Strategies: The Incarnational Missionary

By Bill Commons

Most people are ethnocentric, believing their culture superior and finding other cultures "quaint" or even "alien." New missionaries inevitably arrive on their fields feeling strange and out of place. They struggle to accept and respect their host culture and often wonder why "these people don't do it right."

When Sharon and I arrived in Hong Kong as new missionaries in 1967, we were confident of a good adjustment. We had trained in missions during our graduate studies and had read all the "right" books on culture. We knew all the answers before we even learned the questions.

Since Western education is primarily cognitive, we were unprepared for the emotional process involved in cultural adjustment. We were blindsided by periods of depression and emotional exhaustion during our first four years of Cantonese language study. Learning to eat chicken-foot soup and other Chinese delicacies was at first daunting. Many local customs puzzled and confused us. We struggled to understand why people worshipped man-made gods and ancestors, why they built ornate houses and vehicles out of papier-mâché, only to burn them. The drive for money and financial security seemed even more blatant than in our materialistic homeland.

I can laugh now, but my sermons during those early years were sadly more American than biblical. During a marriage seminar with university students and young professionals, I preached that wives should keep themselves slim for their husbands, not yet realizing that in the host culture a wife's plumpness is valued as an indication of contentment and prosperity. A skinny wife indicates husbandly neglect or overwork!

Incarnational Ministry

Exported American values and worldviews often infect missionary teaching. When we pray for missions, we should ask God to cleanse us from our American ethnocentrism lest the gospel be confused with Western culture. ABWE's objective is "incarnational ministry"-following Jesus in His total identification and immersion in the Jewish culture where He came "in the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7).

Paul follows Jesus' example in 1 Corinthians, "And unto the Jews I became a Jew, that I might gain a Jew.To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak; I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some" (9:20, 22). Paul identifies with believers of all cultures, both Gentiles and Jews, and is a keen discerner of the conscience issues at stake in cultural practices, such as the Corinthians' eating of idol's meat.

Like Paul, we should seek to respect and accept local culture in every way that does not violate Scripture. Unless we model how the Christian is to live, contextualizing the gospel in every culture, we are guilty when our teaching is condemned as "the foreigner's religion." Our goal should be to communicate the relevance of the gospel.

Incarnational missionaries not only love their Savior with all their hearts and want to share His good news with everyone they know-they adopt the culture and people as their own. God give us more international ambassadors for Christ with this kind of commitment to love their adopted people and culture in the name of Jesus!