Harvest is in full swing in Northern California’s 500,000 acres of rice fields that stretch some 60 miles north from the city of Sacramento and about 10 miles on each bank of the Sacramento River. Rice lands are heavy adobe clay lowlands ranging from 30 to 200 feet above sea level. Rice was first planted here in the early 1900s and, surprisingly, the Mediterranean climate was perfectly suited for growing short and medium grain rice. Pioneer rice farmers used horse-drawn plows to till the soil and stationary threshing machines to reap the harvest. If you know how to look, even today you will still see evidence of abandoned line stations where the horses and laborers ate and slept as they worked their way across the valley. I recall the barn, bunk house, and cook house next to my childhood farm home set in the middle of a rice field. I mourned when these relics were dismantled in the face of modern husbandry practices.
Alchemists vainly sought to turn lead into gold. Rice farmers, using Enlightenment-informed science, transform oil, water, fertilizer, and dirt into edible golden grain. These incredibly efficient methods can produce 8,000 pounds of edible rice on one acre. To give some perspective, a person can survive, barely, on 1 pound of rice per day, 365 pounds per year. Eight thousand pounds of rice could sustain 20 human lives for a year. California’s rice lands produce enough food to sustain 4 billion people for a year. That productivity is a triumph of Enlightenment-enabled scientific achievement.
Lest we farmers descend into hubris flowing from scientific miracles and our own hard work, we must remember that photosynthesis, climate, and the soil itself are the engines that drive the mysterious transformation of sunlight and basic elements into delicious food. Farmers plant and harvest the crops; God grows them.
We sow, God grows.
It is easy for me to bring my Enlightenment-informed expectations along with me when I attempt to minister cross-culturally in Eastern cultures. In fact, it is virtually impossible for me to leave my modernist expectations behind and enter Eastern complexity and nuanced interactivity. I expect linear logic. For example, I expect cars should always stay within their designated lanes. Traffic patterns in Kathmandu throw me for a loop: cars and motorbikes and pedestrians are all moving in different directions all at the same time without any apparent recognizable patterns. It seems chaotic to me—but it works!
Western cross-cultural practitioners bring their Enlightenment expectations along with them as they seek to minister cross-culturally.
Naming those expectations can help us surface the presuppositions that inform our convictions and actions. The following list describes some foundational Enlightenment presuppositions. Reflection on those expectations allow us to evaluate and adjust our approach and impact in fostering indigenous gospel expressions. Some of those expectations include:1
- The primacy of human reason. This presupposition assumes human capacity to think critically and logically to make sense of the world around us. Reason informs the efficient strategies and plans to bring the gospel to all peoples.
- A subject/object perspective. For example, the outside temperature can be measured objectively using a thermometer. Subjectively, some will say it is too hot, some too cold, and others just right. In mission terms, we can objectively identify, define, and categorize unreached people groups. This can lead to a granular approach to what should likely be a more organic holistic approach.
- Cause and effect. Newton’s third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In business, and mission, this presupposition surfaces in linear planning and strategies that we expect will result in our intended outcomes. We take these plans to the bank when we present our vision and methodology to our financial supporters.
- Technology. Modern tech miracles can inflate our confidence that we can do it and do it now.
- Progress. Using our God-given critical thinking and logic coupled with the scientific method and our resources we can do it. We can identify, enumerate, and strategize ways to bring the gospel to every unreached people group and complete the task in our generation.
Missiological reflection is a critical part of our panta ta ethne mandate because it helps us recognize the deeply held cultural expectations such as Enlightenment presuppositions that inform our missionary practices and desired outcomes. For Westerners, those assumptions shape how we see and transfer the gospel, and we can observe the value and the shortcomings of our expectations in missionary strategy and expectations. The AD2000 movement could provide a fascinating case study to evaluate Enlightenment assumptions on gospel transmission outcomes.
Chinese missiological assumptions are likewise subject to cultural influences. Is China really the Middle Kingdom? Is explosive church growth such as that in the Chinese church to be expected in Middle Eastern or Hindu cultures? What are the implications of immediate spontaneous missionary engagement without strategy and support structures? How is the 2030 movement influenced by Western Enlightenment values? Reflection is as important for emerging missionary movements as it is for older practices.
As with rice farmers, so with ministering cross-culturally. We are sent to sow the Word of God, just as Jesus himself sowed. We are not sent to transplant. We are not sent to replicate methodologies and expressions arising from our own cultural blueprints. We do not build, we sow. The Lord builds his church, and the church he constructs will look a bit different in each climate and landscape. It is the seed that has power to grow roots down into deeply buried cultural expressions and expectations, roots that will produce fruit fitting the context, fruit that is both beautiful and empowering.
We sow, God grows.
Endnotes
Image credit: Benjamin le Roux via UnSplash.
Ken Anderson
Dr. Ken Anderson holds DMiss and MAGL degrees from Fuller Theological Seminary. From 2011–2021 he served as an itinerant extension biblical training missionary in China and Nepal. He is currently leading missiological training in Mark’s Gospel for an indigenous church planting movement in southern Nepal and serves on boards including …View Full Bio
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