Tag: Face

Blog Entries

Working Our “Initiate Conversation” Muscle

As long as our motivation comes from a godly desire for peace and reconciliation, seeking clarity in relationships is worth the effort. Someone has to take the first step to initiate conversation. For those seeking to reflect God’s face in relationships, let’s be the ones doing the initiating.

Blog Entries

Gospel Power at Work in the Heart

Gaining a true view of ourselves from God is humbling and freeing and can spur us on to apologize for our contributions to conflict.

Blog Entries

The Benefits of Giving Face

Wu Chunhua described it in this way: “If you give a person face, that person will slowly relax and won’t be as confrontational and resistant in the relationship. The conflict will ease up. It won’t continue to get bigger.”

Blog Entries

Barriers to Apologizing, Part 1

Should Li Qiang behave according to the general expectations of the superior person and not apologize? Or should he obey the Bible, confess his sin, apologize, and face whatever possible negative repercussions there may be, if or when they come?

Blog Entries

An Elephant in the Room: Face

In our conflict resolution conversations, conflict coaching, and mediation help, face is sometimes the elephant in the room—if never acknowledged and addressed, reconciliation is hindered. Let’s address the elephant in the room and develop a new God-centered orientation to face.

Blog Entries

Opening the Door to Reconciliation

Those I interviewed in China… expressed repeatedly that holding tight to these unexamined views of themselves and their positions was a big hindrance in reconciling relationships. Yet, as their mindsets shifted, a door to potential reconciliation opened.

Blog Entries

Peacemaking in China

Beginnings

People shared their conflict stories, how they viewed face issues (saving, giving, and losing face), the hindering impact of face on reconciliation, and how God enabled them to set aside face to apologize and forgive…They have demonstrated that conflict resolution and relational restoration in face-saving cultures is possible!

Blog Entries

10 Questions on Contextualization

Earlier this week we posted a ChinaSource Conversations podcast in which I talked with Jackson Wu, author of Saving God’s Face and Sam Chan, author of Preaching as the Word of God about the issue of contextualization in gospel presentations. In the course of the conversation I asked them ten questions.

ChinaSource Conversations

Contextualization and Chinese Culture

In this podcast ChinaSource Senior Vice President Joann Pittman interviews Jackson Wu and Sam Chan. Their discussion examines the process of interpreting, communicating and applying the Bible in a particular cultural context. Effective contextualization communicates the gospel message in a way that is faithful to how God has revealed it through scripture but also in a way that hearers can understand in their own cultural setting. 

Blog Entries

“Mian Zi” (face)

The Treasure that Never Wears Out

The third element that Huo Shui highlights for us in “Living Wisely in China” is the Chinese notion of “face.” This one is arguably the most important and the most difficult for westerners to grasp. He gives us a glimpse into how “face” plays out in everyday life in China.