Madison’s Question to Matthew: What did you learn about the African culture while you were travelling?

First some context: I recently have been engaging with an African leader from Nairobi, Kenya – Bishop Oscar Muriu. Oscar has become a voice to some degree in North America for the African church. His church, Nairobi Chapel, is about 4,000 people strong yet have planted about 170 churches in the past 15 years. I had the privilege of spending 2 days with him in my city 4 months ago and at that time he invited me to his church for a 3-day conference on church planting – I have just returned from that trip.

So as I share some thoughts in this blog, be aware that I am speaking from a narrow understanding through the eyes of an African leader and his church in Nairobi, Kenya as well as from a number of conversations I had during the conference with African leaders of other countries.

First, they are focussed and resilient. They recognize that they do not have money as a key ingredient for ministry. They see how the North American mission machine has been moved along because of financial resources and they don’t put that down. Yet they know that for them to be effective, they need to come up with new ways of engagement that is not money dependent. And yet, with the 170 churches that Nairobi Chapel has planted (and I met a few other African leaders who has each overseen the planting of 100 or more churches from their contexts), they have done it. They embrace poverty and hard work all for the sake of sharing Jesus with those that don’t know him. And they have a list of people willing to be trained up to plant the next set of churches.

Second, they are grateful for the missionaries of the past from North America who started church, built schools and hospitals. Yet, they are very aware that the North American church is not doing well, and that it is now Africa’s time to step in and help to rescue the church that was once dominant and went to all parts of the world. This was a fascinating aspect of the conference that amazed me. They were very confident that it was their turn in the scheme of global outreach to help the world. That the African church was the fastest growing church and that it needed to stretch out to other countries and help them to find Jesus. This conference was to inspire other African leaders to grasp this and to take up the mantle of mission beyond Africa even as they plant churches in Africa.

Third, their church issues are much the same as our church issues. They have many people who are simply attenders but don’t engage actively in the process of discipleship. They have issues with finding enough people to volunteer in their various ministries on Sunday mornings. Their people don’t want to give financially to support the work of the church. It would appear that people are people no matter where you go.

Fourth, tribalism is alive and well. They spoke about this issue in varying ways throughout the conference and I have heard about this from other African leaders as well. In fact, Nairobi Chapel did not host this conference last year as it was an election year which can cause all sorts of animosity between tribes as they choose to vote for someone from their tribe so as to receive privileged status. I know that Oscar speaks against this consistently, that as a Christian your loyalty is to Christ and his kingdom, unity. Tribalism runs deep.

Fifth, I love the stories of negotiations for marriage. How many goats or cows will a man pay to have the right to marry a certain girl? The history of this goes back a long way. Its overall purpose is to keep the families connected. You can never pay the full amount up front, you must continue to visit the family and bring another goat. There were a lot of fun stories of the negotiations that took place.

Finally, they live in a culture of shame. This is something that I am still working to understand as the North American culture is one of guilt. They will never do anything that would bring shame to someone. So, if a North American youth group comes to Africa to “do missions”, and if they have a group of kids with them and at the end of the week ask if they want to accept Jesus, pretty much all of them will come forward, as not doing this would make the group look bad, it would shame them.

Oscar didn’t share publicly at his daughter’s wedding, he had a friend do it for him. Because if he said something wrong he would shame his family, yet if his friend says something wrong it can be forgiven as he was not family and simply made a mistake. As I said, I don’t understand the depths of this reality in Africa, and interestingly, it is even deeper in Asian countries. But it is their reality. I only hope that my words and actions didn’t offend any one while I was there for a week.

Cultures are fascinating things to ponder. I am privileged to be able to step into the African culture. I am not sure what the future will hold for me and my ongoing engagement, but I trust that together, we can embrace each other’s uniquenesses for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

Matthew’s Questions to Madison: What have you learned about yourself and your culture (strengths and gaps) as you have engaged those in other cultures?

I’m fully Canadian (with proud German roots), and a millennial. I have been raised to behave a certain way with certain cultural expectations because of the country I live in and the generation I was born into.

