The aspect that needs training, more than any other, in cross-cultural workers, is attitude.
… But there is a particular perspective, a certain capacity, without which entering a new culture to bring the gospel is impossible. The requisite capacity is an ability to handle grey (anyone crossing cultures quickly learns that not everything is black and white and that categories from before cannot be used), an appreciation of diversity, an honouring of others. I am calling this Global Humility
Approach.
My book Global Humility is made up of 6 sections. I will follow the same order. For each section I will argue from three perspectives:
- Experiential/pragmatic argument: what
- Missiological argument: how
- Theological argument: why
Some key themes:
- The goal of mission is indigenous expression of ancient truth.
- In Christianity, it’s the strong who should change, and not the weak.
- Contextualisation is inversely proportional to responsiveness.
- Jesus spent 30 years listening and 3 years talking. We can’t turn up with all the answers when we don’t even know what the questions are.
- The difference between Christianity and Islam is diversity in incarnation.
