World Mission: Must Be Culturally Sensitive

CHICAGO (February 25, 2000) - Jim Gustafson may be one of the few persons in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) who can turn a simple question into a 40-minute Missions 101 lesson.

Gustafson is executive director of World Mission, spending a good portion of his time educating others about the changing face of mission work. He discussed these changes and new directions for World Mission during an interview at February's Midwinter Conference in Chicago.

A recent Knight-Ridder newspaper article stated that while the population of earth since 1900 has quadrupled from roughly 1.5 billion to 6 billion, the percentage of Christians in the world remains almost unchanged - 34 percent. Gustafson stresses the importance being more sensitive to other cultures when presenting the gospel message, which may allow the message of Christianity to be perceived in a more positive light.

"The mission field concept says we are coming in with our ideas, we are going to implement them and here is what we are going to do. It maintains control consistently down the line," Gustafson said. "Missions needs to say we affirm your ownership, we affirm your control, we come as brothers, not as fathers and mothers. And as we come as brothers, we come beside you and ask a question, not make a statement. And the question is this: How can we be your brother? Being a brother is different in every culture, and that is something that the Western culture doesn't understand," Gustafson observed.

Celebrating ethnic diversity has been the theme of the past two Midwinter conferences, and Gustafson affirms this goal as it pertains to mission. "We have to have an understanding of the rightness and dignity of that diversity and need to celebrate that diversity," he said.

But , even more than celebrating diversity, Gustafson adds, missionaries must celebrate and understand that each culture communicates and thinks in ways that are uniquely different. He says that because of this phenomenon, our mission partnerships with cultures must "allow the people within those local contexts to determine their future. It is not for us to present the ideas, but to help facilitate their ideas and get them to facilitate the thinking of those ideas," he said.

In some ways, Gustafson believes encouragement needs to be the top priority of mission. He uses his three decades of experience in Thailand to illustrate his point.

Gustafson worked in Udon, a city of 150,000 in Northeast Thailand. The province of Udon at that time had a population of three million people, one-third of the country's total, and was the poorest province, both economically and politically, in Thailand.

Gustafson worked with two men, Rev. Tong Pan and Rev. Bunpote, and they and their families worked on planting churches. While Tong Pan evangelized, Gustafson worked with Bunpote to develop bible studies and other curriculum that provided a good fit with Northeast Thai culture. They developed 250 songs geared for that culture and made musical instruments to fit the Thai mode of worship. Most importantly, they developed a friendship based on mutual trust and a desire to learn from one another, Gustafson explained. That experience changed Gustafson forever.

"I had been trained in theology, and as Bunpote and I interacted, he gained in his knowledge of theology and I gained in my knowledge of the culture," Gustafson said. "It was a give-and-take situation. He taught me about Northeast Thai culture and I began to teach him theology. But, then he began to teach me theology and I began to teach him about Northeast Thai culture," he mused.

"It (dialogue) went constantly back and forth," Gustafson continued. "Our relationship was raised out of mutual respect and love. I did not come in as this missionary helping these poor people. I was there to work together with people from the Northeast. I worked for 30 years in Thailand. It took the first 15 years to develop a group of believers that dared to have their own ideas, because they were convinced the ideas of the West were best," Gustafson explained. "I had to convince them that their ideas were best for the local culture. But, I fell in love with them and am today more a Northeast Thai than an American."

Although Gustafson's mission efforts in Thailand were successful, he knows he can not duplicate it elsewhere. Nor does he want to. He has been energized by observing how other cultures find unique ways to adapt to their own situation, especially in Congo, where government upheaval and political unrest have forced church leaders to consider new ways of carrying out ministry.

Over a six-month period, Congo church leaders have begun to take charge of their own destiny following the forced flight of Covenant missionaries from the area. "The conflict has not forced the restructuring, it has opened a window of opportunity for it in a very real sense," Gustafson said. "Congo has existed in one form for years, and yet for it to go on was to go back to the way it existed. So, when we went to visit with them last fall, they said, 'Give us back our missionaries, so we can get our old system online.' As we talked about sustainability and affirmed them as a church, a new perception arose," he continued.

"In January, as they looked at restructuring, they said that the missionaries that left for other countries 'are our missionaries we sent out.' Their mentality changed from going back to the old to moving forward - they had come up with a new way," Gustafson said. "And they had gone from a feeling of frustration toward each other to being happy, feeling free. In that sense, the true sense of the Covenant broke through as the Congolese became freed up to express themselves."

Gustafson will relate how mission is changing in the world when he meets with a number of Covenant missionary groups in April in the Czech Republic. "The mission movement, which grew out of Western culture, is coming into a world that is highly diversified and needs to become highly diversified itself," Gustafson will tell his listeners. "The Covenant is perfect for this new model because the Covenant isn't concerned with building the Covenant kingdom around the world, but rather in building the kingdom of God."

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