The American Missionary

We are going through some changes at our sending church right now. They are pretty big and there’s been some big controversy over some of the issues. We are trying to reach the post-modern culture in America and we want to reach young people and children. To do so means lots and lots of changes, to the building and to the ministry focus. I wrote this during CIT and didn’t want to post it at the time, but I thought it was appropriate. So..here ya go. The American Missionary.

 

When we hear people talk about “cultures” or “cultural training,” we automatically assume it’s about another country. As if somehow, America is exempt from having a culture. America is always portrayed as the norm and everyone else has a culture and is different. Yet, in reality, America is its own culture and is full of diverse sub-cultures, just like everywhere else in this world.

One of these sub-cultures is church. Of course, within church culture, you have an even greater number of more sub-cultures! Churches are all different – different denominations, worship styles, preaching styles, age groups, ministries – the list could go on and on.

Now, if all cultures naturally change over a period of time, are churches exempt from that change? Some would argue that yes, they are. The methods of worship and evangelism worked well 50 years ago – they should work fine now. Others would say no-  in order to be affective, a church must change over time, with the larger culture it’s a part of, and look vastly different from generation to generation. Are either of these views correct? Let’s take a look.

If a church remains the same for years and years, it almost reminds me of a museum. Museums preserve things very well. But, it can be generations before new things are added that can be considered “history.” The tour is the same, the displays are the same. The information is important and the presentation is pristine, but, let’s be honest, it can get old after awhile. Only true devotees of history frequent the same museums regularly. It’s great to visit, see what’s there, maybe learn something new, but not normally is it a place for “repeat offenders.”

On the other hand, if a church decides to change completely with the times and throw out all of the old in order to appease everyone, it can appear quite syncretistic. How far do churches go to fit in and draw a crowd? Some have likened churches like this to amusement parks: there’s something for everyone. The message itself gets watered down in attempts to make it inoffensive, tolerant, and appealing.

So, where’s the balance? In dealing with any culture, the balance is in proper contextualization. I say “proper” because even here, the balance is quite delicate. Like a trapeze artist over Niagara Falls, one wrong move and it’s all over. The balance is precarious, but crucial. How do you avoid staying a museum without becoming an amusement park? The same way a missionary would in any other culture.

As much as most of us hate to admit it, and even fewer of us will admit it out loud, the methods of evangelism that worked 75, or even 25, years ago just simply do not work anymore. Our culture is shifting from being very scientific (modern) to very emotional (post-modern)…in a nutshell. Appealing to the senses is crucial in reaching this generation and possibly even the generations to come. Now, most believers will argue – and rightly so – that true faith is not purely emotions. While that is completely true, remember that God does manifest Himself in very real heart-emotions: love, joy, peace, contentment, hope, etc. The post-modern person needs to hear about a God Who is here for him today. He doesn’t necessarily need to be convinced God exists – he probably already knows that. He needs to know God is real for him now.

But, if we only appeal to the emotions and focus on giving them an emotional experience with God, we are not giving them the whole truth. Just giving them what they want to hear and what we know will draw them to Christ is not enough. Emotions always wear off. We must blend fact in with the emotion (the old with the new) in order to sustain their true faith. We also have to keep in mind that our culture is in the process of changing. Not everyone is emotionally driven, therefore, one method of evangelism and church just will not reach everyone.

Another thing that is even harder to admit is that our method of worship has changed. This doesn’t just mean music. The entire service has changed over the years- everywhere from how people dress to types of instruments played to length and style of sermons. There is something to be said about having some kind of structure, but ultimately, “worship” is not constrained or defined by any of these things. Style of music, length of sermons, types of instruments, and length of the service are not worship. They are merely to assist people in personal worship of the Lord. If you only worship on Sundays, then the meaning of “living a life of worship” has not gotten a hold of you yet. But, ultimately, does our “worship service” look like a museum tour that never changes or an amusement park that tries so hard to please everyone that no one enjoys it and someone always ends up sun burned?

