On September 22nd, Ed Stetzer wrote a nice article on contextualization. I have no issues with the article at all and I enjoyed reading through the comments that followed.
As a follow-up to Ed’s piece I thought I would open my site up to the practical side of contextualization. I would love to hear about some real life examples, by those working in cultures outside the US and those working in the States. If you’re in the US you may not realize it, but contextualization is at work. Some of it is good, and some of it is unnecessary.
Sometimes I feel that we, those of us in the evangelical Christian sub-culture, spend a good deal of time learning. We go to conferences, read books, listen to podcasts, and then share our experiences with those things. Of course, there is nothing inherently wrong with these things, but sometimes we focus too much on the learning and too little on the doing. That’s what I would like to focus on in the comments here…the doing…the ins and outs of contextualization.
And be sure to check out The Upstream Collective. They are putting together details about their next Jet Set tour which will take place next year in London and Paris.
Kent Shaffer over at ChurchRelevance.com has an excellent article that’s like a response to your request for comments: http://churchrelevance.com/?p=2954
@C.Holland – thanks for the link. I enjoyed the article from Kent.
By no means am I an authority on this subject. Far from it. My vocation is not ministry related, I haven’t been to seminary, and I’m a part of the American Church culture where I tithe like a good boy on Sunday, go home to my comfortable surroundings and do it all over again the next week.
I guess the difference for me I guess is that I have felt very convicted over the past couple of years to change things. I would guess that believers would all have this same conviction at one point or another and most ignore it. In particular, I’ve felt a burden for my community, my neighborhood. Having lived in a somewhat diverse neighborhood for six years, I have only invested in one life. I guess it’s because I like him, he is easy to talk to, and I actually took the time to get to know him, without which I would not have been able to have true compassion for him and share biblical truth.
I’m writing here because I would like to learn more about contextualization. I have already taken the first step to get to know the other neighbors (other than surface conversation), and I would like to better prepare for some good discussion as our relationships progress. Most of the published material seems to focus on international culture, yet I feel this is a universal topic. Your thoughts?
I do think it’s universal, as the Gospel is universal. Interestingly enough, Ed’s just written another article about contextualization. Again, I agree with what he’s written…but the problem, again, is that there seems to be a lot of talk “about” contextualization, but very few examples of it given to the benefit of the reader.
One problem with contextualization is that it’s based on the context of the culture in which you and I live. So to contextualize the Gospel here in Western Europe it will look different than contextualizing the Gospel in Texas. And maybe that’s why so few give examples…because the examples are hyper-local.
Have a read of Ed’s article and let me know your thoughts:
http://www.edstetzer.com/2010/07/calling-for-contextualization-2.html