
My dad asked Janet if she truly believed the gospel message that he had been reading to her from the Bible. She nodded yes. So, my dad told her that if that was the case, then according to 1st John 4, the Holy Spirit now in her was more powerful than any evil spirit that had caused her inability to speak. He told her that he was going to pray and that he wanted her to repeat after him. Janet nodded a willingness to try this.
The small group together in the hut bowed in prayer. My dad prayed the first sentence and waited.
Then, Janet repeated it after him.
As my dad continued to pray, Janet was able to repeat every line of the prayer after him. The power that had stopped her from being able to speak was now broken. She belonged to Jesus, so the river spirits no longer had any claim on her. My parents, the Baptist missionaries, had seemingly just cast out a demon.
Later, when Janet shared her testimony in front of the church, she shared that this was when she had truly repented and believed. Previously, she had not yet been a true Christian. If this was the case, then it makes sense that the spirits would have previously had the authority to cause her muteness – and that they would have lost that authority the moment she was indwelt by the Spirit of God.
I’ve always appreciated this story from my parents’ ministry because I believe it’s a good example of the simple power of the gospel over the demonic. My parents didn’t do anything flashy or fancy to try to release this woman from demonic oppression. They showed her Bible verses and prayed with her.
It reminds me of one time in college when I heard pastors John Piper and Tom Steller talking about one of the few times they’d been asked to intervene on behalf of someone who seemed to be demon-oppressed. As I recall, they said it involved a lot of praying, a lot of singing, and a lot of sitting together with her until she was released. These kind of activities seem so, well, normal. Yet in the spiritual realm, in the real world so often hidden from us, they must have remarkable power.Â
I believe that a straightforward reading of Scripture and church history shows us particular seasons of concentrated miracles and visible battles with the demonic. Corresponding to this, we see other long seasons where these things are much ‘quieter,’ much more subtle, going on in the background as it were.
Christians should trust the sovereignty of God regarding which kind of season and context they find themselves living in. You may find yourself in a setting where demonic oppression is much more prevalent than anything you ever saw back home. Or, it may be, like my parents, that you’re only ever asked once in your life to pray for someone who has been attacked by demons. God is in charge of the particular subtlety or in-your-face-ness of our spiritual battles. Our role is simply to trust his power and to fight faithfully where he has placed us.
Will we be ready if we are faced with a situation like Janet’s? Will we throw up our hands because the spiritual need in front of us doesn’t fit with our experience or theological framework? Hopefully, we won’t fall into the trap of thinking that we need some kind of special methodology or training in order to help someone who is oppressed by demons. We have the Holy Spirit, the one who is greater than the spirit that is in the world. We have the powerful word of God. We have direct access to the throne room of heaven. When we sing, the demons shudder.
I’ve not yet been asked to pray for someone who’s been attacked by a demon. But if I am, I plan to do what my parents did – pray, open up my Bible, and simply do what Christians do.
If 26 more friends join us as monthly supporters, we should be 100% funded and able to return to the field! If you would like to join our support team, reach out here. Both monthly and one-time gifts are very helpful right now. Many thanks!
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
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, tooconvictional 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.
If only 27 more friends join us as monthly supporters, we should be 100% funded! If you would like to join our support team, reach out here. Both monthly and one-time gifts are very helpful right now. Many thanks!
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
Where does the beginning of August 2024 find our family? Well, geographically, we’re in middle Tennessee this week, spending some time away as a family in what we hope is our final month in the US. We arrived last night after a lovely summer drive through the Kentucky and Tennessee countryside. This morning, my kids got to swim in a lake, dig in its sandy beach, and scream when they saw a snake casually swimming through the water. My wife and I, for our part, are soaking up all the greenery we can before we head back to a land where the trees don’t grow quite so tall and quite so thick.
As far as timeline, the goal at this point is still to move back to Central Asia the first week of September. Our housing runs out at the end of this month and the kids’ new MK school starts the second week of Sept. So, between those deadlines and our eagerness to get back, we’re hoping to make it on a plane first thing next month.
Financially, can this happen? We’re not ruling it out yet. By God’s grace, 75% of our total needed funds (including both monthly and one-time setup costs) have been raised. This means only 25% is left, a lump sum that my fundraising spreadsheet today tells me is just over 34K. That’s certainly nothing to scoff at, but neither is it insurmountable. We have complete flexibility at this point to raise these funds through either one-time gifts or monthly giving, so it could be as simple as twenty more friends signing up for $100 a month plus five churches giving one-time gifts of 2K each.
