“Cross-Cultural Servanthood Serving the World in Christlike Humility Cross-cultural servant hood”
Cross-Cultural Servanthood
Introduction
Elmer gives great information on cross-cultural servanthood and how missionaries can serve all people regardless of geographical boundaries. An important point is that modern missionaries need to follow the footsteps of Christ and make servanthood a natural task by showing humility. There is a big problem which needs to be addressed in order to fulfill the Great Commission and reach the unreached people in the world. Today, missionaries’ actions portray superiority and imperialism toward diverse cultures or in other words they do not offer Christlike service. Elmer recommends that missionaries should serve with sensitivity and humility and understand cross-cultural awareness to avoid offending people. Humility should be the guiding principle since it unit’s people and help servants use their natural gifts. In order to build and maintain relationships with diverse cultures, missionaries need to follow the step of Christ and show humility.
Summary section
This book is great as it provides helpful information on cross-cultural context on servanthood. The first important point that Elmer states is that servanthood is unnatural task-meaning that the work is for those who desire to be cross-cultural servants in spreading the good news. However, servanthood will become a natural thing if servants discover a deepest identification with God and understand that the servanthood is not only based on their deeds but also on how people define them[1]. Other important point is that in servanthood, the servants should choose between a towel and a robe. The disciples of Jesus focused on gaining royal status, prominence, special honor and powerful positions (robe) and ignored the need to serve others, meeting the need of others, seeking the lost, nurturing people and services to humankind (towel)[2]. In this point, Elmer offers a main theme of service versus greatness. This means that the goal of servanthood should be on serving others and the servant role should be characterized by humility and obedience. The main purpose of this book is to help and challenge the modern evangelical Christians who have the desire to follow Christ and fulfill the Great Commission. Servanthood is journey which requires guiding principles. In spreading the gospel and revealing Christ, servants need to practice openness, acceptance, trust, understanding and learning. These principles will build a positive experience and God’s purpose will be fulfilled[3].
Elmer states that servanthood is characterized by set skills and missionaries must possess these skills in order to enter in cross-cultural ministry. He notes that servanthood is a journey that needs discipline as well as perseverance in offering servant practices. Elmer states that the first step of servanthood is openness[4]. On this principle, servants cannot serve people whom they do not understand and understanding cannot be achieved without learning. In learning, success cannot be achieved or servants cannot derive important information about cultures if there no relationship and trust between the two. For trust and relationship to be achieved and maintained, the servant and the people served must value each other. Before accepting diverse cultures, a servant should show openness to different cultures in social setting. By being open, servants need to show acceptance through value and respecting others unconditionally[5]. The latter means that value and respect should be offered regardless of lifestyle, behaviors and so forth. Through acceptance, servants show the glory of God, unity in Christ and God’s blessings. After acceptance, servants should build trust and relationship with the new cultures. Trust can be built through learning their language, sharing and mutual learning, solving problems and showing forgiveness[6]. In addition, servants should adhere to the principle of understanding other people’s culture. In order to communicate effectively, create a beneficial exchange and reduce fear, servants must understand the cultures as well as their importance in sharing the word of God. After understanding and valuing the diverse cultures, servants should serve and help them live a God-glorifying lives.
Elmer not only provides the principles of servanthood but he also introduces the challenges that servants may come across in the cross-cultural ministry. Elmer states that the challenges in servanthood emerge as people do not understand the meaning of servant and leadership[7]. In biblical perspective, missionaries are called for servanthood but not for leadership. The bad thing with leaderships as it is stated in the bible is that leaders can be good and others can be blatant hypocrites like the Pharisees[8]. In servanthood, leaders who tend to be servants follow their personality and ignore the biblical aspects. The point is that those who are willing to spread the gospel should act as servants of God. A servant must be humble and reflect the character of Jesus. Finally, Elmer states that missionaries should imitate the servanthood model of Joseph[9]. The latter engaged in a cross-cultural ministry and faced various challenges. However, he did not focus on power or prominence but rather he showed openness, accepted diverse cultures, created trust and served people as Christ did.
