The longer that I live as a missionary, the more I learn that the context of peoples' understanding is very important, if I want people to understand what I am really saying. I want to give two stories to illustrate this point. The first is personal, and the second, I heard from the late Mr. Keith Kiser, one of my professors in Bible College The story comes from the time that he was a missionary in England.
Story #1
I had only been in Ghana for about four months at the time that this story took place. It was a Sunday morning, and the morning church service had just ended, and the national pastor and I where greeting the people that had come. I was chatting with a group of men from the church, and was trying to make small talk. I had noticed that one of the men had purchased a new pair of slacks. I had learned in the four months that I had lived in Ghana, that people always like a person to notice new things they are wearing, and they appreciate a nice compliment. So with my fledgling culture skills, I launched out.
I turned to the guy, in front of all his friends which numbered about five or six people, and said; "Are those new pants, those are really nice pants!" Now, to a Mid-Westerner from the United States this is a totally normal statement. But, what I did not know was, just because it made sense to me, or meant something to me, did not mean that it meant the same thing to the people I was addressing.
After I made the comment, all the men standing around started laughing at the man! If an African could blush, he was, and he kind of pulled away a bite. Everyone started speeching in Twi, I did not know a word of Twi then. It seemed like they where really making jokes at the expense of my friend and the 'broni', that's me. Finally after about five or six minutes of humor, the guy came around, and started laughing. Then, finally someone told me what was so funny.
See, here in Ghana, we speech a dialect of British English, Patty and I like to call it, "Twing-glish". Anyway, here men do not wear pants, they wear trousers. Pants are your undergarments. Basically, I had walked up to a group of young men, put my arm on one of their shoulders and said, "Our those new underwear, they are really nice underwear!". This was one of my first lessons in contextualization.
Story #2
Keith Kiser, was a missionary and fill-in pastor in England for a few years. He related this funny story to us in one of our Bible classes. He was in his church office, doing some work and arranging some minor things around the church. He had only been in England for a short time. While in the office, his head deacon called him on the telephone. After greeting each other, the deacon asked Mr. Kiser, if he was free to talk, to which he responded, "I am free, I am just peddling around the office!" The line went quiet for a second. Then the man said, "Pastor, what was that?" To which Mr. Kiser said, "I said I am free, I am just peddling around the office!" Then he heard a laugh through the receiver. Then the man explained that in England, when someone says 'peddling", it means that they are going to the bathroom. So, after a good laugh together, they talked for a while, and then the deacon said this, "Preacher, if y' need anythin'. just give me a tinkel on the fone." Mr. Kiser burst out laughing and said, "If I cannot piddle in my office, you cannot tinkel on the phone."
These are just two of meaning stories I can tell. I have heard these stories from missionaries in Ireland, from South Africans that have visited Ghana, even country people visiting urban area in America. All these stories just illustrate the fact, that context is very important to proper understanding. Context should become very important to a missionary, if he want his message to mean to the people, what it means to him.
The point of this post, is to introduce the importance of proper context in missions. I hope to write a short series on contextualization. Though the term is long, the definition is not complex. Here is a simple definition:
Contextualization can be thought of as the attempt to communicate the message of the person, works, and will of God in a way that is faithful to God's revelation, especially as it is put forth in the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, and that is meaningful to respondents in their respective cultural and existential contexts.-David. J. Hesselgrave
Basically put, making the gospel make sense, to a person, even though their culture and thinking is very different from the Bible and the missionaries' culture. In this pursuit the missionary has not right to change the truths and facts of the Bible, but he needs to know that the starting point, method of communicating, and body language and gestures, that he uses will all have a great affect on the listeners understand, appreciation, and acceptance of his message.
The next few posts, I hope to show the Biblical ground for this thinking, use evidence from our current outreach, and try to give some practical advise about proper contextualization.
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