Abstract
Missionaries have worked hard to carry the Good News to the far corners of the world with the desire to preach and model the gospel and to bring the nations to Christ. One of the greatest challenges to making disciples is ministering in a relevant, cross-cultural manner. I have traveled to many countries with the goal of doing kingdom work. Occasionally, I see real success. This is, in large part, because of intentional seeking to understand the nationals, their culture, and attempting to walk with them. This book is very helpful in recognizing the different levels of identification with local cultures to live and to present the message in a contextualized and transforming way.
Section 1, “Share your Life,” focuses on walking alongside disciples and modeling what one wants disciples to be. We often enter each new culture seeing and interpreting everything through our own framework and experiences. “It is helpful to think of this journey as being like people walking along a road together” (6). There must an emphasis on our intentionality, obedience, and multiplication, which are biblical and transformational. We need to analyze forms of communication that are most appropriate—oral and/or written, lineal or circular reasoning, and the role of the narrative, storytelling. We also need to emphasize groups and not just individuals as we often do in the West. Groups are very important in every culture. This section forces one to stop, look, listen, and learn before acting. Building relationships takes time, and this is an investment in learning the language, and sharing life together for successful discipleship.
Section 2, “Listen to Disciples,” reemphasizes learning to understand the culture, having a respect for the local culture, taking the concerns of the disciples in a serious manner and recognizing the spiritual warfare in which one is engaged. This takes a good deal of time, commitment to care deeply for the nationals, and to walk closely with the power of God.
Sections 3–5 are more detailed about relationships that are transformational, helping the disciples find identity through belonging to Christ but not abandoning their own culture. Contextualization of the gospel, the community of faith, and both the message and methods will result in lasting and fruitful disciples. The final chapter addresses the turning over to the ministry to nationals and moving on.
This book is not complex, but is realistic and relative to the mission of the church down through the ages. Rolland Allen’s Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours? is a classic for all missionaries since its publication. Likewise, Evelyn and Richard Hibbert’s book has a classic appeal to help us to see how we can best be making cross-cultural disciples wherever God leads us to do kingdom work.