Cultural Preparedness... One of the Keys to Successful Mission

Few things make mission more work than a lack of cultural preparation.

That is even truer in short-term mission where you do not have the benefit of time to repair the damage that you may do by being culturally unaware.

Oftentimes what we as visitors see as a harmless activity can be seen by locals as offensive. Let me give you an example.

Years ago I was serving in the small village of Santa Rosa, just north of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico.

Our project during the visit was to get the first coat of stucco on a church that we had finished a few weeks earlier.

Our group worked hard to get the paper and then the wire all nailed, stapled, and ready for the mezcla. Soon students were busy putting the cement on the walls to make sure this church was going to be safe from the elements.

Now one of the things you have to know is that you always need at least two coats of stucco. And after each coat, you need to make sure that you “scratch” it so that the next coat can adhere better.

Normally, you will use a special tool like the one pictured here and afterwards your building will look something like this one is starting to look like between coats.

When we got done, the entire building was ready for the next coat but it was also completely covered with verses from the bible in both Spanish and English. Sometimes that happens when you are working with a group of 20 high school students.

It took the locals almost two years to tell me that we had made a big mistake during that trip. Our drawings and verses, which we had thought were just innocent fun, had been seen as mocking not only to the people of Santa Rosa, but also to God and His house!

If I had been a little more culturally prepared beforehand, we probably would not have made that error.

So with that in mind, I’d like to share a few resources that I believe will help you, your team, and your church be better prepared when you serve cross culturally, whether that is overseas, or even right in your own neighborhood in our increasingly multicultural and diverse country.

“From Foreign to Familiar” by Sarah Lanier – This little book will be a God send. Ever wondered why some cultures do things differently than you? Read this book and learn why. Often times, just knowing why things are the way they are, is half the battle!

“Culture Shock” – I have the Mexico edition, [pictured above] but this book exists for almost every country. If you want to understand the cultural clues and know why people where you are headed refuse to shake your hand, or do not cross their legs in meetings, this book is indispensable.

“Short-Term Mission Workbook” by Tim Dearborn – I have used this book for years and if you have served with me, you have been the recipient of some of the lessons it contains. The “Eight Great Questions” for effective debriefing come from this book.

“Serving With Eyes Wide Open” by Dr. David Livermore – Livermore is tough on the STM crowd with this book, but fair and his examples ring true. This is one of the most important books I have ever read on STM.

Finally, let me recommend one other resource to make sure is in your bag when you go… a Culture Gram. These little five page missives give an incredibly concise picture of where ever you are headed. At a cost of only $4.00, anyone serving without having read one of these is almost guilty of malpractice.

So there you have it. Five great resources that will help you avoid some of the cultural gaffes that are possible when you serve overseas, or in other cultures!

Want To Improve Short-Term Mission? Join Me At The Forum 2011

“Don’t worry, I’ll show you everything you need to know.” Those were the words of my pastor when I was told I would be leading the youth group on their annual short-term mission trip in 1990.

My training consisted of a shopping list for supplies and a map of where we were going. Once there, I learned how to keep locals from getting in the way of our mission, the subtleties of buying clean drinking water, and what to do when your group scares the local chickens so much they cannot lay eggs.

That was over 20 years ago and certainly many things have changed. However, too much of our short-term training is still based on a model of pray, trust God, and go!

Thankfully, through the vision of a dedicated group of leaders that included people like Roger Peterson, Wayne Sneed, and Gordy Grover, things are a lot different than they were in those early days.

In the mid 1980’s, a small group of leaders began meeting annually to try and bring a little professionalism to a then young movement called short-term mission. Over the years the group of people attending those annual gatherings became known as the Fellowship of Short-Term Mission Leaders.

I became part of the Fellowship in 2004. It has changed my life, my perspective, and my mission. There is no single event in which I participate that I find to be more important to the continued success of Adventures in Life Ministry and my mission than the annual conference held by this group.

