Cross Cultural Mission

We met Paul Thaxter on Saturday at the Fresh Expressions vision day. I attended his workshop on how to interpret cultural contexts. Paul spent quite a few years in Pakistan as a missionary where he learned to engage culture and offer the Gospel to people in a challenging context.

Paul works for the Church Mission Society, one of these parachurch organizations that we've been finding out about in Britain that are doing amazing and creative things. The Church Mission Society had its origins in the Clapham Sect, the network of evangelical social reformers in the 19th century that were formed to work for the abolition of slavery. Paul's title is "Transcultural Mission Director" and the "foreign cultures" he deals with are often not in other countries but in the vast realms of British society that are completely untouched by the Christian message.

We had already planned to go to Oxford for a couple of days and realized to our delight that the CMS (Church Mission Society) offices are in Oxford. We agreed to meet Paul for lunch.

He's a really engaging guy, with a deep instinct for connecting with people who speak different "languages" and live and work in different places. He had said at the workshop on Saturday that Jesus was the greatest cross-cultural missionary of all time because he bridged the gap between the "culture of heaven" and the "culture of earth."

He told the following story that describes what he's about. Shortly after returning from Pakistan, he was on a train where he met three younger women. They struck up a conversation. "What do you do?" they asked. He wasn't sure how to answer because he knew that "missionary," "minister" or any other church-related descriptor would probably produce a polite response, but close the doors to genuine dialogue. So, he replied, "I help people navigate their spiritual journeys."

"That is so interesting," one of them said, and they embarked on an intense discussion of some really deep issues. When they got off the train, one of the young women said to another, "You know, we've been friends since we were 7 years old, and I've never heard you tell that story."

People are desperately hungry to explore spiritual questions and issues but the language we want to use to frame the discussion effectively closes so many doors. This was an illustration of how to use language to open doors.

What are the most important things about being missional, we asked. "It's who you will eat with," Paul replied. So much of what we've been hearing focuses on the crucial importance of table fellowship. Eating with people has implications that are evangelical (who we regard as important), ecclesiological (how we define our communities) and eschatological (prefiguring the Kingdom of God.)

It's also about who we are willing to pray with -- not just pray for but pray with. The church's prayers are often patronizing because while we're quite willing to pray for the poor and the marginalized, we're often not so willing to pray with them, to invite them into the task of prayer.

It's all pretty simple, he said. Jesus is the "handshake of God." As Christian leaders, we just need to do our job -- to begin with prayer, to steward the Gospel, to do what we've been called to do. Conversations like the one we had with Paul Thaxter have reinforced for me just how much we do in the church actually interferes with the Gospel. We just need to do what we've been called to to do.