A quick heads up: I’m heaps excited to let you know that Tamie has an article in the latest issue of Tyndale Bulletin.

This paper argues that literary context, commonly used by evangelicals, and intertextuality, often championed by feminist scholars, are complementary tools for understanding the story of Jephthah and his daughter in Judges 11:29-40. The lack of comment from the narrator on the morality of the story has perplexed many readers but, when viewed together, these approaches build a compelling case for Jephthah’s condemnation. The literary context gives warrant to the feminist horror at the events of Judges 11:29-40. Intertextual contrast relating to gender can alert the reader to other differences between the stories which then present Jephthah as an inversion of Abraham: unfaithful and abhorrent to YHWH.

Read the article in full

I thought we might explore the idea by taking a case study: the small group Bible study.

Let’s start with the typical elements of a ‘small group’ in Australia: 6-12 people meeting for 2-3 hours including a time for socialising and food, a Bible study, and some time to pray for one another. Maybe a worship time as well. The Bible study likely has a ‘leader’ but it’s discussion based: everyone brings their Bible and it’s the reference point as people talk about what a particular passage means or how it applies to life.

How might this be contextualised to Tanzania? Here are 8 possible considerations.

1: PHYSICAL

What sort of food will you eat? Where will you sit? What will you wear? Many of these things are things you might think about in Australia (‘Will I bring muffins or chocolate?’; ‘Will I wear jeans or trackies?’; Will it be awkward if I sit on the three-seater?) but they’ll have a different overlay in a place like Tanzania – how do gender and age affect where people are seated, for example?

But let’s backtrack, because we’ve already made some assumptions such as:
– There are resources to provide food
– There is shelter, and indoors
– That people will sit

2: LINGUISTIC

English is the language of essays and classrooms here; Swahili is the common language that people use on the street, but they might speak a tribal language at home.

3: SOCIAL

Small talk is not just a social nicety here. To exclude it is the height of rudeness. If you don’t inquire about the welfare of each person in 3 or 4 different ways, don’t expect to have decent (or any) conversations. In a Christian context, if you think about teaching someone before you pray for their health/family/other problem, can you really have said that you care about them?

So let’s revise the idea of the small group being 2-3 hours. You’re probably talking at least half a day or at least a different distribution of time.

4: MEDIA

Even if you’re dealing with the ‘educated’, reading may not be the default. People might take things in better by listening than by reading. The idea of reading out a passage with everyone following along might be unusual. Checking back with particular verses, even more so. That leads to…

5: AUTHORITY

‘Where did you get that?’ is a common question in small groups I’m used to leading. It’s about getting people to interact with the passage; it’s a way of equalising the group that puts the text as the authority with all of us equal readers of it. It works brilliantly in an egalitarian society (and is a good way of keeping people on topic!) But to have everyone offering ideas might seem very disrespectful in a hierarchical society where people expect to hear from the authority figure.

6: LEARNING STYLE

Critical thinking is highly valued in the west, including in our churches. We don’t want people to ‘parrot’ truth. We want them to own it, and the best indication of that seems to be that they learn by discussion and persuasion rather than by rote.

Putting 4, 5 and 6 together then, you have a small group where the leader might read aloud but is more likely to speak; people don’t offer their own views and learning is about hearing from the leader rather than forming your own view. (That’s not to say people don’t have their own views, mind you!) Suddenly your ‘study’ is looking more like a sermon.

All this is before you’ve even got to the question of what you’ll be studying. And if you’re the authority figure, that raises further considerations. Beyond method and mode (points 1-6), your task is to work out content. What will you choose to teach? Contextualisation exists not just on the level of how people learn but indeed what they learn.

7: GENRE

The epistles are the most studied part of the Bible in my Australian circles and normally in small chunks, probably because in our culture we persuade by propositions and enjoy the finer points of logical argument. But a more storytelling culture could take larger chunks and perhaps would find narrative more compelling. A culture that defines itself through song, such as the Dinka people, might find the Bible’s poetry more powerful.

