Baptists Committed to World Evangelism » Culture

Bull: 1, Man: 0

Scott Newton — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 18:13:07 +0000

One of the most well-known products of Spanish culture is bullfighting, and we are often asked about it. There’s something built into men that makes us crave the adrenaline rush of cheating death: whether it’s a roller-coaster at a theme park, jumping off a cliff with a rope tied to our ankles, or facing off against a 1200 pound bull.

Also there’s my personal favorite: telling your pregnant wife that she needs to lay off the Oreos! For the record, she doesn’t need to, it’s just fun to look death in the eye and laugh… and then cry like a little girl when she brings the pain. Don’t judge me, she has the strength of a regular woman AND a baby!

Much of the allure of bullfighting is the silly idea that man can “conquer” nature: it’s the same thing that makes us climb Everest and the like. Yeah… you are sitting on top of the mountain that is totally unchanged while you lost 9 digits to frostbite, but somehow YOU won?

Maybe it’s because I am unable to turn off “preacher mode”, but I see things like bullfighting, mountain climbing, and space exploration as things that often (not always) are a wrong response to the awesome power of naure: the Psalms tell us that the Heavens declare the glory of God, Romans that His eternal power and Godhead are clearly seen as His power is reflected in forces that could crush us like ants… But usually we just try to “beat the elements” instead of acknowledging who He is revealing Himself as.

I read this story about bullfighting today, and thought I’d share it. A pretty gruesome reminder that man vs Creation is a stacked fight.

Spain: Bullfighter Survives Terrifying Face Goring

MADRID – Spanish bullfighter Juan Jose Padilla is recovering from a five-hour operation to repair his face after a terrifying goring in the northeastern city of Zaragoza, the hospital that treated him said Saturday.

Television images showed the moment when the bull’s left horn ripped into Padilla’s lower jaw to emerge beside his protruding eyeball as spectators screamed in horror.

Padilla, 39, suffered eye, bone, muscle and skin damage when the bull pinned him to the ground and gored him, the statement said.

TV footagealso showed Padilla getting up from the ring, his face gushing blood, as the bull was distracted by bullring assistants.

“I can’t see, I can’t see anything,” the matador shouted as he was rushed to emergency facilities at Zaragoza’s Misericordia bullring before being driven to the city’s Miguel Servet Hospital for surgery.

The bull, named Marques, weighed 508 kilograms (1,120 pounds) and was the second fighting beast Padilla had faced during the second day of the annual Virgen del Pilar festivities in Zaragoza.

Surgeons used titanium plates and mesh to reconstruct parts of Padilla’s facial bone structure and eye socket, doctors Simon Sanz and Nadal Cristobal said in a very detailed, signed statement.

A hospital spokesman told The Associated Press that surgeons had tried to reconstruct the bullfighter’s left ocular nerve.

Padilla was lucky the horn did not penetrate his brain, said Vicente Yesteras, one of Padilla’s retinue of bullring helpers.

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Bull: 1, Man: 0

Now accepting 2012 internship applications!

Jason Holt — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 12:19:20 +0000

God has called us to reach beyond the boarders of the USA with the gospel. So many Christians have never left their comforts to travel abroad and serve on the mission field. Now is your chance!

Throughout 2012 we will be hosting college interns in Santiago, Chile. This experience will give you hands-on training in church planting, language learning, and culture adaptation.

At this point, we have a couple of 3 month interns, and a family of four signed up for a 6 month internship!

*If you are hoping for a relaxing vacation, DO NOT sign up for this internship. We are looking for flexible, hard-working, focused young people who love God and are willing to give their all to serve Him!

Read more about missions opportunities at bcwe.org

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Now accepting 2012 internship applications!

How to learn another language

austin gardner — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:09:03 +0000

Read this article Becoming a Man of the World: How to Learn Another Language for some good insight on how to learn a language.

All missionaries are going to have to learn how to live cross culturally. Many will have to learn another language. Excuses abound. You can learn another language!

Here are some quotes from the article for you to consider:

Men are excellent language learners, and there are ways we can use our manly differences to our advantage. The sad truth is that most of us don’t.

“Language-Talent” Is Used as an Excuse, Let It Go

I stopped making excuses, giving in to self-fulfilling prophecies (“I’m bad at languages, therefore what’s the point in even trying?”) and I started to be a man about this language learning thing. One day in Spain, I just swallowed my pride and started using the very little I knew actively until I had no choice but to improve quickly.

