Context not culture

Preparing to go into missions you talk about cross cultural adaptation. Have traveled on missions trips in the past, you have an idea of cross cultural experience. Being someone open to relationships with people from other cultures you learn a little more. The truth is you simply cannot become one with another culture. Over time you can get close, our friends Tim and Talissa show this. They aren’t Brazilian, but they aren’t truly American any longer. The goal of a missionary is to create a third, hopefully more biblical culture. To try and take of your cultural assumptions and look more closely at the nature of the Gospel, the simplicity of God’s word. I think part of what makes this hard is what we think of as culture. Music, clothes, food, language. Going deeper we think about marriage and family practices, maybe legal issues, religion. Reading radical, which I have referred to before, he uses a word I like more than culture, context.

Context points us not just to the way people talk or dress. The way people date, get to know each other, what their wedding ceremony looks like. Context puts into perspective the context in which someone receives the gospel. The context in which they view life. It takes it deeper then culture. I can learn to appreciate and partake in the culture of Brazil, but I will never think within the context of someone who remembers daily 50% inflation, someone who remembers a time when not everyone owned a TV, when most people didn’t have cars and much more. Context makes us realize a persons culture isn’t just the make up of what a person likes and dislikes. Whether they are punctual or tardy. How they dress. Context are all the factors in their life, cultural and experiential that makes up the frame in which they receive, process, and reiterate information. This is key to understanding how to present the gospel within cultures, and more importantly sub cultures. The united states and Brazil are similar in that they are extremely multi cultural. Let’s look at 3 we interact with regularly. More closely at one.

First, your “average” Brazilian. Someone who has grown up in a nation that 25 years ago was a military state. Someone who seen a change in currency, type of government and the emersion of a large middle class. How does context apply to this. The context in which someone lets say over 50 hears the gospel. They grew up likely catholic, religious and formal. They didn’t have much stuff. They seen as an adult a change of government, currency and economy.

What about a 25 year old. They were a kid when things began to change. They heard first hand all about the past. They experienced the growth with much less of the hardship. They likely have a better job then their parents, college education and had more stuff. However they likely didn’t have school books as a kid and had to copy everything off the board. Remember the times when the middle class didn’t have all the extras.

How about a kid. They have no memory of the past. They may not even here stories because their family has likely moved on and is caught up in the pursuits of middle class materialism. All of us from the states understand. They go to school, go to sports, watch TV, play video games. Things their parents and Grandparents didn’t experience.

All three of those groups are from one culture, have similar thoughts on music, entertainment, dress, love but have very different views of the world. Think in very different ways.

Now lets look at the tribal people who come to our house looking for food. I don’t even begin to understand their culture so I will just point out a bit about context. They live outside the system. They aren’t particularly claimed by the 3 countries that come together here. They grew up on the streets. They don’t speak the language. They are isolated in the midst of a million people. They are raised up within a culture that doesn’t function in the world around them. They are a dying people. No country, manipulated for the gain of the government agencies that are supposed to protect them. Exist off what they can find. It is like they are stuck in another dimension.

Finally the favelas. They are Brazilian. They have largely influenced the culture of Brazil. In music, dance, soccer and much more. They share the language, but live at a completely different level. They see death and drugs from the time they are babies. Their entire community is part of the drug trafficking trade. They will either die or go to prison one day. They are not taught to value education or hard work. I see them at the prison. Friday they told us about the people they have killed. They are 15 and 16 years old. Many of them younger. Their own parents don’t value them and churches in their communities largely play on peoples desire for a miracle. Take their money for empty promises. They are not accepted by the nation which they have been a part of. Brazil is passing them by and they watch the gap widen daily.

Culture is only a part of the influence. And we can continue to break these down like we did the first group. Then we can break them down again because everyone has an individual context. This relates to us as Christians, especially us as missionaries because we are called to cross cultural and contextual barriers to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. The gospel doesn’t change. It is Jesus and only Jesus. It is the cross. It is the only hope for all people. The problem is we have drifted towards an attraction mentality. We want to draw people into our churches, have them hear and “receive” the gospel. Change to be more like us. I whole heartedly desire to see the gospel bring a value in life back to the boys at the prison. Whole heartedly believe it can and will. My job is to understand the context in which they perceive and think. In order to present Jesus in a way that makes sense to them.

When sharing the gospel with the first group, their context is to believe in God and even “believe” if you will in Jesus. The context in which I share the gospel in the united states is totally different. People reject Jesus from the beginning, may believe in a higher power but reject the idea of a judging God. They are no more or less lost the the Brazilian who doesn’t argue with Jesus and “believes”. The question is are they a disciple? The context I switch into is not to persuade them to believe but to persuade them they need to change. By the time you convince most Americans to “accept” Jesus it is a small thing to tell them to change. It is the opposite here. They likely have already been to church, prayed a prayer, got burned by a pastor and quit going.

The boys from the jail are a bit different. They likely also believe in God. May have been in the church. However we continually find they don’t understand the need for a savior. They don’t have the concept of love and relationship. They have experienced the context of gratification and meeting needs through the using of people their whole lives. The issue is not to convince them there is a God and He is Jesus. It isn’t to convince them they need to change, though they desperately do. The context in which they need to be attacked with the Gospel is in valuing life. They don’t value life here or later. Our plea of accept Jesus and don’t go to hell has no value to them. It is out of context. They need to see there is value in life because God created it and placed value there.

The tribal people. I honestly don’t know. They don’t value possessions, houses, family in the way we do. They simply exist as near as I can tell. Context relates to them in the sense that if I want to present God to them within context I have a lot of learning to do. We desire to reach them but have no idea what will have an impact on their hearts.

The pastor who wrote Radical challenges us to spend 2 weeks a year out of our context. I love it. There are other contexts from us across the city, across the street. All over. I want to put the gospel in a context people will receive. Not try and get them to come to a church that is outside of their context. Create groups of disciples within one context who grow together to reach out to others. We, global we, can’t expect to change the world and to see all groups of people come to know Christ if we don’t actively reach outside of our context and learn about someone else's. We can’t expect what meets our need and grows us to grow all others.