8: MESSAGE

Laura over at Many Things has been reading about how things like selfhood and individual decision feature in the ‘evangelical gospel’ because those were key concerns at the time of the evangelical revivals. But are they essential, especially in a corporate culture? Might there be other themes or categories that are more appropriately prominent?

Even within ‘message’, there are layers to consider: motivation and perception are incredibly cultural things. Tell a Tanzanian they can be ‘saved from their sins’ and they might not care a whole heap; tell them ‘be saved from poverty’ and you’ve got their attention!

I suspect I’ll gather more considerations the longer we spend in this culture, and that I’ll need to flesh out these considerations too.

But one thing we are learning is that sometimes the learning is in the ‘doing’. Just as everyone in town stops to watch this mzungu try to get tie the baby on her back, just as we went to the front of the line at the baby clinic, we won’t be able to fade into the background in Songea either. Relationships are built by being involved in people’s lives. To observe only is to keep people at arm’s length. So we’re going to do the teaching, approaching it as a learning experience.

Make no mistake: I feel completely inadequate for this task. I might be a Bible teacher, but I’m a novice when it comes to Tanzanian culture. What do I know about these people’s lives? How on earth can I apply the Bible with any insight? Guest teaching is always tricky because you don’t know the people you’re speaking to. Guest teaching in another culture is downright terrifying!

Add to this the wazungu (white person) layer. Now, on one hand, we’ve been invited to teach because we are friends with John. He’s heard us teach before and has respect for us. But we’re also told that people will come from surrounding villages to hear us teach, expecting to hear God’s word from Australia. It’s unsettling for me that people would listen to me simply because I am white. I feel that I have done nothing to deserve their attention other than be born Australian. Not only do I feel inadequate to teach; I also feel unworthy. Why am I being afforded such honour?

There’s much to unpack about why Tanzanian Christians honour wazungu Bible teachers. There are both good and questionable reasons and results. But one of the reasons this is so uncomfortable for me is that I am used to accepting honour only if I feel I have earnt it. Honour that is not merit-based is intensely uncomfortable for me.

This aspect of Tanzanian culture is teaching me new dimensions of the scandal of grace. However much I blush to think of teaching in Songea next month, it reminds me of how entirely ineligible I am to be a child of the King, let alone his representative in the world. Just as I am baffled by the idea of being treated as an honoured teacher in Songea, I can give no reason for why Christ should count me as his sister and ambassador. And yet, he does.

It can be challenging, as an ethically concerned western person, to see yourself as undeserving of grace. It’s part of the reason so much of our apologetics and evangelism focuses on trying to convince people that they’re sinful. I don’t find those sorts of reflections particularly helpful myself, mainly because they tend to lead me to self-flagellation rather than thankfulness. But being asked to teach, an honour I don’t deserve, helps me to understand how the prodigal son might have felt when he intended to beg his father to take him back as a slave, only to be clothed with a robe and given a ring as he sat down to eat the fattened calf.

Jamie the Very Worst Missionary has a knack for the brutally honest. Her recent post Deciphering Missions argues that a lack of accountability in missions results in some missionaries being able to sound spiritual while doing virtually nothing. In her experience,

Every innocuous coffee date with a friend [turned] into ‘discipleship time’. Hours spent circling Facebook were important to ‘support development’ and everyday interactions with grocery store clerks and bank tellers suddenly became meaningful when referred to as ‘intentional relationships’.

Now, this problem isn’t unique to missions — lots of vocational ministry is self-directed, with the potential to sound holy while slacking off. Nor is this a problem which is true of all missionaries or mission organisations (and Jamie’s writing into an American context where missions is something of an industry).

It’s a good thing to have greater transparency in missions and more involvement on the part of supporters. But what exactly is a missionary supposed to be held accountable to? Here are two complexities of missionary ‘work’ and some suggestions.

1. Functional service needs functional people

Oh, and the things your supporters do in their time off (like running, or taking classes, or hanging out with their kids) are things you get to claim, according to Missionary Code, as work.

