Hello…
from the editor
empowering communities to
develop their own distinctive
ways of following Jesus
Whenever I speak this mission
statement of Global Interaction, I want
to emphasis almost every word (I feel
like the graphic designer who is told
to give everything prominence!). But
honestly, every part of it is so crucial!
Let’s break it down.
› › Empowering: Building up and
growing self-sustainability rather
than dependence.
› › Communities: Not extracting
individual believers and separating
them from their networks, but seeing
whole families and communities
transformed as believers stay
connected and share their faith.
› › to Develop: This is a journey and
will take time.
› › Their Own: Unique to their culture,
community and experience, and
discerned by them.
› › Distinctive Ways: Expression
of faith that grows out of the
community’s culture and makes
sense in that place.
› › of Following Jesus: At the
unchanging core is a community
of believers who trust, follow and
choose Jesus above all.
This mission statement lays the
foundation for this edition of Resonate,
‘The Context Issue’. Our cross-
cultural teams are passionate about
understanding the culture of the
communities they are living and serving
among. They invest significant time in
culture and language lessons with a
local language nurturer. Why? Because
they know our culture influences so
much of who we are, how we behave,
what motivates us, what we’re afraid of,
how we communicate, view the world
and express faith.
So it makes sense, then, that for the
Gospel to be understood in different
contexts, it needs to be communicated
in different ways depending on the
context. And THIS is the crux of
contextualisation.
Someone very qualified to explore
this theme of contextualisation, or
contextual mission, is Jonno. In his
article (pages 3 – 4), Jonno opens up
about the black, white and grey of
contextualisation that he has witnessed
over the past 17 years in Malawi and
Mozambique. Also in this edition,
Eliza and David, in the Silk Road Area,
share memorable moments of ‘culture
surprise’ (page 7) and Luke, in Thailand,
digs deep into what it means for a faith
community to express their faith in
contextual ways (pages 5 - 6). Plus…
be challenged and encouraged by the
four session Bible study written by Lisa
West-Newman, former cross-cultural
worker in Cambodia and current QLD
Young Adults Consultant (pages 8 – 12).
Now here’s the really exciting bit,
remember in the last edition when
we alluded to Resonate’s next step?
Well… along with the print magazine
you know and love, we are also
releasing videos with each edition
of Resonate! These videos expand
on the theme of the edition and bring
in other voices and stories. We are
very excited!! View and download
them at www.globalinteraction.org.au/
ResonateVideos
But first, read on!
Teagan
resonate
· issue 33 · page 1