It’s interesting to be this close but also to know that it’s going to take a significant push to get to the goal. It reminds me a little bit of when in high school we climbed the highest mountain in our Melanesian country, a peak just under 15,000 feet tall. We couldn’t see the summit for most of the hike. Then, at last, we rounded a spur of the mountain and could finally see the peak. We were encouraged because the destination was now within sight – but it was also clear that it was going to take another couple of hours of serious hiking to get up there.
We’d love your prayers for our fundraising efforts this next month. And if any of you faithful readers of this quirky missions blog (or your churches or businesses) want to help us meet this goal, we’d love to have your partnership. For those who have already started giving, we’re incredibly grateful.
How are our hearts right now? Feeling some of the uncertainty, but also resting in God’s good sovereignty. Of course, we very much hope to make it back to Central Asia in our preferred timeline. But the Lord knows if our current plans are sound or if what’s truly best is a little more delay and transition. We will seek to trust him no matter what.
I recently heard John Piper share about joy in suffering. He called when this happens for a Christian “an emotional miracle.” We definitely wouldn’t say we’re in a season of intense suffering right now. It’s more the normal everyday difficulties of missionaries in transition – the waiting, working, combating anxiety, planning, undoing your plans, trying not to get ahead of yourself, trying to discern God’s timing and our own responsibility to bring things about. But if asked if we could also use an emotional miracle of joy in the midst of this unique season, we would say yes.
Our kids could look back on this month of uncertainty and remember Mom and Dad as distant, stressed, and busy. Or, they could look back and remember August 2024 as one of the most content and joyful times of their parents’ lives. How wonderful that, in Jesus, it really could be the latter.
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11-13)
If you would like to join our support team, reach out here. Both monthly and one-time gifts are very helpful right now. Many thanks!
For my list of recommended books and travel gear, click here.
The Spring of 2018 was a wild time. Our region’s airports had been shut down by the surrounding powers. Militias funded by foreign regimes lurked at many of our borders, meaning Mercenary Dan would occasionally call me up trying to sell me armored convoys. There were rumors the only land border still open to us would soon be taken over by the hostile central government. And all the while I was trying to manage an earthquake relief project while also co-leading a young and messy church plant.
In the midst of all of this, we had a family wedding to attend in the US. We decided to go and take the risk of getting stuck out of the country, given the fact that we had been stuck in for so long. Adam*, who was recently back in his homeland after a decade in the UK, and struggling with some of the most intense reverse culture shock I’ve ever seen, had recently decided his calling was to start an NGO focused on caring for the street dogs of our city. Right as we were leaving, he texted me to ask if he could use our courtyard as temporary housing for a pregnant street dog he had found.
My answer was an unequivocal no. We were living that year in another missionary’s furnished home, which they in turn were renting from a fiery older feminist landlady. “I would go down and join the protests, but I’m too old now to run once the bullets start flying,” she had growled once while hosting us for tea. Needless to say, we wanted to stay in this woman’s good graces.
Now, our cities do have the scrawny little street dog types so common all over the world. But we also have street dogs that are the descendants of the enormous mastiffs that have been the working dogs of our Central Asian mountains from time immemorial. These yellowish-tan dogs can get massive, sometimes as big as donkeys, with huge, solid heads and jaws you’d never want to feel the force of. They were bred to guard sheep and fend off wolves, after all.
The pregnant mama dog that Adam had decided to rehabilitate was one of these mastiffs. But as I had clearly told him no, I left town and didn’t think anything more of it. Little did I know that while we were trying our best to cross a bottle-necked land border without being turned into cigarette smugglers, Adam had decided he would risk it anyway and lodge his pregnant canine project in our courtyard. After all, he thought, what could go wrong? It would only be for a few nights until a better situation could be found. The poor girl was pregnant and needed to be taken care of.
A couple of weeks later, we were wrapping up our short trip to the US and scheming for how to get back in-country when I got the message from Adam.
“Hey, bro! Glad you’re coming back soon. Hey… I have some bad news. The pregnant street dog ate your house… Sorry.”
I read the message and understood the individual words, but did not understand the actual meaning of the sentence. The pregnant street dog ate my house???
