Check your bags! “There is no longer Jew or Greek” (Galatians 3:28) Every human being and country has a “culture” or many “subcultures.” by Sherron George, Culture is the way we grow up doing and understanding things. It includes a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission worker in Brazil for 31 years our language, thought processes, emotions, art, food, values, principles, sports, economy, social organization, etc. We grow up with “culture” with- out realizing it. The Protestant work ethic and Puritan morality profoundly influenced American culture in the United States. Likewise, our cultural values and attitudes continue to impact our religion. One of the early pillars of American Protestant culture was that America was a “light on the hill” with a responsibility to “enlighten” the whole world. This noble idea with religious roots led to an attitude of cultural superiority. We began to believe that the “American way of life,” the American values of freedom and democracy, made us more “civilized” than other countries. Our government began to intervene in other countries with “the big stick.” When missionaries from the United States went to other parts of the world, they took the only kind of Christianity they knew, the American way of being a Christian, the American way of worship, of Puritan morality, of interpreting Scripture, of building and organizing churches. Unconsciously, this American Christianity was “imposed” on Christians around the world. Today the majority of Christians live in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Christianity has African, Asian, and Latin American faces. When we go to other countries, we must respect, adapt to, and learn from their way of being Christian. We can share our culture, but never impose it on others. We must empty ourselves of all attitudes of superiority and control. Parables That Matter Long term mission workers telling stories about mission, in their own words Earlier this year I was invited to help facilitate and translate for a by Tracey King Ortega, conference that was to be an exchange between U.S. Presbyterian pastors a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission and Honduran Presbyterian pastors. And the point of the conference was co-worker in Nicaragua since 1999 to build relationships, to get to know each other, to understand each other better. And we would do that through an extended period of time together. We spent about four days together, and we spent time in group discussion, in Bible study, and in worship. One of the Honduran pastors that participated in this conference, his name was Cristobal, and he, like many Latin pastors, is very passionate about Christ, about the gospel, and about evangelism. And so he shared with us all these stories of how he lives his life as an evan- gelist, how he gives everything he has financially, energywise, timewise, to evangelizing, to sharing the message of God’s love with other people, and the conflict that has caused him and his family. But his passion and his commitment were so evident that it really just impressed all of us as we talked about the overriding theme of call, and how are we called, and how do we live out that call, and he was doing that every day. And so it was a real challenge for us from the U.S. to figure out, “How does that make sense in our context?” Throughout the week, we switched who was going to be preaching in our worship services. One service it would be a Honduran pastor, and then there would be a U.S. pastor, and we switched back and forth. Our final evening together, it was a U.S. woman pastor who was preaching, and she chose to preach on the call to Mary — Mary’s Song. And it was a great sermon with a lot of good messages to us about how we receive God’s call and respond to God’s call. But Cristobal didn’t hear that part of the message. All he heard was that it was about Mary. And in Central America, many Protestants identify themselves as anything that’s not Catholic, and because Mary is so venerated in the Catholic Church, the Protestants sort of steer away from anything about Mary, as to be able to distinguish themselves as a different kind of faith, that they follow Jesus in a different way. And so Cristobal’s reaction to the sermon of criticism and questioning was out of that experience of his identity as a non-Catholic. I, translating this exchange, got really frustrated with Cristobal because he wasn’t listening to this pastor. He was reacting out of his frustration or his experience, and out of his identity. And I was trying to intervene and trying to kind of fix this situation, but I was also reacting out of my own anger, wanting to tell him to listen to the message and hear what was going on. But then I just had to stop while I was translating, and I was getting a little too involved, and so I stopped, and I remembered what Cristobal had shared with us the prior three days of his 2 testimony and his life, and I realized that I couldn’t get caught up in that theological issue there, that I needed to step back and accept him where he was at, just as he needed to step back and accept us where we were Have you ever put yourself in the “shoes” at. And we were able to close that worship in further song and prayer, and of someone with a very different worldview or life experience? If you challenged by one another, but at the same time, continue to appreciate one have, think about how it felt and what you another and our faith, and what we can learn from each other. gained by stretching yourself that way. 3 Matters of the Word The Scripture teaching us valuable mission practices Jesus was a Palestinian Jew. His first disciples were also Jews. The first by Sherron George, Christians were Jews who accepted Jesus as the promised Messiah. They a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) mission continued their Jewish way of life. Like Jesus, the early Christians went to the worker in Brazil for 31 years synagogue and to the Temple and celebrated all the religious and cultural festivals prescribed in the Hebrew Scriptures. They followed the teachings of Moses and the prophets. As far as they were concerned, the only way of being a follower of Jesus, a member of the Jesus movement, was the Scripture: Acts 15 “Jewish way” with all the typical kosher foods, circumcision, and customs. It was Jewish Christianity. In his attitudes toward Samaritans, who were merely “mixed” Jews, and toward Gentiles or non-Jews, Jesus challenged the Jewish religious lead- ers. He opened the doors and commissioned his disciples to be witnesses “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). However, for the first few years the newly-born church stayed in Jerusalem and grew by adding more Jewish Christians or Gentiles converted to Judaism. The “Jewish way” of being a Christian was the only way they knew. They did evangelism only among Jews like them. However, gradually, as the leaders began to travel outside Jerusalem, they experienced the conversion and baptism of non-Jews. They couldn’t control or deny it, but really didn’t know what to think of it. Then, in Antioch, a truly multicultural church was born. It was so different from the typical “Jewish” Jesus movement that they coined a new name for the followers of Christ—“Christians.” From there, the mission movement snowballed and so many Gentiles were coming into the church that Christianity began to have a more Gentile face. Is your church planning a mission or partnership trip? When God’s People Travel Together, a three-volume guide Soon problems surfaced. Some Jewish believers started trying to impose published by the Presbyterian Church their “Jewish way” of being a Christian on Gentile believers, insisting that (USA), is an essential resource for trip leaders. When God’s People Travel they be circumcised. This Jewish custom was strange and unacceptable Together offers essential planning to Gentiles and seemed to have nothing to do with the Jesus movement. guidelines and sample forms, insightful They had been baptized. Why couldn’t they have a Gentile Christianity? tools for group reflection, Bible studies related to common trip issues, and Prefiguring Presbyterians, “Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and guidance on how to bring the experience debate with them” (Acts 15:2), and the first meeting of the leaders of a back home. To order, contact the church body was scheduled in Jerusalem. Presbyterian Distribution Service at 1-800-524-2612 or order online at www.pcusa.org/marketplace. Paul and Barnabas, the mission workers among the Gentiles, were welcomed and “reported all that God had done with them” (Acts 15:4). It was the beginning of two-way mission exchange, short trips, and communications. The problem was that some Jewish Christians were teaching new Gentile converts that they also had to convert to the “Jewish way” of being Christian with all the Jewish cultural customs. The leaders reached the wise decision “that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God” (Acts 15:19). They were not ready to go the full road and had to make a few concessions, but did accept the fact that believers of Gentile origin can be Gentile Christians and do not have to imitate Jewish Christianity.