Drowning in the Shallow End: How Cultural Attachments of Yesterday Are Diminishing Our Effectiveness Today

Evangelism in a postmodern context is predicated on listening well.

Ask any veteran of the international missionary world and they’ll likely be happy to tell you what one needs to do to see success. Among the many skills they’ll mention, one theme will bubble to the surface over and over again: you must to be a humble learner.

Bearing fruit in an unfamiliar context is predicated on your ability to enter the culture and learn the indigenous rhythms, significant symbols, inherent assumptions, and distinctive worldviews. Conversely, the best way to guarantee failure is to assume that local culture is inconsequential and messianically pronounce your omniscient perspective.

Language limitations tends to be the great equalizer. It’s hard to be smug when you can’t even locate a bathroom. Yet the hubris of an uninformed pomposity hasn’t deterred some from forcing models, pet theological constructs, and ecclesiological preferences on cultures of which they understand little more than a few Wikipedia factoids.

Wise missionaries understand that years of humble learning are essential to effectively embed the gospel in an unfamiliar context.

Perhaps that’s the challenge with North American evangelicalism—we actually believe we’re native authorities. Surely, those who were raised on this soil are positioned to speak and lead with unquestionable credibility, right?

There is significant evidence to suggest that we shouldn’t be quick to pronounce ourselves as cultural experts.

Four reasons why we may not be as prepared as we think we are:

First, the culture in which we now reside is vastly different than the one most of us were born into. To those familiar with a day when Judeo-Christian values were assumed, the North America we now know is a foreign land ...