David Devenish : Culture & Mission

World Mission:

'clan' is the word 'ethnos' meaning people group or ethnicity.

'stan' in the name of a nation means 'land'. Paki-stan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan etc. 'Paki' means 'holy' so 'Pakistan' means 'holy land'

Culture:

60% of the world live 6 to a room. Personal space is privilege of affluence.

Does relationship precede function or does function precede relationship? Every culture values function and relationship, it's just a question of which is the priority.

Jimmy Carter understood this when he was President of America. He managed to get Yassa Arrafat and the president of Israel together at Camp David. After 3 days the press wanted to know if progress was being made. 'Yes,' he replied 'we are making very good progress, we each know the name of one another's grandchildren.'

We smile at people to make them happy even when we don't agree with them. In other cultures they may lie to you in order to make you happy.

In western cultures we honour people by inviting them to our home. In eastern cultures you honour them by going to their home.

Jesus parable of the persistent friend at midnight:

In the west that parable is largely taught to illustrate the importance of persevering in prayer.
In the east - it is because of the honour of the village he responds to his friend's request. Which one glorifies God most? The persistent knocking or the man who 'for the honour of his name' will answer. God, for the honour of his name and glory, will give us what we want and need.

We are not born with a culture but we are born into a culture and we start learning it from the moment of our birth.

Worldviews:

Levels of culture:

Seen:
Behaviour -

Unseen:
Feelings -
Values - what a society thinks is important.
Beliefs - what does a culture believe.
Worldview - basic attitude to life.

Story:

Preaching in India when a group of people arrive toward the end asking the man of God to bless their water bottle so that every day they could pour out a drop of water to give them good luck.
If the preacher would have questioned their beliefs these people would have said their beliefs were Christian, and yet their worldview was still superstition paganism.

Worldview is essentially a story. You change a worldview by changing someone's story of how they see themselves.