Complete the story…
A language exercise from last week was to read the story ‘Mfalme Mjinga’ and then complete it. I’ve translated it below. How would you finish it?
What we talk about when we talk about God (book review)
Like so much of Rob Bell’s work, What We Talk About When We Talk About God is really a sort of sermon: accessible, full of anecdotes, and with a clear persuasive thrust. The content, too, is what we might have expected. When We Talk About God shows Bell drawing on his […]
Language learning as preparation for more than language speaking
The other day, someone said something to the effect of ‘you guys are working for God in Tanzania’. I guess that’s what being ‘missionaries’ means. But at the moment, we’re not doing anything that looks much like ‘Christian ministry’. We get up, have language class, practice language, do homework, collapse […]
Why don’t (Tanzanian) men go to church?
The contention of the ‘Why men hate going to church’ movement is that church has become feminised. From David Murrow’s website: With the dawning of the industrial revolution, large numbers of men sought work in mines, mills and factories, far from home and familiar parish. Women stayed behind, and began […]
Observation exercise: church
As I blogged here, there’s a range of church experiences in Tanzania. One exercise we did in our intercultural training was to observe without moving to evaluation or explanation. It’s a practice I’ve continued. Here’s some of what I’ve noticed about our church.
Re-thinking a ‘worldviews’ approach to evangelism
Thank God he uses us in our ignorance. I’ve been thinking about worldview and I now consider my former approach to betray a cultural arrogance.
Two sides of contextualisation
Red Twin and I have been talking about contextualisation: the necessity and complication of putting off your own culture to live in another. It’s always a compromise. Everyone draws the line somewhere different. But it’s more complex than simply working out what you’re comfortable with. What do those in your current country think? For […]
Meet Jesus at uni 