Critique section
In today missionary work, Western missionaries do not reflect the character of Jesus since their servanthood is characterized by superiority and imperialism which results to unintentional insults. In addition, missionaries focus on their cultural context which presents superior attitude such as education, wealth and leadership[10]. Others have the problem of cultural misinterpretation due to race, ways of living and more. This is the high time to understand the real meaning of cross-cultural servanthood and follow the Christ services. This book is wonderful as it provides ways of ministering and giving Christlike services to people in all nations. Since there are many people who have not heard the gospel on salvation, modern missionaries are called to embrace sensitivity and humility in serving diverse cultures[11]. Missionaries should follow the footsteps of Christ be compassionate and show acts of kindness in order to change the world. Even though servanthood is unnatural things, it becomes natural when missionaries are compassionate and express the Christian life. Note that Jesus was a good example of a servant who practices servanthood cross-culturally. Jesus entered in the Jewish culture and redeemed those who believed[12]. In order to achieve task effectiveness in fulfill the Greta Commission, the only thing to do is to built relationship with other cultures and change their behaviors.
Servanthood is a major theme which Elmer presents , and he strengthens the theme by showing that every person is called to be a servant of God and God’s desire is to change the character of sinners so that they can reflect the character of Jesus. Biblically, the role of a servant is to recognize the needs of others and meet their needs[13]. An important point that Elmer wants the reader to note is that servanthood is challenging and a rewarding job. In spreading the gospel cross-culturally, there are barriers here and there and they are also benefits which are achieved through saving souls and making people experience the transforming power and live a Godly life[14]. Today, servanthood is imperative in spreading the gospel to the unreached people in all nations. Servants are called to enter in every nation regardless of geographic boundaries and tell about the salvation. However, Elmer states that modern missionaries do not fully understand the cross-cultural servanthood since they do not value other cultures. Missionaries should understand that servanthood reflects the discipleship, and in order to be great in the kingdom of God, missionaries should the servant of all and follow the footstep of Jesus in spreading the good news and bringing hope and freedom[15].
In cross-cultural context, missionary work is hindered by ethnocentric attitudes and this book challenges the action presented by missionaries in the cross-cultural ministry and provided approaches that missionary need to apply in the cross-cultural servanthood[16]. In servanthood, one important thing that will make modern missionaries serve as Christ did is ignoring the robe and valuing the towel. This means that in serving cross-culturally, missionaries should not focus on gaining prominence and being connected with people of power but they should focus on meeting the needs of people, valuing other people than they value themselves and make service the main achievable goal[17]. In Mathew 20:26, missionary should be servant of all in order to be great in the kingdom of God. A point to note is that Chris was Lord and Jesus but he also showed obedience and humility. However, his followers failed to notice the humble servanthood and focused on his kingly role[18]. This teaches us that in cross-cultural servanthood, Jesus calls servants to imitate his character of humility. They should avoid showing pride which breaks the unity and causes conflict and quarrelsome relationships.
The book has various strengths in that Elmer touches on critical issues facing missionaries and which are vital to cross-cultural ministry. The first important point to note in this book is that servanthood is a task which requires strategies in order to fulfill the Great Commission[19]. Note that in order to be open and welcome people, missionaries should suspend judgment, tolerate ambiguity and give positive attribution. In addition, missionaries should think gray-avoid making opinion without relevant facts. The point is in cross-cultural setting, missionaries should monitor their thoughts, avoid fleeting thoughts and premature judgment[20]. Note that Jesus showed a countercultural act by welcoming and sharing meal with sinners, strangers and poor. Missionaries should express openness in a cultural ways to both non-Christians and Christians. All people from diverse cultures have a sacred dignity and this dignity should compel the missionaries to value and accept them. To be open, missionaries should be committed and willing to built relationship with different cultures. In cross-cultural servanthood, missionaries should follow the footsteps of Jesus in accepting others[21]. Missionaries should value others cultures and accept their values regardless of social setting. Even though missionaries may reject sinful behaviors described by the bible, they should avoid dehumanizing behaviors and accept all people regardless of race and gender. It is also important to be aware of factors that hinder acceptance such as language, impatience, ethnocentrism, dogmatism and so forth[22]. By being open to cultural difference and accepting values, missionaries should create trust across cultures. Since different cultures build trust differently, it is important as a missionary to learn how to built trust by first maintaining trustful. In servanthood, learning and understand are key element that modern missionaries should apply in cross-cultural ministry. In order to fulfill goals, Elmer advices missionaries to learn about the new cultures, their language, practices as well as customs[23]. Through learning, an authentic partnership will be built. Learning will also help the missionary understand the different cultural practice, avoid ethnocentric ways, show empowering humility and act like Christ. In serving the children of God, missionary should have understanding, should enforce rules and practice forgiveness. Note that these steps are abilities- meaning that missionary should make a choice, be committed and willing to serve as Christ did[24].
