Developing Cultural Attentiveness: Posture Shifts
Missiology is a practical and richly theological approach to the study of the missio Dei (the mission of God) and helps us to engage with all kinds of people in today’s American context with wisdom and discernment. Missiology tends to create unrest, resist complacency, and challenge institutional impulses. It serves to heighten our senses and looks to God’s Spirit who invites and empowers us to be gospel witnesses whoever we are and wherever we go.
Cultural attentiveness is different than cultural awareness. Let me explain. Developing cultural awareness implies that we’re generally conscious of our surroundings in a broad and general sense, whereas developing cultural attentiveness involves a focused and active engagement.
For example, I am culturally aware that March Madness is a big deal in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area because of the caliber of teams often associated with Duke, UNC, and NC State and their long-term rivalry. Every March without fail, basketball dominates.
I am culturally attentive to the fact that the South Asian population is growing rapidly in the South Durham/Morrisville area where I live. The 2020 US Census indicates that the South Asian population in my zip-code has grown by 65% in the past ten years. This is evidenced by an increasing number of Indian restaurants and specialty food stores in our area.
I have met numerous Indians in the workspace where I write and in the friendships that my husband and I have developed with several of our Indian neighbors. Our closest friends immigrated to the US from Mumbai five years ago and recently became American citizens and our friendship is teaching us about their culture, their Hindu religion, and their close family ties and they willingly engage with us knowing that we follow Jesus.
Developing cultural attentiveness, I believe, is an adventure that prepares us for missionary encounters in our various contexts This attentiveness—focused and active engagement–requires us to make at least four posture shifts:
A shift from being experts to becoming curious, humble learners. The changes that we are experiencing in our changed and changing American context requires us to engage as learners. We cannot afford to think that we know or understand what’s going on.
A shift from the comfort of our perceived reality and a turn toward the unfamiliar complexity all around us. Turning toward the unfamiliar complexity means that we will encounter people who believe differently than we do, whose life-choices, worldviews, even political perspectives differ from ours. As learners and gospel witnesses, I believe we must take that risk.
A shift from making a presentation to engaging in meaningful gospel conversations. I am learning, in my experience as a gospel witness, that most gospel conversations that lead to salvation conversations take time and an emotional commitment.
A shift from selective awareness to a purposeful readiness and expectancy. The best way to make this shift is to remember that we are all God’s witnesses whoever we are and wherever we go.
I will break these shifts down in future posts. If you’re interested in developing cultural attentiveness, be sure to check out my new resource page designed with you in mind. These curated resources represent a culmination of more than forty years of ministry experience and my ongoing research as a PhD and Missiologist.
These resources, almost more importantly, represent my deep conviction that we are chosen by God the Father, born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and transformed by God’s Spirit to participate in the world as gospel witnesses—whoever we are and wherever we go.
