Module #10 How Shall They Hear ? galen@currah.info

1. Module #10How Shall They Hear?galen@currah.info

2. 9 Key Concepts • Culture (and cultural difference) • Worldview • Cross-cultural communication • Ethnocentrism • Contextualization • Redemptive Analogy • Deep-level conversion • Power Encounter • Orality

3. 5 Assumptions Humans do not discover the Good News about Jesus; it must be disclosed to them. That Good News is more than information; it includes an invitation to know God. The Good News can flow easily withina culture, but it does not easily leap cultures. God converts folk within their culture, and Jesus’ disciples can learn to obey Him in ways that ‘redeem’ their culture. Our task entails helping others hear God’s call.

4. Cultural Onion • Behavior: What to do? • Authority: Who says? • Experience: What happened to me? • Belief: What is true, real? • Value: What is bad, good, best? • Emotion: How to feel?

5. Culture is to us as the sea is to fish.

6. Worldview Beliefs about… • What is real • Who are we • Whence we came • What causes things to happen • Who or what is alive, present, powerful • Who are the invisible and what do they do • Who or what bring good, evil, joy, sorrow These unexamined beliefs determine values and behavior of those who share a common culture.

7. Cultural Difference • Cultures differ in superficial behavior, in beliefs, feeling and values, and in deeply-held worldviews. • Until we learn others’ culture, neither we nor they can share common meanings. • Ethnocentrism is everyone’s tendency to view their culture as normal and others’ as aberrant. • I withhold judgment on others’ culture and hold mine and theirs as answerable to God. • Those from different cultures will ‘clash’, often over beliefs about purity and pollution, clean and dirty.

8. Major Ways in Which Cultural Values DifferGjeertHofstede, Culture’s Consequences (1997) • Individualism – communalism. Does one take decisions to advance his own interests? Or the interests of his family, team or colleagues? (Personal motivation) • Task driven – nuture driven.Do folk feel they must accomplish work, plans or projects? Or do folk feel they must provide for the needs of others? (Group motivation) • Far – near power distance.Do leaders and followers agree that leaders should remain aloof of followers and take independent decisions? Or should leader consult with followers before taking decisions? • High – low tolerance for uncertainty.Do folk feel they must plan carefully and follow rules? Or are they willing to let life happen and respond to new situations? • Interest in the past or in the future. Do folk look to the past for guidance in the present? Or do they act in the present to make a secure or better future?

9. Discreet and Fuzzy ‘Sets’

10. Who Can Join Our Church? Those who fit nicely into our ‘saved’ box? Those who have turned to follow Jesus?

12. 12 Signal Systems Least convincing Most conscious • Verbal • Written • Numerical • Pictorial • Artifactual • Audio • Kinesic • Optical • Tactile • Spatial • Temporal • Olfactory Least conscious Most convincing

13. Three-Culture Model of Missionary CommunicationFrom Eugene Nida

14. Contextualization Speaking the original Good News, using local signals and thought patterns, understanding their worldview. • This is best done by local folk who have cometo understand the biblical Good News. • Employing ‘redemptive analogies,’ God’s truth that is present in the culture. • Focusing on Jesus as Lord above all humans, spirits, rulers and religions. • Supportive missionaries serving as trainers who stay in the background.

15. Concept Fulfillment

16. گٞمْ تٕ جٖبَّلُ “Gëmtejébbalu” = “Believe and give yourself up” • Believe (in Islam) and give up yourself (and your wealth to someone who will intercede for you on earth and at the final judgment.) • An act of obeisance and sacrifice to a religious cleric who has baraka (power) to save you. • An analogy to faith in Jesus as believers’ only Mediator and Intercessor (1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 7:25).

17. Transform Worldview by the Gospel Story • See Luke 24:44-51 and the ten apostolic sermons from the Book of Acts. (Emphasize the risen Christ.) • Help local folk see how the original Good News story fulfills their people’s longings and hopes. • Let local storytellers recount the Good News in their own cultural way. • Keep asking God to perform acts of power and love along with telling the story. • Expect the Holy Spirit to honor Jesus Christ by convincing folk and by converting them. • Immediately receive new believers into the Body.