Years ago, missionaries went to a new country and brought with them their way of doing things. This is why the most widely sung music in churches all over the world are English and American songs. Church, in many countries, looks shockingly similar to church in America. The buildings have steeples, the people dress up, and they sing from hymnals translated from English.

Now that missionaries are spending more time learning about the culture they are going into, they are drastically changing their methods of reaching people in other countries. People are writing their own music and worshiping the Lord in styles familiar to them. Their styles of “church dress” reflect their own nationality. Fewer foreign pastors are preaching; more merely participate and offer guidance when asked. Church buildings don’t always have steeples anymore and some, to the American mind, wouldn’t even look like a church…or even a building for that matter.

We no longer expect a missionary to change the people group he’s ministering to in order to reflect his own home culture. We expect missionaries to adapt and help form indigenous churches so people can come to know and worship God in their own way. We do, however, expect the missionary to help guide the people in Godly truth.

We define a “missionary” as someone who tells others the Gospel, correct? We also stress in America that we “don’t need to go overseas” in order to be a missionary, right? If we are all truly missionaries, then we need to do what all missionaries do:

1.     Step back and observe the (new!) culture around us.

2.     Develop a strategy to best meet this culture where they’re at.

3.     Set aside our own preconceived ideas of church as we know it and try something new.

4.     Be wary of straying from the truth and accepting things into the church that are not from the Lord, as outlined clearly in Scripture, being careful not to interpret Scripture through our own cultural viewpoint.

 

A museum, amusement park, or God-glorifying church? The choice is yours…as the American missionary.

Quick Prayer Request

For those of you who are wondering how you can pray for us…

Before we left for CIT, we thought we had the car situation all figured out. Brian’s boss helped him get a car that he could fix up, which he did, but then, the day before we left for CIT, we found out that it had more problems than Brian first realized. So, we weren’t able to drive it down to CIT after all. We had to take our Blazer, which honestly, does not do so well on gas mileage. We’re home now, and Brian is positive the car is no longer worth fixing up – it needs many more repairs than we can afford at this point. The Blazer is much too expensive to drive across the country with gas prices the way they are, and yet, we need to make a trip to South Dakota in May. That’s a LONG drive, in case you were wondering. Plane tickets aren’t even an option.

So – in a nutshell, we need a car. But, we’re only going to have it for as long as we’re in the States, which is looking like just a few more months. So, it’s not something we want to (or are able to) put a lot of money into. We just know we can’t afford to drive across country in a Blazer.

Will you pray with us about this car situation? We have seen God provide before, so we do not doubt He will provide again. He has promised to meet all our needs and He always has, so we’re not worried. We do realize that we need to ask, though. Ask with us? Thanks!

Home?

Hello everyone -

For those of you who were wondering…we did make it back to Moscow, PA, this evening. We had a wonderful, relaxing trip home. We stayed in the Williamsburg, VA, area Sunday and Monday night, did sight-seeing Monday and Tuesday morning, drove up to Lancaster, PA, Tuesday afternoon, and stayed with a friend. This morning, we visited our headquarters (the “IMC” – International Ministry Center) and spoke with the Personnel Director and spoke to the candidates going through Candidate Orientation right now and other staff at the IMC for a few minutes about our time at CIT.

While talking withour personnel director, he informed us that he has had to up our support need because of the drop in the U.S. dollar over the past year. So, please be praying for us! We thought we had about 1/4 left to raise; now it seems like we have about 2/3 left to raise.

We’re glad to be back with my folks; Gunther (our dog) remembered us which was a wonderful plus for me!! We’ll be here til probably the second week of May and then we’ll head out to SD.

We’ll keep you posted on “life” here while we raise support!

Brian’s Thoughts.

            Many of you have been asking what my opinion of the classes has been.  Today was our last day, as Lisa had mentioned.  It was an amazing 10 weeks and we learned more even than we thought possible to learn on these subjects. Looking back, I can see that all of the subjects built on each other and I am glad that we were able to come to all of the classes.  We not only learned a lot in the classes, but also in the community that we were living in here at CIT.