Speak It from Day One

Next, Learn What You NEED, Not What the Grammar Book Says

So put aside the grammar book and get yourself a travel phrasebook instead (they are small and only cost a couple of dollars). Learn the essentials in a few hours that would be pretty universally needed as the core of basic conversation, and then learn what you want to say.

Face Your Fear and Just Use the Language! Your Instinct Can Get You Far

What it all comes down to is fear. A perfectionist (academic) approach to language learning is based on fear of being embarrassed, fear of disappointing people, fear that you aren’t good enough, etc. Every mistake is the end of the world!

Constant Use With Other People Is the Road to Fluency in a Short Time

If you stop looking at a language as a list of grammar rules and words to learn to pass an examination, and more as a backyard project that you keep adding things to and tweaking, while constantly using it all the time, then you will start to use it for what it was meant for: communication with people.

This is a great article and well worth you reading it over several times.

Check out bcwe.org

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How to learn another language

White flight, Racism, and Missions

Jason Holt — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 03:47:11 +0000

Some years ago an African-American pastor’s wife from Atlanta visited us in Chile. Her husband pastored a church just miles from my old elementary school. During the 90s, my family and most of our friends left the area opting for a less “urban” environment in the suburbs.

As we discussed my own history in the south-Atlanta area, the pastor’s wife laughed and said, “We call that white-flight!” Puzzled at the new term, I asked her to explain. She said all blacks know that whites start getting nervous when blacks began to move into a neighborhood, and eventually the whites move… all of them move.

I, on the other hand, have been on the other side of those conversations and heard the anxious remarks about the increasing minority population. I knew what she was saying was right.

I’m not going to get into the whole socioeconomic discussion, but I do want to talk about racism!

Here are some random thoughts about God, the Bible, and racism:

All men and women are created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). How can we belittle an image bearer of God? The fact that they are bearing His image means they have infinite worth.
God created us (Genesis 1-3). We’re all from the same family. We know evolution is not correct. Men didn’t come from apes. There are no substandard, underdeveloped Neanderthals roaming around the earth! Each African and Latin American breathing today got his or her life from the Creator of the universe.
God died for the whole world (John 3:16). He didn’t give preference to any skin color or social level. He shed the same blood for Europeans as for Africans and Americans. We teach our children to sing “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight”, but do we really believe they are precious? Are they precious to you or an annoyance? Would you prefer to live with only people of your ethnic group? If so, don’t read the next one…
All nationalities, cultures, and obviously races will be together in heaven for eternity (Revelation 5:9). If you don’t like to be around “foreigners”, don’t go to heaven!
God said to go and preach the gospel to all the world (Mark 16:16; Matthew 28:18-20). God told us to be His ambassadors, because they (people groups of every nation) are important.
The second most important commandment is to love others as ourselves (Matthew 22:36-40). Notice there is no reference to love others only within your racial or social group. Do you love people of other races as much as you love yourself?
Have you ever considered that we had no option to choose where we would be born. God choose our parents, our country of origin, and our color.
Jesus gave us the perfect example to follow. He left the perfection of heaven to be born into abject poverty. He took the time to learn the language and culture of the people. He respected that culture, except when it went against the Bible. Plenty of times He could have said, “Look at how dumb and dirty these people are! They eat weird foods and have some of the strangest habits.” Of course, we know that he didn’t. Do you have Christ-like attitudes towards people of other races?

By the way, the same attitudes that I find among whites in the south are also prevalent among many of the Chileans we work with in Chile. It is an area that we often have to handle. This is not an American problem, it’s a sin problem.

for more articles about cultural adaptation visit bcwe.org

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White flight, Racism, and Missions

Great Resource for Latin American Missions

Jason Holt — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:09:28 +0000

We are partnering together with church planting missionaries throughout Latin America to bring you church planting resources to bridge the gap into Latin America.

The region includes a diversity of cultures, languages, and challenges. We hope to provide pioneer senders and church planting teams with resources to highlight the opportunities and expedite the church planting process throughout the region.

If you are interested in missions in Latin America or you know someone considering missions there you really need to check out The Latin Bridge.