But I don’t strive to stay stuck in those identifying factors – I want to learn from other generations and other cultures.

I have had the incredible opportunity to travel to Asia a couple times, live in Europe for a while, and tour around North America. Of all the places I’ve traveled, the places that are less like my culture have been my favourite. I was more intrigued with going to China and Thailand than I was England and Austria because they were vastly different from the world I was raised in.

In my short 23 years, I’ve learned things about myself, my culture, and my generation compared to other cultures and other generations. Want to hear a few of them? I may be off on some of them, but understanding culture and generation is something I will always be curious to learn about.

Let’s look at culture first:

1) North America is an overindulgent culture

This was something I kind of knew, but it didn’t hit home until living in Germany. The biggest complaint from the Germans was that the North Americans wouldn’t eat everything on their plate. We were known for taking too much food and throwing most of it out – when I changed my lens to theirs, I totally saw what they saw. And it’s goes beyond food. Do I dare mention Boxing Day, or Black Friday?

2) Independence has pros and cons

Compared to many Eastern countries, we are an independent culture. We live for ourselves more than for other people. This has served us well in terms of avoiding family shame – we don’t often feel the pressures of family and community expectations, since we share more of the message of ‘do you’. This has hurt us though too. I love communal cultures and their emphasis on the family unit and living in community. We’re a much lonelier culture because we aren’t ‘forced’ in community.

3) We communicate very differently

The best way I’ve heard it described is that Western thinking is linear and Eastern thinking is circular. Westerners communicate exactly what they think; Easterners want you to read behind what they’re saying. I worked with someone who was a circular communicator, and the entire time she talked, I would think to myself, “What is she really trying to communicate to me? Common Madi, read the air!” And it never worked. One way of communicating is not better than another, but it can cause miscommunication if we aren’t aware of the differences.

4) We live for affirmation

Another thing I learned in Germany was that North Americans do a whole lot of affirming. We affirm everything – including the things we don’t actually like. This drove the Germans up the wall! I appreciate the affirmative culture for the fact that we do want to encourage and lift one another up, but it’s a down fall when you can’t actually believe what someone says. Again, I don’t think this is a good or bad thing, but just a thing.

Let’s switch over to some of the differences I’ve observed between the millennial culture and the baby boomer culture.

1) Millenials are more interested in diversity

Research has come out that millenials are on the lookout for diversity – we appreciate it when we see it. In all honesty, we’re tired of gray-haired white men dominating the world. But I had an interesting conversation the other day with someone about it. She said, “Millennials may actually be more interested in the perception of diversity, rather than diversity itself.” Technically, everyone in the room could look the same but have very different perspectives, or everyone in the room could look different and yet have the same ideas. This has me thinking more about my own perceptions.

2) There’s less of a focus on family

Westerners compared to Easterners have less of a focus on family; millenials compared to baby boomers have less of a focus on family. Students leave home for school at a young age, get settled in a career, and call home less and less as time goes on. The focus on career and the focus on community is much higher than on family.

3) Millenials are bored sitting in one place for too long

Have you heard the term “wanderlust”? It’s a fad phrase in the millennial world. We’re all about travel and experiencing new things. We’re curious. It’s also about not sitting at the same desk for a long time – this can mean less of an emphasis on having a physical office space, or it can mean we have less grit and switch jobs often.

4) The desire for relationships is strong

In the church world, new research is out that millennials are more interested in relationships than production. Baby boomers, if you are leaders in church (paid or unpaid), take note of this. We want you to talk to us and have us over for dinner more than we want the fancy lights on stage. Take note though, we don’t always know how to do this well since we’ve grown up in an online culture. But we want it, and we may need the help of the baby boomers. Beyond the church, I’ve noticed that my generation has taken up more of an interest in local shopping rather than big box stores. I don’t know how much this translates across the entire generation, but it would make sense – we want relationships, and you get more of that at local places.

Those are a few thoughts from my limited experience and understanding, but it’s a topic I will always engage in – so if you think I’m off on my thinking, let’s chat (after all, I’m part of the generation that’s all about relationships).