The Globalized Pastor and Receptor Oriented Preaching tagged: , , , , , ,

The Globalized Pastor and Receptor Oriented Preaching

Posted by in Church & Missions

Two common themes through many of my posts are the changing nature of urban centers and the need to have a clearly understood presentation of the gospel within each culture (contextualization).  While these may appear to be abstract (or perhaps questionable) principles designed for those who live abroad, I hope to encourage those of you who are pastors to apply these principles in stateside ministry.

Cities are becoming increasingly complex organisms as different cultural and ethnic groups from all over the world seek refuge in our cities.  Although our expectation (not to mention immigration laws) is that they learn English.  In spite of the fact that most people have some command of English, as preachers and evangelists it is still imperative to become more focused on our listeners understanding in our proclamation.

Paul Hiebert and Charles Kraft say:
“There is more to communication than sending a message.  Communication occurs only when the sender and receiver have something in common, and both understand what the communicator intends to say.  As Charles Kraft (1979) points out, communication must be measured not by the messages we send but by the messages that messages that people receive.  In other words, our communication must be receptor oriented.  It must be understood by the people and meet their needs.  There is little use in preaching if the people misunderstand the message.”   (Paul G. Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries Pg 163)

I know a missionary in Mexico who told me about church groups which come down there to do evangelism in the summers.  At the end of their trip, they report hundreds of conversions.  When the missionary follows up, he can’t find any of them; meanwhile, the church group can’t understand why he doesn’t personally see more fruit from his ministry.  The key to these two very different experiences within the same people group has to do with what the evangelists are saying and what the receptors are hearing them say.  When the group did evangelism, they were asking people to pray to receive Jesus.  What they did not understand was that in the ears of their Catholic listeners, they were hearing something completely different.  At its most simple understanding, they were asking them to do something very Catholic, after all, ‘receiving Jesus” is what they do at mass.  While the phrase “receive Jesus” might be as meaningful to us as “walk the aisle” or “pray a prayer,” these are statements which at best would not be understood, and at worst be misunderstood (thereby misleading short-term missionaries into thinking that hundreds have entered the kingdom when in fact nothing happened).

While that particular scenario only occurs to those who travel outside the country (and one might think I am reneging on my promise to make it applicable at home), this is also a scenario that might easily occur in any American city.  It is not uncommon for cities in the south to have South American populations in excess of the 10-25% range.

The concept of receptor oriented communication becomes practical to pulpit ministry when one considers that there are many people in Baptist churches from a catholic background (Hispanic or otherwise).  How did they understand your last sermon on grace?  I am sure that you nailed it according to seminary trained ears, but they bring a different set of presuppositions to the table.  So far, all of the examples have been from one group, but the reality is much more complex.  You congregation might be full of all sorts of backgrounds and presupposition.  While it would be absurd to assume that we can or must caveat everyone and every presupposition into our sermons, that is rarely where our guilt lies.

In fact, my biggest reservation regarding the multi-culture church model lies in the fact that it seems to minimize worldview differences.  We should be excited by ethnic unity but comprehension is equally essential (we worship that which we know).  I can’t imagine trying to talk about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit with a Muslim background believer, a Buddhist background believer, and a Baptist background believer all in the same room.  Their presuppositions and understanding of terms such as indwelling, divine, Holy Spirit, and Trinity are all different.  To be fair, as people groups live together over the course of generations, their worldviews and presuppositions become similar.

Practical Steps:

  1. Seminaries need to focus on cross cultural elements of what is becoming the typical urban experience.  The typical seminary program does little beyond the singular “Intro to Missiology” class to prepare pastors to think about cross cultural communication at home.
  2. Pastors need to become more intentional about learning and teaching about the other cultures on their doorsteps.  Cities are fast changing places which are being filled with orphaned churches in “transitional” neighborhoods.  We need to be able to adapt and meet the opportunities that God is sending to us.
  3. We need practical help from people who have experience with the people groups in our communities.  This includes, but is not limited to missionaries who are working in the home cultures for our people.  It is imperative that we use existing resources (people with experience) to develop and maintain cultural understanding locally.
  4. In context were worldview diversity exists, we need to focus more on one-on-one and small group discipleship rather than discipleship via the pulpit only.  This will enable diverse conglomerates to break into their smaller, similar parts in order to have discipleship presented in a means which is both comprehensible and righteously offensive.
  5. We need preach the whole council of God, not just the part that is fascinating to our culture.  Perhaps this would make a post of its own, but westerners tend to focus on the judicial aspects of the cross, the gospel, and the whole story.  While this is definitely part of it and we do not want to minimize that, equally part of the gospel are motifs such as honor and shame, fear and power, near and far, pure and impure.  Not all cultures focus on the judicial side like we do, and we are stronger for our attempts to flesh out these other motifs which empathize with a diverse range of non-western cultures.