Principles – A Case Study

It was in 1854 that the famed missionary Hudson Taylor commenced his ministry in China. Unlike most missionaries at the time, rather than living in a missionary compound and continuing to wear European clothing, he decided to live among the native Chinese themselves, and to adopt some aspects of their culture. This included their native clothing and hairstyle. His aim was to lessen the cultural barriers that would hinder his ability to communicate with the culture he was seeking to reach.

This is an example of someone with a high Cultural Intelligence Quotient (CIQ), which is an essential characteristic for missional endeavour, this being most certainly true also for local mission in the 21^st century Australian context.

Sadly, however, there seems to be a general, what might be called, ‘Cultural Intelligence Deficit’ in Church leaderships, i.e. failure to grapple with and truly understand the mosaic of cultures comprising 21^st century society. Cultural Intelligence is a measure of the ability to understand the times and the churning kaleidoscope of church-alien, now increasingly hostile, socio-spiritual cultural universes that Australian society has now become.

The cultural principle needed for our 21^st century mission to local communities can be summed up with this slogan –

‘Their place, Their style, Their language, Their time’

Whereas, in sharp contrast, the missional mindset of most contemporary churches is –

‘Our place (make your way to where our building is), Our style (get used to

how we like doing things), Our language (church-speak, and a level English

probably higher than yours), Our time (whether you are free or not)’

‘Their PSLT’ thinking understands that in order to make disciples in the mosaic of ‘Live, Work and Play’ micro-cultures now comprising society, Christians must leave their church cultural baggage behind and set out on a journey into the constantly shifting cultural landscapes of the twenty-first century in order to become ‘all things to all people so that by all possible means (we) might save some’ (1 Corinthians 9:22).

This means that, for the sake of effective mission, the slogan of today’s local missionary must be turned on its head to: Their place, their time, their language, their style!

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I have written about the CIQ issue in the past, but what reminded me of this vital issue when I

was observing an Unbounded Church Pub group, which I think is a good example of ‘Their place, Their style, Their language, Their time’ thinking.

This group meets weekly at ‘happy hour’ time in a local pub, and varies anywhere between 4 and 8 people, mostly older men (and sometimes women), some working, others retired. The group has developed through a process of what I call ‘drip-feed evangelism’ starting with a small group of Christians meeting at the same venue at the same time each week, and doing a simple, mostly topical and very visible, Bible study, with a short prayer time.

For quite a while, the ‘seeding’ Christians met at a table on their own, but over time conversations took place with regulars at nearby tables, who would increasingly ask what the group was doing. Eventually relationships and conversations developed, to the extent that the weekly A5 study sheet was given to the regulars which gave an opportunity for a brief conversation on the study. Which they started to take away, sometimes making comments on it the next week.

After a while the tables became one, with the believers and the regulars spending the whole session at the same table, with much general conversation and humour, but importantly, some discussion of that week’s study. The discussion at the particular session pictured was about the resurrection of Jesus.

It should be noted that only 2 or 3 members of the group are Christians, the others varying from one who is still an atheist (but coming regularly) through a range of ‘don’t-knowers’.

From this there are several very important missional principles from which we can learn.

1. Very importantly, this strategy is one way of reaching people who are never likely to attend a standard church service, which would be totally culturally alien to them.

• It happened only ‘because the group is there’, and there every week.

• It illustrates a very important missional principle, and that is the essential need for missional strategies to be shaped with a high level of cultural intelligence.

This is true whether our mission field is on the grand scale of a Hudson Taylor or our desire to reach our local church-alien community.