Welcome to the classroom - part I

Since we are in Peru to train the trainers of the NEWMA mission, it makes sense that I should introduce you to the place where we do that. Where do you teach missionaries? Specifically, where do you train Peruvian missionaries who are training others as well? Of course the traditional answer is, “we teach in classrooms.” And to a point, the Creating Understanding seminar does use classrooms. But as a friend once said, teaching missions in a classroom makes as much sense as teaching skydiving or scuba diving in a classroom. A little bit of information is needed, but a LOT of hands on experience. And so, welcome to the four classrooms where our students are learning about mission:

-The Upper Class church in Mira Flores. Four of the students are involved with Sunday activities, mid-week activities, and weekend special ministry in a major denomination’s upper class outreach in the upscale community of Mira Flores. The church has 3000 members, and a pastoral staff of 11. Members come from all over Lima (they have their own cars), though most are from the Mira Flores district. The church is known for its unique leadership structure – a pastoral team rather than the usual strong senior pastor role.

-The neighborhood of Tahuantinsuyo. The name of this barrio was used for the Inca capital area where four regions all merged (the word means, “four regions”). This neighborhood carries a proud name, even though the Incan central was located in Cuzco, very far from Lima. The reality of the neighborhood is rough and tumble. Gangs, drugs, street fights. . . the barrio is a mixture of recent immigrants from the Peruvian countryside, and a second generation of street smart inhabitants. The gospel is growing solidly (city statistics say that 28% of the residents call themselves evangelical), and yet the violence and poverty remain as major realities.

-The “stop suffering” churches. This fast growing group is touching a nerve in Peruvian hearts, as they present a form of prosperity gospel that developed in Brazil. The preachers are Peruvian, but speak as if they have Portuguese accents. . . . a fascinating but sad study. This group is touching core issues in Peruvian hearts, but they are changing the gospel to do so. Our students are grappling with understanding why this group is growing as it is.

-Finally, Lima is home to Latin America’s largest China Town. Four of the students attend services in a Chinese church that offers preaching in Spanish with translation one week into Cantonese, and the next into Mandarin. The church is seeking a trilingual full time pastor to attend to both of the Chinese language groups and to the youth who prefer to worship and study in Spanish. The Seminar overlapped with the Chinese New Years celebration, and our students were there to watch the processions and activities.

What do our students do in these classrooms? We start by developing skills for learning what is happening in an unfamiliar culture – observation, research on the internet, interviewing, and visiting the places where activities are underway. That set of notes (multiple dozens of pages, by the end of the 2 months) becomes the “raw material” for analyzing the culture through the lens we call the “Cultural Onion” and then for developing ministry that will fit the heart of the people.

All of the observation and wise questions in the world won’t help if the Lord isn’t giving insight, understanding, and discernment. Would you please join in prayer that the Lord would give two kinds of fruit from this classroom? The first fruit we ask for is solid skill in the process we are teaching, so that the students in the Seminar can duplicate this in other ministry areas. The second fruit is for the opportunity to minister while they are in these neighborhoods and churches. The technical word for what we are doing is “participant observation” and we take that seriously. We want to observe, but we also ask God to allow us to participate, to touch the lives of the people we rub shoulders with in all of these different “classrooms.”

Beyond the Mask

We’ve come to the end of week number two of the Seminar in Creating Understanding here in the Magdelena section of Lima. At this point in the Seminar, we’ve worked long and hard to develop new skills in observing. Teachers and students alike have visited centers of various cultures around Lima. We’ve gone to the city’s main plazas, museums, cathedrals, and even the building where the Peruvian Congress meets. We’ve looked, listened, and noted. We’ve paid attention to foods, to uses of space, to clothing, to buildings and cars. We’ve listened to music and watched people’s gestures and faces.

After these trips, the students (and the teachers!) write up their observations. We set apart time to share with one another, so that what one person saw can help his or her colleagues. Around the tables and in late night talks, we talk over what we have seen. Most of the students are not from Lima (though they have lived here), but even those who grew up in the city tell us that they are seeing their city and their culture through a whole new lens. In a debrief session yesterday, one student said that what we have done so far would not only help someone to be a better missionary, but a better teacher or pastor or medical worker.