I got Adam on the phone as soon as I could. It was then that I learned that he had put the dog in our courtyard even though I had told him not to. That was bad enough. But apparently, the dog had been either really hungry or really frustrated at being cooped up because she had proceeded to scratch and gnaw two huge holes in the house’s front siding. The external walls of the house were made of cinder blocks covered in a thick layer of styrofoam, itself covered by a small layer of hard coating. This kind of siding was a newer attempt in our area to keep the cement blocks from absorbing so much of the summer heat and turning the house into one large oven for humans.
As Adam did his best to drum up sympathy for his trespassing and destructive guest, I remembered from a random childhood experience that styrofoam was technically edible. Perhaps the dog had gotten some pretty crazy pregnancy cravings, and, unable to satisfy these, had gone for the only somewhat-edible thing around. The size of the dog meant it had no problem breaking through the few millimeters of hard coating so that it could get at the styrofoam underneath. What its ravenous activity left in its wake were two large round areas of exposed cement – scarred with massive claw marks – framed by a bright white border of crumbling styrofoam. From the pictures Adam sent me, it was like someone had taken a shotgun to the front facade of our house and left two big holes the size of small doorways.
The landlady was going to kill me.
However, there was nothing to do other than begin the long trek home. After three flights, two overnight layovers, a four-hour bus ride across the border, and a seven-hour drive back to our city, we finally rolled up to our house. My wife and I surveyed the damage.
In the midst of what had been bright tan-colored siding, two roundish, dark grey cement scars glared out at us. As we stared, the wind blew, causing the courtyard to swirl with little styrofoam bead tornados. A plastic yard toy of the kids was over in one corner, mangled beyond all recognition. Dogzilla had indeed left her mark.
The following week was spent searching the bazaar trying to find the exact same kind of siding and color of paint so we could do a patch job. We never found an exact match (the sun fades paint and building products disappear from the market quickly) but we got pretty close. Our elderly landlady seemed disgruntled by it all, but since we paid for everything ourselves, she put up with it rather better than I expected. I did hear that after we moved out she may have been a little more open with others about her true feelings. Not at all that I blame her. A giant pregnant dog had taken large bites out of her property.
Adam, appearing very sorry for what he had done, promised to make it up for me by building us a doghouse for free some time. He kept his word when a few years later he built us a doghouse for our little black German shepherd puppy. However, Adam’s NGO for street dogs never exactly took off. Some ideas just aren’t meant to be.
As for the pregnant mama dog, Adam used wooden pallets to build her a dog house on an empty lot – which she then promptly abandoned. Alas, she was wild and free, a descendant of the great mountain dogs of old. Even though she was with child, she would not be constrained to human notions of domesticity. She would do what was necessary to maintain her freedom – even eating chunks out of the sides of houses.
There are many sentences I never expected to hear as a missionary. But among the most surprising has to be the one Adam sent me that Spring morning:
“The pregnant street dog ate your house.”
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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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The first sermon I ever preached was to a bunch of Melanesian inmates serving time for murder.
Uncle Mike, a missionary friend from a charismatic evangelical background, had a ministry at a nearby prison, the one the provincial government designated for hardened killers. Although, you’d never know this from visiting these prisoners and worshipping alongside them at the services that Uncle Mike conducted. On the contrary, in spite of their hardened muscles and cut jawlines, the inmates seemed kind and respectful and even humble. Yet each person there who wore the faded blue and red uniform had murdered other human beings – crimes that were most often carried out with machetes, homemade shotguns, or more powerful weapons smuggled in from neighboring countries.
However, I learned from Uncle Mike that a small group of these prisoners had professed faith and a new church of sorts was forming within the prison. In addition, many others were also willing to gather for a service. This was prison in Melanesia, after all, so there wasn’t that much to do anyway.
I visited this prison with Uncle Mike and his family several times during my senior year of high school. I was glad to tag along, to observe the ministry, and to try to get into gospel conversations with the inmates who were willing to talk. But I never expected to preach. So Uncle Mike’s request came as quite a surprise.
“Hey, A.W.! Would you like to preach when we visit the prison on Easter Sunday?”
“Um… preach?”
“Yes! Preach. Preach a short sermon. I think you’d do great.”
“Uh… okay. But I’ve never preached before.”
“Don’t worry about it, it’s Easter! Just preach the gospel.”
And just like that, I had accepted my very first preaching engagement. I decided on 1st Corinthians 15, verses 12-28 if I remember correctly. Uncle Mike had told me to preach the gospel, and it was Easter Sunday, so I thought a straightforward text on the reality and importance of Jesus’ resurrection would be a good way to go.
