Lausanne World Pulse – Themed Articles – Complications of Communicating the Gospel: Why We Should Take the Culture of the People Seriously

By Adrian de Visser
April 2007 Most Asian countries which were colonized by colonial rulers have spent their post-independence years striving for a national identity. An integral part of the national identity is perceived as being anti-Christian. In Sri Lanka, the Buddhist clergy seem to be developing a term called the “Sinhala Buddhist,” referring to the fact that if you are a Sinhalese, you also have to be a Buddhist. To become a Christian is to become a traitor, turning your back on your family, community and country.

Ralph Winter and Bruce Koch comment,

“The church does not really grow within peoples where relevant churches do not exist. While there are tens of millions who have never heard the name of Jesus at all there are hundreds of millions who may have heard of Jesus and may even have high regard for him, but who cannot see a way of becoming his disciples. Standing before them are barriers ranging from the relatively trivial to the seemingly insurmountable, many of them beyond the demands of the gospel.”3

Cultural distance from our people is a barrier to communicating the gospel.

Contextualization Is Imperative to Reaching the Unreached
If we want the message of Christ to be culturally relevant we need to:

  1. Seriously consider using more indigenous forms of music.
  2. Rethink and develop culturally relevant forms of worship.
  3. Rethink and develop culturally relevant forms of celebrating Christmas, Easter and other important occasions.
  4. Rethink and develop architectural models in keeping with the culture.
  5. Discover and develop indigenous public preaching styles.
  6. Incorporate local art forms of communication.
  7. Take advantage of the community life we enjoy and use it as a means for evangelism. (Individualism and a disconnected verbal approach are not acceptable to our people.)
  8. Seriously consider adopting an incarnational approach to ministry.
  9. Rethink and use a holistic approach to ministry, because we minister in a context of poverty.
  10. Seriously consider our involvement in community life. We are too detached. We remain detached because of a faulty theological perspective (“We are not of the world”) and a minority mindset.
  11. Seriously reconsider our lifestyle. (i.e., Is our lifestyle in keeping with our people?)
  12. Pay attention and develop relevant national and Asian theology.
  13. Research and develop relevant teaching models.
  14. Develop relevant models to developing leaders and leadership styles.
  15. Build relevant reproducible church models.
  16. Identify and celebrate healthy, wholesome cultural practices within the community that is not in conflict with biblical teaching.

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Rev. Adrian de Visser is the Lausanne International Deputy Director for South Asia. He is also senior pastor and president of Kithu Sevana Ministries, a church planting ministry in Sri Lanka. De Visser serves as vice president for partnership development for Asian Access, a ministry committed to developing leaders across Asia.