In the visits we made this week, some of us came across a museum that wasn’t part of our plan. We had an extra 45 minutes, and so we took the opportunity to go into the “Museum of Popular Arts and Traditions.” What a delightful display of the multitude of Peruvian art forms! In the museum I saw a poster promoting an exhibition on Peruvian masks. The title says, “Seeing the invisible.” This poster might become a new favorite way for me to explain what the Seminar in Creating Understanding is all about. Let me explain. . .

Why all of the focus on observing, interviewing, recording? It is because every culture has its favorite masks. The museum display was of physical masks, but there are those cultural “personas” that serve as masks too. I personally like the mask of a John Wayne or Humphrey Bogart – calm, in control, the one who knows what to do. (If you prefer, substitute Denzel Washington or George Clooney or Tom Cruise! The mask is the same). Even if I don’t use a piece of wood or plastic to put on that mask, I use the mask none-the-less.

We use masks – whether real or metaphor, to hide what we don’t want outsiders to see, and to display what we want to be visible. To those inside a group of people, there is understanding of what each mask means. Ahh, but trying to learn those meanings as a foreigner is quite another story.

Everyone knows that behind the mask is the real man or the real woman. How do we get beyond the mask to know that person? How do we see the invisible? As messengers sent from outside a group to deliver the King’s message, how do we understand what is hidden and what is revealed by the mask? By learning. By asking. By watching and listening, eating with the people, sharing in their realities, knowing their stories, their preferences, their fears. Knowing how they choose their clothes and cars (or bikes, or which bus to take. . . . . ). Knowing what one kind of smile means, and what another type of smile means. The way past the mask is to participate and observe – to share the life of the people we have been sent to, and to watch, listen, taste, smell, and touch the world they live in. As we observe, we slowly gain the privilege of seeing beyond the mask.

Jesus sent us to proclaim – to make His Word understandable to the nations. He sent us to disciple – to teach others to obey all that He commanded. Sometimes people ask if all of this observing and “getting to the core of the culture” is necessary – after all, can’t we just preach the Word? But when we think that way, we end up preaching to the masks, and only seeing superficial response. Making disciples calls us to understand the people, so we can disciple them to obey Jesus’ commands in their place, among their people, in their way of living. To make disciples, we have to get past the mask. We have to see the invisible. And that is why that poster I saw in the Museum captures the reason for the Seminar in Creating Understanding.

What's in a name?

Our colleagues at the Escuela Misiologica Latinoamericana (EMLA) prepared a beautiful office for us to use during the Seminar. As much as I appreciate the two desks, conference table, and view of the ocean and city, though, I am dedicating this blog to the sign on the door.

It says, “World Link Graduate Center (WLGC)” I had to stop and think as I looked at that sign – are we really linking the world? Is that just a nice sound, or is there reality in the name of our ministry?

Let me tell you how I spent the weekend, and you can decide: Friday night I downloaded my email, and read student work sent to me by four students in the MA program. It was late, so I got a good night’s sleep and then, on Saturday evening, interacted with students from Mozambique, Ghana, and Nigeria about what we learn from God in His names. You could say I was “grading” their work, but in fact we were mutually encouraging one another in the Lord, and growing in the ability to take His Word to other peoples. Sunday morning, the three Portlanders left with two of the Seminar participants to go to a local church service in Lima. It was missions Sunday, and we heard about Peruvian missionaries serving outside of Peru. Conversation over lunch revolved around the culture of that neighborhood – things that we had learned by attending the church service. Without saying so, Karen and I were teaching Peruvian students how to better understand a neighborhood and a church community. One weekend, with interaction between students and faculty in Portland, Peru, Ghana, Nigeria, and Mozambique. Maybe the name is a reality.

And yet, there is something else that is behind that name. What links the world is not just the internet or an international school where mission leaders, mission teachers, and missionaries interact; what links the world is “mou eklesia,” the words Jesus used in Matthew 16:18. He took a common word from the Greek community (eklesia – a group that meets together for any number of reasons that they share in common). Jesus took the “eklesia” idea and made it universal and timeless. It is now not just a “group” – it is “Jesus’ group.” Not just “eklesia” but “mou eklesia” – “My church” as Jesus phrased it. What is World Link about? Tied to Jesus and His Church and His mission, we link arms across the continents to prepare and send messengers. . . . . so that the Links can grow. . . . so that “Jesus’ eklesia” expands. . . . . so that He can receive the glory. That is the link. In a sense all of us who know Jesus are part of “world link.” It is He who links us together.

