Together We Stand on Commn Ground

A very interesting evening yesterday thinking about the cultural context for mission. What thing are fundamental to the Christian gospel and should not be changed, and what should be adapted as part of mission? Hudson Taylor adopted Chinese dress, and there was great controversy. How do we reach across the cultural barriers in England today?

Pastor Wiseborn of the Church of Pentecost shared Revelation 7:9ff. Wiseborn shared his vision that a day is coming when we shall be a multitude of people from different nations, tongues etc, worshipping God together.

He then spoke of the Ghanaian church where his own church was authentically Ghanaian as against an imported (my word) style e.g. Anglicanism. The Church of Pentecost was founded by someone from Northern Ireland. He contextualised the gospel, as Jesus did in becoming a man. There had been great growth as a result. As major denominations had gone down a similar course more recently they too have known growth.
Hence for example we need to sing songs that have a contemporary ring. Otherwise, people will say that church is boring.

This means we all need to make sacrifices, all give up things we value. We will do this better as the black and white churches learn from one another The white church is good at bringing care, the black at speaking to the spirit. We need to have both together. We should seek to bring our strengths together, which will help us understand our cultures and reaching out.

Thus an African is from a status-related culture. Hence we need to value them by quickly giving them a role in the life of the local church.

Revd Philip Jenson (from Ridley hall Theological College, Cambridge) spoke about what he has learned through the Old Testament, his specialist field.

1. Corporate v Individual. We are a very individualistic culture. The African culture is much more corporate, as is the Old Testament.

2. Suspicion v Trust. Westerners are very suspicious of everyone and everything, because there are so many things around. Thus the English come across as cold. But any strength also has it's dangers. We need to learn that God made the world good.

3 The Psalms - these include laments and praises. We perhaps need to recover the laments since so many lives are full of hurts and guilt etc. Need both cross and Resurrection - Praise and Lament.

I then concluded by thinking about how we deicide what is essential and those things in which flexibility is needed. The Book of Acts gives us good examples. The Christians, in struggling with these things, valued:

a. The Scriptures, inspired by God. In being obedient to the scriptures we are part of the Community of Faith over time
b. The Works of God. In Acts these included e.g. the gift of the Holy Spirit to Gentiles. The work of Christ is obviously central, something which they would have taken as read
c. The Present Community of Faith, as we take counsel together, seeking prayerfully to rely upon and listen to the Holy Spirit at work in our midst.