Introduction to the Missional Church Movement Contextualization

Every culture proceeds from, embodies, and tries to reproduce a certain worldview. Culture is a testimony to what we think important (our values, our beliefs, our loves) and to what we think is more important than anything else (our ultimate concern, our first love). Everyday Theology

Trialogue A three-way conversation between Scripture, Church & Culture.

“Christendom was in part, about the church at the center of the conversation.” Missional

“When we engage Scripture and our cultural contexts, it isn’t a dialogue, the church is always holding up a mirror that reflects back its own image. This ecclesiocentric obsession means that primarily we mine both Scripture and culture for our own needs.”

“We’re so preoccupied with church questions that neither biblical narratives nor culture can become the places where God addresses us and challenges us to be converted.” (Missional by Alan J. Roxburgh)

We must learn to separate the gospel from our culture. Real “Jesus” ministry is only possible when we believe we are not moving into a void, that we go expecting to meet the God who has preceded us. We don’t have God in our pockets and we don’t take God to others. Ken Shuman D.Min.

We should never have transplanted Christianity without breaking the pot in which the plant came. Transforming Mission by David J. Bosch

“From the beginning of his time in India, Newbigin knew he was an outsider who needed to listen to and learn the cultures of that vast country’s people.”

“He would do this by sitting in villages with local religious leaders and they would read each other’s sacred texts. Then Newbigin made a discovery: he needed to relearn the gospel itself. He realized he hadn’t come to India just to convert the Indian people…”

“As he lived among these people, he realized that the gospel was converting him; it was questioning some of his most basic assumptions.” Missional: Joining God in the Neighorhood Alan J. Roxburgh

“Newbigin understood & modeled the engagement between Scripture, gospel, & culture in ways most church leaders still have difficulty recognizing.” Missional - Roxburgh - page 43

The gospel is always conveyed through the medium of culture. It becomes good news to lost & broken humanity as it is incarnated in the world through God’s sent people, the church. Missional Church edited by Darrell L. Guder

To be faithful to its calling, the church must be contextual that is, it must be culturally relevant within a specific setting. The church relates constantly & dynamically both to the gospel & to its contextual reality. Missional Church edited by Darrell L. Guder

It is important, then, for the church to study its context carefully and to understand it. The technical term for this continuing discipline is contextualization. Missional Church edited by Darrell L. Guder

We must learn the skill of exegeting both the scripture & culture. Missional Church edited by Darrell L. Guder

“Paul Tillich, a leading theologian of culture, said that the best way to understand a particular culture or even epoch is to discover its greatest anxiety (i.e., the focus of a negative concern) and its greatest hope (i.e., the focus of what Tillich called ‘ultimate concern,’ or simply ‘religion’). Everyday Theology

“We begin to understand others and groups of others, then, when we begin to understand what concerns them and why.” What are their hopes and fears? Everyday Theology

Cultural hermeneutics is the art & science of interpretation.

Interpretation is not an exact science.

“The vocation of the church is to perform the practices of Christ in ways that are both appropriate to and transformative of our particular place and time.” Everyday Theology

Our hope lies not in trying to create (for instance) just an Indian Christianity but a Hindu Christianity. Transforming Mission by David J. Bosch