Check out more church planting resources at bcwe.org

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Great Resource for Latin American Missions

Rejecting the culture

austin gardner — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 13:35:13 +0000

Another major problem that missionaries have is trying to take the United States to the foreign country. It causes them to have severe issues on the foreign field. The national gets very tired of being compared to “back home”. His country doesn’t measure up. His food is not as good. His house is not as well. That’s not how we do it back in America. It causes an inferiority complex. It causes hurt feelings among the nationals. The nationals never feel like they can measure up.

Many times, they would already have an insecurity caused by the fact that the missionary is from a foreign country. His country is advanced and is seen on TV and in movies. They have an idea that he lives far better than he actually would live in his country. And so there’s a built-in tendency to feel like maybe we don’t quite measure up.

But if God has called us to leave our country and go to their country, He did not call us to make little Americans out of them. He did not call us to Americanize them. He called us to take the gospel and develop it in such a way that it lives in their culture. That doesn’t mean changing anything about what the Gospel says or what the Gospel is or what the Gospel does.

It simply means that their church houses probably won’t look like our church houses. We don’t need to build the fanciest building in town. We need to build a building that they can build, a building they would be comfortable in, and a building they can maintain when we leave. We don’t need to take our way of driving, our way of doing everything that we do, and make that part of their situation.

If you go overseas, you’ll find that even down to the table manners you were taught as a child are American table manners, and they’re not international table manners. It would not be uncommon at all for a person in a Latin American country to use his knife to guide the food on to his fork, and it wouldn’t be uncommon for him to use his knife to put the food on. Or as I’ve seen in other countries, you might use your fork to put the food in the spoon that you’re gonna eat with. You may burp at your meal. You may should leave food on your plate when you get through, otherwise, it seems that you’re hungry and wanting more. You may should clean your entire plate or it looks like you didn’t like their food. Maybe you will not drink anything until the meal is over and everyone will share the same glass. You may eat with your fingers and not with utensils.

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Rejecting the culture

Resource | The Latin Bridge

Trent Cornwell — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 14:00:23 +0000

As PIONEER SENDERS we need to constantly looking for new resources to help channel motivational information about missions to those we influence. If you are interested in missions in Latin America or you know someone considering missions there you really need to check out The Latin Bridge.

What is The Latin Bridge?

Bridges have a singular purpose. Sure they can be beautiful, a sign of strength and power, and even a platform for base jumping, but in every instance they are ultimately a connector. The Latin Bridge is seeking to start a renewed movement of church planting in the Latin American world.

The region includes a diversity of cultures, languages, and challenges. We hope to provide pioneer senders and church planting teams with resources that will highlight the opportunities and expedite the church planting process throughout the region.

For links to more mobilization resources visit bcwe.org

Learning Cultural Lessons

austin gardner — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:23:28 +0000

Below is a lesson in culture that we would do well to heed. Go to the source and read the entire article. Good stuff.

Source

For Americans, personal space is no joking matter. Raised on strict instructions to keep our hands to ourselves and slogans like “no means no,” the 1.5 foot perimeter surrounding each person’s body is nothing short of sacred.

Obviously there are exceptions: border patrol is usually waived during the pinch of rush hour traffic, the shoulder-rubbing pandemonium of concerts and night clubs and for friends, family or others with whom we figuratively (and in this case literally) “let our guard down.” All the same, any an invasion of this protective aura is contingent on our explicit say-so – an unbending rule that pervades our culture’s definition of acceptable social interactions.

Though a bit tamer outside of the Big Apple, the importance of personal space is still heavily ingrained in the American psyche – so much so that it has earned its niche in academia under the name “proxemics.” In conversation with an American sociology professor specializing in this field, a New York Times article reveals the following:

“If you videotape people at a library table, it’s very clear what seat somebody will take,” Dr. Archer said, adding that one of the corner seats will go first, followed by the chair diagonally opposite because that is farthest away. “If you break those rules, it’s fascinating,” he said. “People will pile up books as if to make a wall — glare.”

Through travel, television and other wonders of globalization, we know that this fetish with our personal invisi-bubble varies according to culture. It’s common knowledge that Latin Americans exchange cheek pecks in lieu of handshakes or head bobs and that some nationalities across the waters stand dangerously close to each other when they parley.

