EMQ » July – Oct 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 3
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Mutuality Discussions
Summary: Global mission teams are becoming more and more multicultural. This presents challenges particularly to the work and relationships between people from the Global North and Global South. Facilitated discussions about cultural frameworks can help global workers gain a better understanding of different cultural perspectives.
By Sheryl Takagi Silzer
As the number of missionaries from the Global South increases, mission teams are becoming more cross-cultural. Workers from the Global North typically receive some pre-field cross-cultural training but have difficulty working through cross-cultural challenges.[i] At the same time, many missionaries from the Global South also struggle working with workers from other cultures but have not had access to similar training.
Learning together on-site in the mission context where they face cultural misunderstandings daily can help teams solve their team issues. Cultural misunderstandings need to be addressed together in real life situations so that the emotional distress they cause will not hinder the impact of their ministry or, even worse, lead to attrition.
What causes the cultural misunderstandings for mission workers? Cultural misunderstandings arise from unconscious cultural practices or habits everyone has. When we do things the same way day after day, information about our methods for doing things is stored in our long-term memory. These habits become unconscious, much like riding a bike or driving a car after regular practice.
Because cultural practices are unconscious, we assume that other people should react the same way. The problem is that our assumptions are frequently wrong. Therefore, we need a way to talk with each other so that we can better understand our cultural misunderstandings.
