Making Disciples Cross-Culturally- Does God Speak Chinese?
I love working with brand new believers! Like toddlers, they say hilarious things. My neighbor who recently accepted Jesus posed a question the other day. I was teaching her about prayer. “Do you think God understands Chinese?” she asked. “Of course He does! He is totally fluent” I replied. My neighbor, like me, is a foreigner in this country. Her culture is very different from my own. Making disciples cross-culturally is both fun and challenging. It requires us to be learners. We need to trust the Holy Spirit to guide those we disciple though they are very new in their faith.
The tendency in disciple-making is to teach rather than train. It is natural to want to tell new believers what to do and not do. Some of this may be necessary. But we should be cautious, especially when telling them what to do about cultural issues.
Let Them Quickly Learn To Hear From God Themselves
Do you want to make strong disciples who will quickly make other disciples? Allow them to hear from the Holy Spirit for themselves. This is especially true when making decisions about cultural situations. The temptation is strong to just give them rules. They often ask for these. But if you do this, you run the risk of unintentionally imposing your own culture upon them. Learning the process of listening to God for themselves is vital. The church will not take on indigenous (local) characteristics without it. It will always have a “foreign” flavor.
Wearing A White Wedding Dress
She was getting married, our Nepali “daughter.” *Dahlia had been living with us for almost a year. When she came, she was a brand new believer. It had been a fun process – helping her grow in her walk with Jesus. Her progress was quick. She was already doing a great job making disciples at her school. One of the church planters who worked with us had brought her to faith. He now wanted to marry her. We were part of helping them make the arrangements.
“What about the wedding dress?” she asked one day. Dalia had seen pictures of my husband and me when we were married. She knew a bit about what a Western wedding was like. After all, she had watched many clips of “Christian” weddings in movies and on TV.
“Do I need to wear a dress like you did, Didi?”
I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but the question came up. Her wedding day drew near. For it to be a Christian wedding, did she need to follow Western culture? Did she need to wear the same type of long white, lacy dress I had worn for my American wedding?
Instead of giving her and her future husband the answers, we pointed them to scripture. Was there anything in the Bible about wedding dresses or the color they should be?
We then encouraged them to think about the meaning of the colors and symbols they would use. What was the meaning in their own context?
White Meant Someone Had Died
In their culture, the color white was the color that people wore when someone died. It was the color of mourning. Maybe not the best color to wear for a happy wedding ceremony, they thought.
We let them make the decisions. Our job was to encourage them to pray and listen to the Holy Spirit.
“But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.” John 16:13a NIV
4 Ways We Need To Trust The Holy Spirit In New Disciples
Making strong disciple-makers requires trusting the Holy Spirit in them. This is true in so many different ways.
1) Trust them to hear from God.
As soon as someone receives Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live within them (1 Cor 3:16 and Rom. 8:11). Do you believe that? We say we do, but we sometimes act like we don’t. Sometimes, we behave as if we need to be the Holy Spirit for them. We feel we have to tell them what to do and not do.
They may be new to learning how to listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice. But training them in this is our job as disciple-makers! They will grow in this as we give them the opportunity to exercise this skill. If this becomes a norm in their lives in general, it will be much easier to encourage it with cultural issues as well.
2) Trust them to know their own culture and context better than you do.
Whether you are working in a radically different culture, or in a group that is culturally near to your own, listen carefully to local people. What they say about their own beliefs and worldviews matters. Sometimes, you may even be from the same language group but another part of the country. Still, cultural perceptions can vary greatly. Don’t impose your own understanding of cultural issues. Instead, ask questions and listen well.
Be careful about getting all your information from traditional Christians. They may have had a lot of exposure to Westerner Christianity. Brand new believers still immersed in their culture are a better source of cultural insights. They are often more in touch with their context than a pastor who was trained in the big city or in a foreign land.
3) Trust them to understand scripture with the Holy Spirit’s help.
The Bereans in Acts 17, searched the scriptures daily as Paul was preaching to them. New believers are often hungry for the Word of God. Encourage them to study and trust what they sense God is saying to them. God’s ability to speak to them directly through His Word is wonderful!
4) Trust them to make the final decisions, together with others from their culture.
This can be tough, especially if you aren’t sure their decision is the right one. But if you want the church to be strong and indigenous, it is vital that you leave the decision in their hands. If you are an outsider (even if from the same culture but a different part of the country) let them decide what to do.
This trust will ensure that the disciples own the church themselves. If you step in and make the final decisions, they know that you are the real leader. Christianity is yours, not theirs. That doesn’t lead to the multiplication of the Kingdom of God.
Trusting New Disciples = Trusting God
Ultimately, we not only need to trust the new disciples, we need to trust God to speak to them. Are you tempted to control every decision new disciples make? Ask yourself if you are trying to be God in their lives. The sooner you connect them to God and step back on major decisions, the more likely they will be able to stand on their own. The disciples you make and the churches you start will have a greater chance of being indigenous. If they are truly local, they will be much more likely to grow and spread rapidly throughout the region.
*not her real name