Culture, culture, culture
Yeah, so I know that it has been a while, and that most people probably quit reading when I haven't posted for a while, but anyway, here is a new one.
This past week I had a great conversation with a pretty sharp guy about what it means to study culture. We just met through a business transaction, and through it, we started talking a little bit about how important it is to be a student of our culture. I think that in order to be successful in anything you do, you must become a student of who your target audience is. In order to offer them assistance, guidence, customer service, whatever, you have to be able to understand where they are and where they are trying to get.
People are people, and at the core of things we all have the same basic needs. These are some that stick out to me:
1. To have meaningful relationships with other people
2. To be a part of something bigger than ourselves
3. To feel like our life made a difference
I think that at the root of all that makes us feel content, happy, or fulfilled, we will find one of these three things.
I believe it was Socrates (but it might have been his apprentice Plato) who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Pretty profound. I believe there is a lot of truth to that. But how often do we really stop and examine our lives. How often do we stop and examine the lives of those around us. The culture around us.
I believe that the tragedy of many "Christians" I have interacted with, or maybe even most "churches" is that we become so inwardly focused that we forget to ask the question, "What is going on with our culture? My neighbor? What are they searching for? How will I communicate God's love to them?"
Let us never forget to look around at the people who pass us every day. The people who wait on us at our favorite restaurant. The people who we rub shoulders with at the mall. The people who stand in line in front of us at Starbucks. The people we work with in business transactions everyday. They are people. And they have the same basic needs that I do. How can I help them on there journey?
posted by freddy @ 2/23/2006 06:23:00 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Glad to see read another post my man.
I'm happy to see you update.
Glad you're back... I was wondering where you were!!!!
Culture is the mst important part of ministry...we can't impact them if we don't know why they do what they do or how they do it. "We" usually think of that when we partake in foreign missions, but rarely think about it when we partake in city outreaches outside our front doors. Great insight!
Ok dude, this post is so old it's starting to grow cultures.
That's why I've studied intercultural, cross-cultural, and organizational communication! Because not only is it important to recognize and understand the values and beliefs of our own culture but in order to communicate with others, we must be able to recognize, respect (not agree with), and understand (again not agree with) their cultural platoform from which they view the world.
For example, there was a community that valued pigs (worshipped them almost) and when missionaries translated the Bible into their language they had to adjust the story of Jesus sending the Legion of demons into the pigs, and all the other negative connotations of swine in order to be able to communicate God's message of love, grace, and mercy!!
So too we must know our audience!!
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