Thoroughly prepped with this prior expertise, one Peruvianism in particular still managed to slip right by me: in the fender-benders of pedestrianism, you can rarely expect an apology. Stateside, a shoulder, elbow or booty bump marks an unequivocal act of trespassing and if we can’t prevent it with a prior “excuse me” we follow up with a firm apology.

For years I was scandalized by Peruvians’ deafening silence after flagrantly chafing one of my body parts. Hopelessly miffed by each offense, I was initially convinced this was a black hole in Peruvian etiquette.

In one of life’s ironic twists, it was a cheeky prepubescent boy who set me straight. Over a year ago at a buffet restaurant, I kindly told the minor “con permiso” (excuse me) in order to avoid grazing his growing-boy muffin top. As if giving him a lesson in the Golden Rule, I felt teacherly, if not a twinge motherly. Then, on a subsequent trip to the salad bar, when the same tubby kid trudged by me en route to the desserts, he spouted a snide “con permiso,” ridden with preteen sarcasm.

For my Peruvian husband, this simply meant the kid was a brat, but for me it was an epiphany. Brushing against a person’s love handles or gently nudging them aside in order to get by was not a huge crime, but making a big deal of it was – as if the other person had to drop what they’re doing and roll out the red carpet just so you could safely pass.

Though I’ve noticed an increase in apologies for casual collisions, Peruvians don’t usually obsess over minor encroachments to the extent that Americans do. Lesson number one on personal space? No harm, no foul.

Check out bcwe.org

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Learning Cultural Lessons

Voice in the Villages Advancement in India

Trent Cornwell — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:00:29 +0000

The pictures illustrate the importance of team work in a big project. There are places you will go and heights you can reach that you could never go to or reach alone. Pray about joining the team going and sending to northern India.

As I mentioned in previous blogs I will be going with two other couples on a survey trip to northern India this October. I wanted to take a moment to tell you what we will be doing in this endeavor. I know many of the things I mentioned may not be applicable for the trips you will take to see a missionary. I have been blessed to be on several Survey Trips and to serve in a church led by a veteran missionary. I am going on this trip as somewhat of a stunt double for the pastor. I have learned many of the principles he has taught as it pertains to survey and research trips.

We will be assisting the Roberts and another couple on their survey trip. The Roberts family will be moving there in the Spring of next year! So this is a hugely important trip for them. I have been on several survey trips through the years with my pastor, who is a former missionary to Peru. Here are some things that may sound simple but are vitally important to setting up shop and home on the mission field for the GOER.

We will look at the living conditions as it pertains to housing. We will research the pricing on buildings in various sections of the city.
We will look at the medical situation in the city. We know there is good private healthcare but there is much to learn about all of this.
We will meet with missionary families and learn from them while stating our intent in being in the country.
We will do a great deal of foot work in preparation for them getting visas.
We will look at the different modes of staying in the country (students, business, etc).
We will learn as much as possible about the culture without knowing the language as possible. This will help prepare them to mentally and emotionally.
We will make a list of the basic prices for everyday items and major appliances. They will began to set up their quarterly budgets.

There is much more that will be done but that is a sampling. Learning simply “what will it be like to live here” is a big deal for the family and especially the mother in the family. We will ask tons of questions and we will ask tons of the people the same ton of of questions.

As a PIONEER SENDER or as we often call it at our church a “yoke fellow” there are some areas that I am extremely interested in and need to learn about. I believe there are things I will learn on the trip that are going to help me be a better SENDER when I am on the other side of the big pond. There are also some things I will do that may not be the same for other SENDERS who would go but the principle is the same.

We will compile 900 packets from the Voice in the Villages that will be distributed to pastors, Lord willing. This is such a big opportunity and one that could only been orchestrated by God! This is time being we must act upon it by December. It has provided the urgency for me to travel to India this October. [In future posts I will tell you about the missionaries we are partnering with to make this happen.]
We will take in everything we can via a video camera. We will do interviews and record the missionaries. This material will be used to help motivate and mobilize others laborers for the harvest.
We want soak in, write down, and remember everything that we believe would cause pressure on our GOER families so we will be sensitive to them when we hear about it later.
We will learn from some non-profit groups to see what we might could do to help meet some humanitarian needs that will further the work of the church planters.
BIG ONE: We will constantly encourage the families in what we know is true about India regardless of what our senses are telling us! We know God loves them and wants to use their lives for His glory! We know the work can be done and many other fundamental truths.
ANOTHER BIG ONE: We will look for every way possible that SENDERS could use their time, talents, and abilities to further the Gospel there from the States or during short term trips.

