In conversations about China—whether in ministry, education, or academic settings—one word quietly carries great weight: worldview. And yet, for many of us engaged in cross-cultural learning or ministry, it remains a category we acknowledge without fully exploring.
In 1973, I left my rural Christian childhood home and became a university student. I experienced the dissonance of a world that was much…
When our own cultural perspective is extremely limited, our capacity for ministering cross-culturally will likewise be significantly constrained. A perspective growing out of spiritual maturity—more and more of us and fewer and fewer of them—will go a long way toward effective ministering cross-culturally.
The God of mission has a church, a people he shapes and sends in collaboration with missio dei. God himself accomplishes missionary formation through a series of shaping events that unfold over a lifetime.
Expectations for new missionaries as well as for their sending bodies should include a long-term developmental perspective that recognizes on-field difficulties as expected and as the normative shaping events God intentionally uses to develop cross-cultural ministry capacity.
International mission agencies can offer guidance. We need guides. I don’t mean a simplistic, short-term orientation course. But neither do we need a boss who only gives commands and does not truly walk with us. I mean each missionary needs a genuine guide.
My vision is for training with the goal of fruitfulness. There is a great movement happening in the Chinese church, but there isn’t a great deal of actual church planting happening. How do we help them to bear fruit?
ChinaSource is excited to partner with OSCAR, which stands for One Stop Center for Advice and Resources. The UK-based website offers both in-person and online courses, including the British Culture Orientation course. Find out about this course and more aspects of OSCAR’s work in this “3 Questions” video interview with Mike Frith.
ChinaSource is delighted to partner with OSCAR, which stands for One Stop Center for Advice and Resources. The UK-based website offers both in-person and online courses, including the British Culture Orientation course. Joann Pittman recently spoke with Mike Frith to find out about this course and how churches can use it to help diaspora Chinese Christians.
“One of the beautiful things about symbolizing cultures with trees is that this picture captures the essence of variation and uniqueness among groups… The image of the tree allows you to first think about commonalities by acknowledging all trees have the same parts, and then to address differences by thinking of the many different types of trees.”
Re-entering a country that is “home” can be confusing. There is an unlearning—a releasing of some of the strategies that were only needed in a place with different rules and ways of living. We do not return as people who have stayed as we were before we left. There are things to shed; there are things to keep.
For missions to be successful, cross-cultural workers need to be equipped to understand the new culture. Churches need training on how best to support their workers. FieldPartner is creating online content in English and Chinese to support both workers and sending churches.