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Thursday, April 06, 2006

Cross-Cultural Outreach: A Missiological Perspective on Youth Ministry by Paul Borthwick

When I first read this article, I fell in love with it. Because it presents a clear, theological and missiological rationale for developing our anthropological skills as youthworkers. I'll try to summarize some of the major points as this doc. is not readily accessible.

a. Rebecca Atallah's Urbana '96 Presentation: Loving the Poor.
b. Mark DeVries' Family-based Youth Ministry
c. Father Vincent Donovan's Christianity Rediscovered
d. Daniel Offer's The Teenage World: Adolescents' in Ten Different Countries

"Youth ministry is cross-cultural work. Youth ministers require the skills of missionaries, taking biblical truths and applying them to specific cultures..."

Three Foundational Assumptions
It assumes that youth ministry means:
1. Reaching teenagers where they live.
2. Commitment to evangelizing the unchurched.
3. Commitment to integrating youth into the local church.

Youth Ministry as Missions
Youth ministers undertake a variety of roles.
> As counselors, they address the acute and chronic problems that youth and their parents face. > As teachers, they dedicate themselves to communicating God's truth.
> As sociologists, they examine cultural trends, the media, and other influences on youth and families.
> As theologians, youth ministers endeavor to know God and make him known to youth in conceptes they can apprehend.
> As missionaries, youth become anthropologists, studying the culture that they are trying to reach, and then looking for ways to present the gospel lifestyle in ways that truly connect with culture.

The cross-cultural aspect of youth ministry includes the following issues:
1. Cultural Adaptation
2. Language Learning
3. Sitz-im-Leben
4. Thought-Processes/Decision Making Across Cultures
5. Ethnomusicology
6. Equipping Indigenous Leadership
7. Cultural Bridge-Building
8. Contextualization

Comment A. This document outlines a very clear justification for why youthworkers need to be engaged in the study of culture. This is largely the motivation for why I am studying communication and culture currently. The more clearly we are able to understand people, the more effective we will be in working with them, meeting deep human needs, sharing the love of Jesus and the hope that is found in salvation etc.

However, there are a multiplicity of cultures and the differences which arise mean that there is not one quick-fix answer for understanding youth culture(s). Each one of us need to become anthropologists in our local communities - listening to the voices of the kids and teens you are working with, and challenging the injustices which are unique to your local setting.

What is unique about the people-group, sub-culture, setting in which you are called to engage in youthwork?

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