Serving cross-culturally

This was something that happened pretty early in my ministry life. I was working with the Jesus film project in a city in South India;  supervising few of the teams there. Being a novice with no idea of cross cultural realities but full of enthusiasm and energy the only thing that was in my mind was do something for God. It was one of those days when a well known Pastor in the city approached and asked me if we can screen a Jesus film show in a village in the outskirts of the city where his church was involved in outreach. We agreed and on that day I went along with the pastor for the show. There were around 200 people who had gathered for the show and the villagers were pretty excited, that evening we saw many people coming to know Jesus and accepting Him. This was late night and after the show one of the village elders wanted all of us to have dinner in his house before we leave. We wanted to somehow get back home but to our dismay the pastor accepted the offer, so we had no option other than to follow him. 

This was a very poor village, mostly made up of daily wage labourers and the people were staying in thatched huts. On the way I tried to dissuade the pastor and told him let us return, but the pastor told me gently that it is very important that we accept his invitation and have this fellowship. I had no clue why he said that and I thought that he might be really hungry. As we sat down on the floor in front of the elders house with some dented steel plates in front of us to my horror I watched the village elders wife putting her bare hands into the rice and scooping it out onto each of our plates and then she served us some dried fish curry, I looked at the pastor, he had already started eating, I stared at my plate, I didn't want to eat that, the pastor turned to me and said, "Give thanks and eat it, or they will feel very bad that you rejected their hospitality". I by faith ate it and to my surprise that was a tasty meal. This was my first lesson on cross cultural missions, on the way back this humble man of God took time to teach me from his life and experience on how important it is for us to understand, respect and accept other cultures if we need to be good missionary. Our prejudices, views and experiences might actually become barriers for the Gospel to penetrate the hearts of people whom we are trying to connect, later I heard from the pastor that he had started a small fellowship in that same village elders house which became a church.

Another unforgettable incident that happened few years ago which has taught me invaluable lessons in “serving cross-culturally” was when we had been to an old-age home run by the Little Sisters of the poor, our desire was to spent some time there with the inmates and be of whatever help we can. As we walked into the stone building which housed the office we met with a middle aged nun who was engaged in folding the clothes of the inmates, she asked us very politely and graciously in the local language which when translated meant, “How can I be of service to you?” We expressed our desire to be of some help and she immediately pointed to the load of clothes on her table and said you can start helping with that which we gladly obliged. It was much later that we found out from another worker there that the person whom we interacted with, a few minutes ago was the mother superior of that home. We were taken aback by her simplicity and gentleness and more so with the posture of the question that she asked us, which is a rarity among the Christian leaders today, we were expecting something like, “What do you want?”  Another surprising fact was that she was not a localite but a few minutes of interaction with her made us realize that she was very fluent and adept in the local language and culture. She took us around and showed us the whole place and as we met with the inmates she had something good to say about each of them. We went back totally enriched and inspired from that experience. 

Well, you might be wondering, why am I sharing this? What has this got to do with serving cross culturally? For starters, two insights! The first thing is that by now you would have noticed that I have used the word ‘serving’ instead of ‘Leading’ which would have been more appropriate in our present power, title and position crazed Christianity. Serving is not welcome, the word servant is distasteful, menial and frowned upon. But in that Nun I found the embodiment of actual “leadership” not just in her words but in what she was doing despite having many workers to assist her even though it was a simple thing to do. Our respect for her shot up  several notches high as she modelled Christ-likeness in her own unique and simple way.

Today it is normal for us to walk into (sorry you can’t walk-in – one needs to take an appointment) church offices or Christian organizations or mission offices to find the leader's in their swanky air conditioned chamber revolving on their ergonomically designed  chairs ‘busy’ with their smart phones or Tabs. Well those are all necessary contraptions of the times that we are in now, but seldom do we find leaders who are willing to serve rather than to be served. Self-serving and self-seeking leaders who think only about uplifting themselves and their families have become a curse to the missions today. If Jesus’s call was to “leave everything and follow me” today the response seems to be “I will leave everything and follow you if you give me everything and I will cleave to everything” Seldom do we find leaders who lead the way, who show the way and walk that way. We would rather be the commander in chiefs in our cozy strategy rooms and send the front line soldiers to fight the battle and absolutely have no care whether they live or perish. If in case of the latter happening we have no qualms conjuring up few words of sympathies all the while thanking God for keeping us safe far away from the battle field. In all the four Gospels I find Jesus right at the front of the battle where the fighting was intense, serving and showing his inexperienced, brash and fearful disciples how to serve and lead. Still the irony was that till the end of Jesus’s earthly ministry they quarrelled on who was the greatest among them? Which sadly is the deadly virus that has affected us and continues to ravage the missions till date.

The second aspect was the ease at which this amazing servant of God handled the local language and culture, unless the worker hadn't mentioned we would not have even known that she was from another state yet she was perfectly at home in a foreign culture. Serving cross-culturally is a big value nowadays, there are tons of books and articles on “leading” cross culturally, but to actually serve cross-culturally one needs to ‘incarnate’ in that culture which simply means to keenly observe, study, understand, empathize with and appreciate the language and cultural nuances of the people whom we serve. Of course there are elements in every culture that do not glorify God and we need to redeem that culture to what Bible says, but ultimately it is with these unique languages and cultures that we are going to stand and sing praises before the Lamb on that day as mentioned in Revelation 7.

In missions very often knowingly or unknowingly we have forced our own culture and practices on the people we serve, sometimes it is very sad to hear Christian leaders who have worked many years in a cross-cultural environment proudly proclaiming that they have no idea about the local language or culture of those whom they are ministering, as you hear that you can clearly sense an element of pride or arrogance, lack of sensitivity and a superiority complex for their own culture. And if you dig deeper it will be of no surprise that these so called leader’s impact cross culturally on the people whom they were serving was minimal or almost nil.

It is even more of a grave danger when we see the extremes of cultural, regional and language chauvinism taking on different forms in missions and churches where we see language groupies’, regionalism or a particular community enjoying special privileges while considering others outcasts or when an organization or mission agency is identified with a particular language or community. These stand as immense barriers in serving cross-culturally and we become real obstacles for the Gospel to penetrate the hearts of people. In fact Jesus destroyed these barriers once and for all on the Cross and made us “one in Christ”, this is part of what we proclaim as the good news, but our old sinful nature resurrects these bondages and chains and puts it on the very same people whom we are serving, leaving them worse than they were before.