Jamie’s absolutely right on one hand. Exercise, personal development and family life are all ‘work’ for us, and they’re all things that our organisation asks us about and checks up on. But that’s because there is no such thing as ‘time off’ for us. Please don’t worry about us – we’re fine! But we don’t eat, sleep, shop, speak, dress, wash, interact with one another, watch TV, cook, parent or exercise like we would in Australia. Even things we do to rest carry a sense of foreignness and extra stress. That’s part of what it means to live cross-culturally, especially in the early years. It means that burn-out is an ever-present danger for missionaries.

Yet, a missionary’s wellbeing goes hand in hand with their long-term stickability and effectiveness on location. That means that part of a missionary’s ‘work’ is to care for themselves. And supporters ought to hold missionaries accountable to that, not just as a way of loving them, but also because (under God) the long-term investment depends on the functionality of the missionary.

2. Relational ministry needs relational people

The problem with missionary work is that it’s about people, and people come in the package of a culture, a language and relationships. It’s not that different from any other ministry, except that in the case of missionary work, the culture is distant, the language foreign and relationships built differently. That means it takes time — lots of time — to get to a point of even basic functionality, and then it takes even more time to reach some sort of proficiency, and even longer to get down deep enough to have some idea that, maybe, you might be making a lasting impact.

Jamie has rightly highlighted the danger for missionaries to slack off; its counterpart is the tendency to jump in too early in an effort to be productive and do something concrete. Biding your time is an important discipline for missionaries, one that is counter-intuitive for activists who ‘want to make a difference’. Sometimes you can only serve a people when you know them, not just on the surface, but in deep ways that only come from being, listening and not-doing.

It’s one thing to want to serve people; it’s another entirely for them to invite you into their lives. It’s one thing to see yourself as a servant; it’s another to be known as one by others. While western culture is concerned with KPIs and being able to quantify our work, other cultures view this with suspicion, and put value on being, on time and on relationships. These might sound vague to western ears and there’s no way you can measure them, but they’re vital for understanding, friendship and community, all of which are essential for sustainable ministry.

Accountability questions

Jamie’s call is not to neglect self-care, nor is it to privilege doing over being. She’s calling for transparency and clarity so that the right people do what they’re called to. Our organisation already has excellent structures in place for these, but if you’re interested in how to hold us accountable here are some suggestions of things to ask.

1. What’s on your mind at the moment?
2. What is energising you at the moment?
3. What needs patience at the moment?
4. What relationships are you working on?
5. What changes have you noticed in yourself?
6. What’s the next stage for you guys?
7. What can I pray for?

And when we give you answers to these things, if we slip into ‘Missionary Code’ language, ask us for a practical or concrete example!

I’m always casting around for new experiences; it’s part of what drives me. I’m always animated by innovation, exploration, and the possibility of discovery. And, after a couple of months living here in Tanzania, Swahili lost its newness — so I automatically started fishing for something new. I continued with my regular practice of navigating trends in Australia and USA. I continued reading a lot, mostly online, most of it funnelled through social media; most of it, in effect, headlines.

‘Your head’s not really in Tanzania,’ noticed Tamie.

Although I’m living in Tanzania with daily Swahili tutoring, my mind has been elsewhere. It’s not that I’ve been slacking off. It’s just that contextualisation involves different stages. There are many layers to be transformed. It’s a bit like conversion. Someone’s beliefs might have changed, but their thinking will be next; a person’s conduct might have changed, but their wallet needs to follow.

It’s time for the next step towards being more fully present in Tanzania — in both mind and body. I need to put some interests on ice in order to be more a part of this place.

Currently we’re still in a half-way house, without much in particular to offer Tanzanian students, but it’s time to get constructive: after several years trawling hot topics, it’s time to put down some more groundwork for missiology and student movements. I’ll be reading about postcolonialism, discipleship, classical Christianity, global theology, African ethics, and vulnerable mission. Exciting stuff — but, God help me, more connected with life here. It’s time I returned to books in earnest, so I’m pulling back from social media. I won’t have gone far, but I’ll be publishing rather than reading and commenting.

(There’s still some other stuff I’ll be trying to sort out along the way, like: to the extent that ‘evangelical’ is a viable identity, what makes one?)

Thanks for being part of this with me!