Make Culture your Ally

18. We begin to communicate only when we are at the cultural wavelength of

a community. We may work among an ethnic group for twenty years and yet remain an alien, if we do not develop a cultural awareness from our earliest days. But once we have sailed through the barriers, and personalized the positive values in a culture, and identified ourselves with that community, we become like Paul who made himself all things to all people for the sake of the Gospel. There are many things to learn too from other cultural groups. Certain civilizations with a non-Christian background today seem to manifest greater rootedness in the concepts of  justice, service, family cohesion, belongingness to a community, value of life, sense of the sacred, contemplation, silence, bond with nature than we might have imagined.

19. When you begin to deal with a people according to their cultural genius, you may be surprised to find an amazing response from the masses. Giant missionaries in history were adept at addressing the Gospel not merely to individuals, but to an entire society. They whispered God’s message to the soul of that particular cultural group, and the society was transformed from within and its cultural heritage enhanced.