Today, there is a big challenge in that modern Christian leaders are connecting servanthood with leadership. In cross-cultural ministry¸ the word servant is misused as church leaders practice servant-like practices which are characterized by dictatorship, oppression and so forth[25]. Leaders who tend to be servants act presents dictatorial styles and others are not gifted at all. They end up destructing the word of God and a big problem is that they never realize their mistake as they inwardly accept they are servants. Elmer advice modern missionaries and church leaders to avoid attaching the servant to servant-leadership since they are not common and people who desire to follow Christ are called to be servants. In addition, not only are they called to be servant but they should also be humble servants who serves the community and who show acceptance and God’s grace to all[26]. Elmer adds that missionaries should imitate character of Joseph since he was open, welcomed people and valued the Egyptian culture. He accepted the new culture, adjusted to the ways and become an Egyptian ruler. Joseph learned the new language, he built trust, and he was willing to understand the political economic and social affairs and served them positively through humility and obedience[27].
The book contains shortcomings in that it mainly focuses on guidelines that missionaries should follow in serving local cultures. It touches much on cultural understanding but ignores the services to offer or how to share gospel with diverse cultures. Other shortcoming is apparent in part three where he introduces a new topic on leadership[28]. The topic on leadership does not play important role in the book and for this reason, he could deal on cross-culture servanthood without introducing issues on servant-leadership. Finally, the author ignores subtle cultural differences and he focuses on local cultures. Missionaries are called to serve different cultures not only in U.S but also in other nations[29].
Conclusion
Elmer challenges modern missionaries for their actions which differ from Christ’s service. In cross-cultural servanthood, missionaries are called to fulfilling the Great Commission to the world and to all cultures regardless of race and gender. Elmer recommends that in order to create a relationship with diverse people, missionaries need to be open, accept the diverse values, build trust and show interest in learning the new ways. Sensitivity and humility and key elements which missionaries need to apply in the missionary work and this will help spread the gospel without compromise. The final important thing in this book is that modern missionaries need to choose towel and not the robe. This means that in offering Christ like service,. Missionaries should have a common goal of serving and saving the soul. They should not serve to gain prominence but rather they should be humble and obedient for them to be great in the kingdom of God.
Bibliography
Elmer Duane. (2006). Cross-Cultural Servanthood Serving the World in Christlike Humility. InterVarsity Press.
[1] Elmer Duane. (2006). Cross-Cultural Servanthood Serving the World in Christlike Humility. InterVarsity Press.
[2] Ibid, 24
[3] Ibid, 33
[4] Ibid, 46
[5] Ibid, 76
[6]Ibid , 223
[7] Ibid, 224
[8] Ibid, 225
[9] Ibid, 278
[10] Ibid, 8
[11] Ibid, 32
[12] Ibid, 38
[13] Ibid, 40
[14] Ibid, 41
[15] Ibid, 44
[16] Ibid, 45
[17] Ibid, 48
[18] Ibid, 50
[19] Ibid, 68
[20] Ibid, 70
[21] Ibid, 75
[22] Ibid, 97
[23] Ibid, 152
[24] Ibid, 158
[25] Ibid, 223
[26] Ibid, 228
[27] Ibid, 278
[28] Ibid, 223
[29] Ibid, 279
