Contextualization

““That’s cultural””

This is the standard response when our study of the New Testament deals with first-century church practices that we no longer observe. The usual contenders are direct commands such as “greet one another with a holy kiss” or, paraphrasing, “women must wear head coverings.” The observation is not wrong, per se. These certainly are cultural practices. But putting it that way reveals a key assumption about both the Bible and church practices: that some things are in the category of “not cultural.” We fancy many of our practices are universal and immune to the dangers of “cultural relativism.” This assumption, I suggest, is wrong. “That’s cultural” doesn’t get us very far, because everything is cultural.
 
If that opinion sets you on edge, well and good. You might explore those emotions in order to empathize with the cross-cultural missionary. To come humbly into a foreign culture seeking to bring the kingdom of God to expression in contextually meaningful ways means experiencing the loss of the pat solutions “That’s cultural” provides. The experience blesses us with the realization of how much of our taken-for-granted way of life as a church community is actually meaningless or confusing in a new context—maybe even meaningless or confusing in our home context, but I digress. And the experience blesses us with the discovery of new ways of representing the good news about Jesus, ways that would not have occurred to us because they are cultural and are, for that reason, the right ways for a particular community in a particular place to say and do the gospel.
 
Obviously, sorting out the relationship between culture and gospel is a big conversation. Oceans of ink have been spilled to that end. I merely mention these concerns by way of introduction to the analysis of culture under way here in Arequipa. Without indulging in too much self-deprecation, I confess that one of our shortcomings over the last six years has been a failure to engage in significant cultural analysis. I think we knew better but gave other concerns priority. Anyway, I’m glad that the arrival of fresh missionaries affords the opportunity to address that failure. The Arequipeño churches we have planted stand to become significantly more indigenous as we foreigners learn to be more culturally appropriate and help lead the church into the freedom to express itself more naturally. It’s an exciting thought!
 
This December, with the help of Bill and Holly Richardson, the church will gather for a time of reflection and re-visioning. The foreign missionaries who set many of the church’s current practices in motion will seek critical feedback from our Peruvian brothers and sisters in order to place many of our own assumptions prayerfully under scrutiny. The recent arrivals will bring the fruit of their cultural analysis to bear as questions about the meaning of various cultural practices—religious and otherwise—and about the possibility of adopting new practices that might express the gospel more clearly from and to the Peruvian worldview. We are all so thankful that at this juncture, we share the conversation with godly Peruvian disciples. Please pray for the insightfulness of our research from now to then and for the Spirit-led discernment we will need as a community when it comes time to make new decisions. We ask God for the faithfulness and the innovativeness that service to God’s kingdom requires.

Connections

I have been attending a new church plant going on in the part of the city where we are working with the Health Initiative. They are meeting in the home of a sister from another group of Christians. This is an exciting new work. Part of the reason it is exciting is because this group meets so close to the clinic where we are working. When volunteering at the clinic I sometimes have the opportunity to speak about the mission work here in a more comprehensive manner and can invite people to come join us on Sunday nights. It’s also exciting because people from the community are coming and it’s slowly growing. We are acquainted with this other group from occasionally meeting together, and this is just another way to come alongside them in unity.
 
I would like to expound a bit on the fact that the work I am privileged to do through CUDA’s Health Initiative allows me to be connected with this new house church plant. Part of our strategy as a mission team is to work holistically in God’s kingdom here in Arequipa. Part of what that means is sharing our faith as we teach people how to prevent Diabetes. I often have the opportunity to mix the physical, emotional and spiritual in a short 15-minute conversation with someone. I really do believe that God cares about each part of us. For example, in Mark 2, Jesus heals a paralytic and forgives his sins at the same time. Later in Mark 6 Jesus feeds the 5,000 while he teaches them valuable spiritual lessons as well. If Jesus blended the spiritual and the physical, then I think we should as well. After all, why focus so exclusively on the spiritual while every other part of the man suffers? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to do it that way. Yes, the spiritual part of the man is the most important, but the other parts of a man are still important and still a part of him and all parts are interrelated. It’s amazing to see God working in this way. I certainly didn’t plan for this church plant to start up so close to the clinic, but it is a blessing and an opportunity.

Life Transformation Groups

The whole church has recently celebrated the start up of Life Transformation Groups, where everyone has a group which they meet up with to read the Bible and pray. In this regard the church has tackled the challenge of sacrifice, commitment to each other, and deeper knowledge of the Bible.

I have been blessed to meet with Alfredo and the time reading the bible together has reminded me of the usefulness of taking time simply to read together. My heart has been equally challenged and encouraged from the time. Solely taking time to be together is clearly an essential aspect of being a church family, to allow for the opportunity to share and grow together. The brief time we have been meeting to read through 2 short books (Ruth and Titus) together has impacted me, greatly. I‘m looking forward to seeing the continued impact of an entire church sharing in the maturity of reading the Bible together frequently.

Life Transformation Groups

A few weeks ago our two house churches divided up into Life Transformation groups (LTGs). These are groups of two to three brothers or sisters that meet once a week for an hour or so to read, pray and be accountable to each other. To quote one of our team’s favorite theologians, Greg McKinzie, the essence of LTGs is to “read Scripture repetitively and pray together, particularly for those they hope to evangelize” and the goal is a “high level of integration”.

For myself, having been in Arequipa just for the past four months, the life transformation group with Anita has been a multiple blessing. It is, first of all, a spiritual blessing. Additionally, it has also given me the opportunity to spend intentional and quality time with her. It is allowing me to get to know her a little better each week in a comfortable setting with no tasks to check off a list or a specific agenda to follow (apart from reading Titus and Ruth as the other LTGs are doing). It gives me further glimpses into the Peruvian culture and how the word of God speaks to Anita specifically.

We ask that you join us in praying for Arequipa’s LTGs. We pray that through these small groups, we may all grow closer to our Father, grow closer to each other and learn to more deeply and fully commit to one another.