I remember very little about the content of the sermon itself. I know that at that point I hadn’t received any training yet on how to study for, organize, and then actually preach a sermon. But I took to my task with all the gusto of a confident 18-year-old who has been filling his head with Passion sermons and missionary biographies.
I do remember including a bizarre illustration that I had recently read in the local newspaper. Some farmer in our region had successfully performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on a chicken (so, technically mouth-to-beak?) and the chicken had – amazingly – come back to life. I included this illustration in an attempt to contrast near-death experiences and resuscitations with the resurrection of Jesus. “The resurrection of Jesus is categorically different from what happened to this chicken!”
Needless to say, the lackluster response from my audience of convicts did leave me wondering if perhaps they didn’t find the story about the chicken CPR quite as funny as I did.
As I wrapped up my sermon in the local trade language, I leaned on my Baptist upbringing to transition to an altar call of sorts.
“With every head bowed and every eye closed, I want you to think about the good news you heard today about the death and resurrection of Jesus. And if anyone here wants to believe and be born again (literally “to turn your soul/stomach” in the local language), then just raise your hand. No one is watching you, every head bowed and every eye closed, just raise your hand.”
At this point, Uncle Mike thought it best to intervene. With all the fire of a veteran charismatic preacher, he cued the worship leader to begin banging the guitar, strode up next to me, and proceeded to bellow to the crowd,
“Jesus didn’t suffer and die in private! Jesus suffered and died in public! So, if you want to repent and follow Jesus, you need to do so publicly! Don’t be ashamed of Jesus! No! You stand up in front of everyone and give your life to Jesus! Open your eyes and come up here and follow Jesus!”
As the believers began singing and Uncle Mike kept hollering, I just stood there, a bit taken aback, though not at all upset that Uncle Mike had deemed it best to take over the invitation part of the service. In fact, at that point a full dozen men suddenly stood up, came to the front, and were now being prayed for by Uncle Mike as he laid hands on their heads, shouting out his confident prayers. He motioned for me to do something similar with a couple of the other men who were now kneeling on the packed dirt floor in front of me. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but if these men wanted to pray to follow Jesus, then I was all in to try and help them do so. I kneeled down next to them, walked them through a basic gospel outline, and prayed with them.
Afterward, the inmate who was the leader of the prison believers came up and thanked me publicly for preaching.
“And I think,” he continued, “this was maybe the first time Brother A.W. has ever preached.” He said this last part with a hint of a smile, just enough for me to pick up on the fact that it was probably a pretty rough sermon to listen to, all things considered.
I left the prison that day very encouraged. Not necessarily that my sermon had been good or powerful, but that God had used it in spite of it all. How had it happened that after a haltering, first-time, chicken-CPR, second-language sermon from a scrawny white kid, twelve hardened murderers had wanted to give their lives to Jesus? The answer, I realized, must be in the gospel itself, in the power of the Word of God.
After lunch at Uncle Mike’s that day, I picked up a missions magazine from his coffee table. There was an advertisement inside it for Christians to spend six months to a year in an Islamic Central Asian country, sharing the gospel.
“Huh,” I thought to myself, “Now that sounds really radical. Maybe someday I could share the gospel somewhere like that. Although, Muslims kind of freak me out.”
Little did I know that two years after that sermon, I would be in that very Central Asian country, taking part in the same program I saw advertised in the magazine that day. And just like in the prison, I would see God take some very imperfect evangelism and do something with it that was downright astonishing.
I’m so thankful Uncle Mike gave me a chance to preach in the prison that Easter. That first sermon may have been the worst one I’ve ever preached. But it’s the only one where I’ve seen a dozen men stand up and want to give their lives to Jesus.
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This video from the Great Commission Council seeks to define hermeneutics, the study of how to rightly interpret the Bible. Proper hermeneutics is vital for faithful missions, not least because the way we use our Bibles is how the local believers will come to use their Bibles. However, many of the most popular missions methods out there model a sloppy use of the text, seeking to ground methods in the Bible in ways that just don’t fit with the genre or intent of the passage. Therefore, one of the most important things we can do to see sound missions methods on the field is to train missionaries in how they should and should not get their methods from the Bible – to train them in sound hermeneutics.
We will be fully funded and headed back to the field when 33 more friends become monthly or annual supporters. If you would like to join our support team, reach out here. Many thanks!
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