18. SenegambianWorldview AbsolutesDavid Maranz God. Yàllais transcendent, remote, and little concerned with, or at least little involved in, the daily affairs of his creation. To Sufi Muslims, however, the divine reality can be experienced through proper action. Universe. The universe is composed of both visible and invisible reality (to man), but the invisible is of greater ontological and causal significance that the visible. Peace. Jàmmis the idea state, and harmony is the ideal relationship of the universe. The states and relationships of peace provide the best possible well-being in human existence. Integration. At all levels of the universe, the ideal condition is integration. That is, all parts need to be brought together through interdependence, so that each will be able to play its predestined function. Destiny. Every being and part of the universe has an assigned role that needs to be filled for the satisfactory functioning of the whole. To Muslims, submitting to the divine law will provide assurance of approval on the Day of Judgement. Hierarchy. The universe is organized on the basis of hierarchies of position and power at every level and within pre-established domains. Each position bears assigned responsibilities. Power. KàttanThe universe is administered through the exercise of both inherent and derived power. Reality. All reality has two aspects: exterior and interior. This forces man both to accept and overcome his ambiguous position in a dichotomized cosmic structure. Humans. Nitis the ceremonial center of the universe; therefore, much initiatory responsibility rests upon him. Transfer. All spiritual good or evil, and abstract qualities, are transmitted through the principle of transfer, by means of the mechanism of intent.

19. Communicate at a Worldview Level • Learn and understand the local, defining story. • Identify the elements of the local worldview. • Do not try to correct their worldview, but do try to connect with that worldview. Overtime, the Bible will correct their worldview. • Start by using local, indigenous names for the Most High God. Introduce biblical names of God. • Do not limit your message to Western religious themes, but speak to local, deep questions. • As a local worldview changes, many other cultural and social changes will come about.

20. Worldview Change & Conversion • Seek not behavioral changes first, but seek change at a deep, worldview level. • Make conversion a change of allegiance tothe lordship of Jesus Christ. • The evidence of new life includes revolutionary change in worldview, in behavior and in how folk relate one to another. • Help believers find ‘dynamic equivalence,’ surface-level expressions of church, rather than adopt foreign religious forms and practices.

21. Pray for Three Kinds of Encounter • Power encounter — Jesus proves more powerful than local spirits and authorities, sometimes in a dramatic showdown. • Truth encounter — Cultural and religious myths give way to biblical accounts and the amazing claims of Jesus. • Allegiance encounter — Accepted authority shifts away from cultural and religious leadersto Jesus Christ and his commandments. Jesus cast out spirits; asked how David’s son could also be David’s Lord; invited folk to follow him.

22. Make Disciples of Oral Learners • Most folk in the world prefer to learn and interact orally, talking face-to-face, even if the can read. • Translate Scripture into commonly-used discourse forms that folk can memorize and repeat to others. • Putting biblical stories into their chronological context makes them more meaningful. • Prefer evangelizing and planting churches by oral ‘strategies’ that create understanding and lead to worldview change. • Learn to tell stories that illustrate deep change, and empower local workers to do the same.

23. Conclusion • God loves folk as they are culturally. • The cultures and languages of the Bible were flawed, human ones in which God revealed Himself. • God worked with his OT and NT people in culturally-appropriate ways. • God’s work within a culture never leaves that culture unchanged. • We, too, follow Scripture by employing local cultural forms to communicate the Good News.

24. The Lord’s Table:A deep, cultural experience with God • Which of the 12 signal systems are employed? • What does the Table mean, mentally? • What does the Table stimulate, emotionally? • What does the Table change, behaviorally? • How does the Table ‘announce’ Christ’s death? • What does the Table change in one’s worldview? • What is the place of the Table in Christian worship? • How is the Table an ‘oral strategy’? • How can the Table evangelize unbelievers?