I’m glad to have it on our office door!

Communication is Involvement

We have a saying that captures the heart of the ministry of the Institute for International Christian Communication – “communication is involvement.” This blog is about what that involvement looks like as a group from Portland communicates, teaches, shares, and learns from our hosts in the NEWMA mission.

The first thing that comes to my mind is the involvement in living together in the same building. There are fewer students than we first expected – it looks like there will be 20 in total. But those 20 are all actively part of various cross cultural ministries. Most work within Peru, but there are over 70 languages within this beautiful country, and so it is no surprise that we find huge differences in cultural background between the students. Living in the same building with the students brings us up close and personal with so much more than just the classroom. Karen was up late last night, talking with one of the women. This afternoon I got to spend some extra time talking over the ministry with the Dean of the school, my friend Dr Hurtado. If we were staying off-campus, uninvolved, these things just couldn’t happen.

Meal time is a special joy. The food is typical of Peru – made with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. We tarry around the table at breakfast (7:30 AM), lunch (the big meal, served at 1:00) and dinner (a light soup, served at 6:30). The fellowship and conversation focus on missionary work and the application of the day’s lessons to the ministries. Two nights ago we heard from a church planting missionary who works in the Andean mountains. His church is growing in spite of the cultural difficulties of having European missionaries as well as local believers. We laughed and we cried at the stories. We hope (and we pray, even that night) that the things we are discussing in the Seminar will help to give this brother (Eusebio) wisdom in a very complicated ministry.

After supper there is time for projects, reading, and visiting. I usually have a number of emails to catch up on, or teaching notes to prepare. But guess what has happened for the last three nights? One student after another comes to talk, to pray, to share an idea, to suggest a Spanish word that would better capture the idea I had presented in class.

This Sunday we will begin visiting churches in various parts of the city. The students will visit these churches for the next 5 – 6 weeks, getting involved in the life of the community and the church and applying what we have taught during the week to understand the people of that place. I’ll be going along, too – sharing in the experiences, getting to know both the students and the communities, praying for and with them.

Communication IS involvement – it is from the basis of shared lives and shared experiences that we live out and proclaim the gospel. What a joy to be so involved with the missionaries of the NEWMA mission. To live among them, even for a short 8 weeks, is both a blessing to us and the foundation for a communication that goes so far beyond simple classroom teaching.

En route to Lima

To give out information is fairly easy – hand out a book, write a paragraph, give someone instructions. But to create understanding is so much more than that. Understanding grows where information crosses paths with experience and environment. It grows over time where misconceptions are first formed, and then corrected. Understanding grows where questions are answered and, with patience and God’s grace, a shared comprehension is formed.

Welcome to the Creating Understanding blog. We will no doubt use this site to share information. Even more, though, we want to use this site to see beyond the information – to see into that invisible realm where facts, experiences, history, environment and basic life assumptions are reshaped to create understanding of God, His Word, and His ways.

I’m writing this on the evening before leaving for Lima, Peru. Lima is home to many missionaries, and I will have the joy of being with 25 or so of them for the next two months. But it may not be the kind of missionaries you are thinking of. When I hear the word “missionary” in the US, I usually think of someone sent out from the US or Canada or, on occasion, from Western Europe. The missionaries we will be working with in Lima are not from the northern hemisphere. They are from the NEWMA mission who, for 30 years, has been sending gospel messengers from Peru and Ecuador and other South American nations. The missionaries of NEWMA are starting churches and making disciples in North America, Europe, and throughout Latin America.

Could we ask that you join us in praying that God’s Word will direct and guide, open minds, and develop skills in both the South American “students” and the North American “teachers?” (Those roles will certainly shift back and forth over these two months!)

The teachers come from the Institute for International Christian Communication (based in Portland, Oregon), and are staff members in the MA program in Intercultural Leadership. Over these two months, seven faculty and administrative staff will come and go from Peru, teaching an introductory seminar which may then be followed by internet-based MA studies. We've been invited to lead this group of NEWMA leaders and trainers, giving them ever more skill and ability at creating understanding of the Lord and His Message among the nations where they are serving.

In coming posts, I’ll tell you more about the staff who is meeting us in Lima, and the students who are setting aside their own schedules to be with us for the Seminar in Creating Understanding.

Mark Hedinger