Language capacity is not enough: Be intentional about growing culture and worldview understanding

Abstract

Understanding a community’s culture and worldview and having capacity in their first language are considered essential elements for engaging in contextual cross-cultural ministry. Many sending organizations provide training, time, resources and programs to help cross-cultural workers grow their language capacity. The same provisions, however, are not often made for gaining culture and worldview understanding. The reasons for this are varied, but include: a tacit belief that adequate culture and worldview understanding occurs naturally with the gaining of language capacity; a belief that workers come equipped for gaining culture and worldview understanding; a lack of suitable culture and worldview inquiry programs, as well as a lack of trained personnel to facilitate them. An Australian cross-cultural ministry sending organization is seeking to address this imbalance structurally in their organization by developing and providing cross-cultural workers with a culture and worldview inquiry program, the facilitation of each cross-cultural worker’s culture and language program, and by training cross-cultural workers in culture and worldview inquiry methods. The results of this are that individuals and teams are growing their language capacities and their understanding of their host communities’ cultures and worldviews, and are applying this knowledge to their engagement with the communities with whom they work.