            There were 4 of us that were here at school the whole time and we are grateful that we were able to get to know them.  With every new class we had many new people; it was great for us to be stretched in our relationships and to really bond simply on what we have in common in Christ.  These relationships are what makes leaving here a bittersweet process.  We are raring to go and put into practice all that we have learned, but are saying goodbye to some really close friends.

            There have been things that have stuck out in every class.  The first class that we went through was the equipping class and, along with that, a “Heart of the Missionary” course (HOM) which was a devotional time.  In the HOM course, I was a reminded of who I am in Christ and what all the Gospel entails. Realizing that I am accepted in Christ and that when I realize it, I don’t have to make myself acceptable to any one else.  I realized that things like my perfectionism stem from my wanting to be accepted and Jesus provided acceptance already.  (AMAZING)  The equipping course went right along with that and reminded us that we have to become like children again.  Being children will help keep us from being offensive in our way of doing things and just be willing to learn and do things their way. They are the people we are serving and vice versa. 

Those two courses have meant the most to me during our time here, but we also took a few other classes.  The next class we took was a Language Acquisition class.  We were taught a lot of tools for the “do-it-yourself language learner” and actually got to practice what tools we were given.  I was in a group learning Cabuano; I was amazed that learning language may take time, but that I can do it.  The following class was effective teams and team leaders.  Lisa has explained her side of what happened in her team already.  My team experience was totally different from Lisa’s, but was also really good.  Our team seemed to function really well and we accomplished the task, but it was also made clear how important it is to have a common purpose on a team.  Without that, the team will not function ever as a real team, but rather just a bunch of individuals.

Today we finished our last class, which was Sharpening Your Interpersonal Skills.  It also was a great class and we learned a lot not only about ourselves, but also how the body can function.  We learned everything from good relational skills (listening, sharing, etc.), Biblical confrontation, managing conflict, taking care of stress, and encouraging.  It was great learning all of these skills in an Adult Learning environment, where you have lots of time to practice the tools you are being taught. 

We appreciate all your prayers and support getting and keeping us here. 

Thank You!

End of CIT.

Wow. Tomorrow is our last day at CIT. Time has flown by! We are deeply saddened to be leaving; it’s hard to express it, actually. We have really bonded with people here and it’s been so refreshing to be with people who are going through the same things we are…at the same time. We feel accepted and normal and that’s just been really unusual for probably over a year now. We’re going back home, but it doesn’t feel like home (sorry), and really, this will be the beginning of the end for us. From here on out, we’ll be getting ready to officially leave the States! Scary. But, we’re really ready. We feel prepared as well! We’re looking forward to putting this information to use. I’ve said that before…basically because I really mean it!

This week has been very good. A lot of it was review (things like stress and grieving), but a lot of it was brand new. Lots of really good strategies on how to curb gossip, manage conflict, confront people, and help people grieve well. We covered four different topics a day (most days), so that gives you an idea of how busy it’s been. Tomorrow, we’re finishing at 11:45…and that’s it!

However, we have decided not to leave here until Sunday morning. A friend of ours has hooked us up with a couple in Williamsburg, Virginia, who are willing to let us spend the night with them Sunday and Monday. We were hoping for a little bit of vacation time and since I love history and Brian loves wars…this seemed appropriate. And free housing is always a plus! We are spending Saturday with two of our close friends here, hanging out in Charlotte, NC, and then we’ll pull out Sunday morning. After we leave Williamsburg, we are planning on driving on to our headquarters in Lancaster County, PA, and visiting with people there. They are in the middle of candidate orientation and we have been asked to come hang out for a day, meet everybody, and talk about our experience at CIT. We have a few other meetings as well while we’re there, and then we’ll head home to Scranton. And GUNTHER! We’ve missed our dog! It’ll be so nice to see him. Oh, and my parents.

Thank you all for your continued prayers and support during these past nine weeks. We are so grateful for all of you who dropped us little notes of encouragement. Brian has half his rough draft written for the blog…he will get it done before tomorrow is out – I promise! Once we’re home, I do plan on keeping this updated so you all can keep up with our journey to Peru. It might only be four more months before we can start posting some really exciting pictures and information – from down South!