Please, be in prayer for this trip that will take place the first week of October. If you are able to help us please do. If you have any contacts you think would be helpful please email me at Trent@visionbaptist.com. A ministry to a country bigger than Africa and the UK combined can not completely funded from anyones personal budget. We are going to save and sacrifice to do our part. If you want to give to this project you can do so online at www.visionbaptistmissions.com or mail the money to our VBM office. Just notate it to COME & SEE INDIA.

God has placed this desire in our heart, He is opening doors, and God’s people are helping meet the financial needed to help us as we walk through them! We appreciate your prayers, resources, and financial donations. Voice in the Villages is a wonderful missions endeavors because it requires full involvement by GOER & SENDERS!

If you want to read about the ministries of GOERS we are working with please got to bcwe.org

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Time To Get Drunk!

Scott Newton — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 16:02:45 +0000

I was waiting in line at the bank today, and a song came over the PA that made me groan. It was a particularly annoying country song that I was WAY more familiar with than I wanted to be.

Before going to Portugal for Bible College, we spent a year in NC, and I worked a job where I spent hour after hour in a pickup truck with a guy who loved country music, and my pleas for silence, for conversation, for Swiss yodeling music, ANYTHING other than hours of country music, fell on deaf ears.

This particular song set forth the “meaning of life” according to the singer’s perspective, and it is a pretty good reflection of the southern (and probably most of America) mindset.

Basically, it boils down to:

1. Work hard

2. Be a family man

3. You can drink/smoke/etc, but only in moderation

4. Be moral, obey the Golden Rule

5. Be religious, but not fanatical

That is it. Be a good person, and do everything in moderation. On one hand, this mentality is pretty good: it teaches people to be productive members of society, to treat each other right, and it even comes from a history of Bible teaching about those things. From a non-Christian worldview, it’s not a bad system.

The problem is, it’s NOT the Christian worldview. It’s not biblical, and it is one of the biggest dangers to our churches. We are lulled to sleep by a mentality that teaches us to be comfortable instead of radical in our faith; to do just enough instead of take a leap of faith, to be satisfied with morality instead of an all-consuming passion for Christ.

When you look at the people who God has used to turn the world upside down, the advance to Kingdom of God, to make His glory known, they are not moderate people. They are not comfortable people. They are not even sensible people. THEY ARE CRAZY.

I encourage you to read, and find out what these people were like. Read some books like “Fox’s Book of Martyrs”, where living counter culturally as Christians meant death. Read biographies of missionaries, like “To the Golden Shore”, where Adoniram Judson hung from a pole for weeks and was beaten for sharing the Gospel, while his wife begged from door to door for milk for their dying baby. Read the biography of George Muller, who lived a lifestyle of total dependence upon God’s provision for himself and hundreds of orphans, and saw God supply every need.

These were not moderate people, they were drunk people. Ephesians 5: 18 says this:

“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit”

What the Bible is saying is that the goal is not just to avoid one extreme, but to live out the other extreme! Paul is not writing a pastoral epistle to preachers, but to a church of regular people, and he says “Get drunk on the Spirit of God!” The same way that alcohol will control you is how we are to be controlled by the Spirit of God. That means when He says to do something extreme, we do it. Giving, going, witnessing, sacrificing, loving, all in the EXTREME!

Why is life so extreme when submitted to the Spirit of God? Because it results in being like Christ. The Apostles flipped the world on its head because they went out submitted to the control and power of God, which made them more and more like Christ. Missionaries like Adoniram Judson were used to change entire cultures because they sacrificed like their Savior.

I say to read biographies of these crazy people, but just read the Gospels to see what it is all about! The Sovereign King of the Universe humbled himself to the role of a slave, and died a humiliating death in the most mind-blowing and extreme show of love the world has ever seen…. and He calls those of us who are made alive by that death to live that kind of life.

That really makes me evaluate my life. What am I living for? What am I controlled by? Who is the one writing my life plans: myself, or the Spirit of God? I really believe this: if the comfortable, moral, moderate culture around me is not warning their kids not to be like me, I’m probably not living like God wants me to live. That’s a sobering thought for me. God help me to be drunk on the Spirit!