Comments on: Church Planting Essentials – Exploring Contextualization and Deculturalization

By: Tres Crone

Tres Crone — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:22:06 +0000

Allowing only the Word of God and His Spirit to be the teacher is a new Idea not only in missions but even in a first culture work. Such counterintuitives are proving amazingly powerful, putting the viral back into the gospel. Our mistakes of the past in this regard alone are monumental. In worst case scenarios we see pagan practices with Christian labels,syncretism. In some of the best cases we see exported arguments and bias not found in the gospel. If these extra biblical plants were not put there by God or his Spirit, who put them there, or better, from where did they originate? Denomination may be the conduit, but what is the source?

By: lukas

lukas — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:15:54 +0000

great article, thanks. it is rare to hear this issue as clearly explained as this time! good job so far.

By: Cathy

Cathy — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:06:54 +0000

This is a great message, David. It says very well what we all need to hear and abide by. An extra complicating factor to the whole cross-cultural communication challenge is taking the gospel to peoples in diaspora – such as Hindus in America. How much are they Americanized? What will obedience to Jesus look like with multiple cultural influences on them, their families, and lifestyles? These are difficult to deal with, and more than ever, we have to conclude that no one approach will be right for all. Within the same family, different generations will answer the obedience question differently.

By: Eric

Eric — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 22:09:32 +0000

Thanks for your post. This is personally challenging and requires much faith that God and his Spirit are faithful to do his work, even if it seems foreign to us.

By: Bob Allen

Bob Allen — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:53:04 +0000

Your post was a "thought-stimulator" for me. I just posted on a similar topic on my new blog, <http://strategicmissionalthinkingforafrica.blogsp... and included a link back to this post.

By: Bob A

Bob A — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 03:04:32 +0000

Excellent post, David. Learning how to present the authentic Jesus within a particular cultural context is very difficult. We bring in so much of our own cultural baggage, much of which we're not even aware.