As a leader I get a chance to interact with and fellowship with peers in my field. I can seek counsel, test ideas, and see where short-term mission is headed in the coming years. It also gives me a great chance to slow down and consider where I believe God is leading AIL Ministry in future years.

This year’s conference, The Forum 2011, will be held at Green Lake Conference Center in Green Lake, Wisconsin, October 12 – 15.

Our Keynote Speaker will be Robert Guerrero. Robert, the founder of Del Camino Network and an on field host receiver, is going to tell it like it is from someone who has received thousands of STM teams.

If you, your church, or your organization wants to improve your short-term mission, there is no better place to be. If you are a pastor, and your church is sending out short-term teams, you need to be here. If you have been wondering whether God is calling to the foreign mission field, a few days at The Forum can help you better understand that call.

Adventures in Life is better because of this conference. Please consider joining me and the Fellowship of Short-Term Mission Leaders this year at The Forum 2011.

For full details, and to register for The Forum 2011, click here!

Mission and Ministry... Is Our Approach Balanced?

You were walking through the furniture mart looking for the perfect stool. In the distance you saw one that would look great with your décor. It was the right color, the exact height you needed, and, because it was one of those do it yourself gizmos, even the price was right.

So you took the box to the cashier, paid your $39.99 and put it in the car for the drive home.

After lunch you went to work putting it together. And that’s when it hit you. No matter what you did, that stool wobbled. Because the three legs on that new stool you had just purchased were not of equal length.

This is the same problem that faces many internationally missions minded people in the field today. We are trying to make our ministry stools sit level, but the legs which support our ministry are uneven.

While in today’s world we would just return that stool and get a new one, in ministry, we need to figure out a way to make things work.

Let me explain where I am coming from.

I believe our missionary work needs to be multifaceted and balanced. Like our stool, it must have three legs that are equal, or it will not function properly.

It has become my firm conviction that as much as possible, our ministry needs to take into account not only the spiritual health of people, but their physical and economic health as well.

These are the three legs upon which our ministry stool must stand and be balanced.

It is this type of holistic ministry, that I believe holds the most promise for seeing radical transformation of peoples lives and real, faithful, sustained reconciliation with God.

Unfortunately, the church, and by extension, her missionary outreach, has been guilty of putting too much emphasis on the God leg of our stool, to the detriment of a balanced lifestyle rooted holistically in Christ.

Now, I am not arguing that we need less emphasis on the spiritual health of people with whom we have contact. I am arguing that instead of cutting that leg of our stool to match the others, we need to spend some time developing the other two legs.

We need to improve our mission and ministry so that we are able to see transformation in people's physical and economic lives, as well as, their spiritual lives.

Unfortunately, far too often this style of ministry, of seeing all areas of life as interconnected and needing God’s healing touch, is not seen as valid by many in the church today.

I serve with a pastor in Oaxaca, Mexico who had a girl die in his arms of malnutrition. When he asked his pastor friends why this happened, he was told that the work of caring for the poor was not the work of the church. We are to “Preach the Gospel. Besides, the girl was in heaven, a better place.”

I wish I could say that was an isolated response. But it is not. Today the response of many in the evangelical church is to dismiss the types of ministry and mission work that also put an emphasis on physical and economic healing in addition to spiritual healing as somehow not related to the Gospel of Christ.

We see all through the Gospel accounts that Jesus healed, and that he empowered the disciples to do so, also. We see in Acts that the early church felt it was part of their ministry to care for the poor in their communities. We also see in the prophetic call of the Old Testament that God expected His people to work and stand for economic justice.

Yet somehow, many in today’s evangelical church have decided that work on those legs of our stool is not part of our mission or ministry calling.

By neglecting these two vital parts of an effective holistic ministry model, we are effectively telling millions of people around the world that the Kingdom has not arrived for them today.

Unless and until we figure out a way to practically integrate all three areas of health, the spiritual, the economic, and the physical when we are working with people, our ministry stool will forever be like that wobbly one I mentioned earlier.

A wobbly stool is not very useful and unable to really support the fully transformed lives God desires for His people today.