Duane Elmer opens the book with a
quote stating that, "We are not called to help people. We are called to
follow Jesus, in whose service we learn who we are and how we are to help and
be helped"[1],
which set the tone and created a strong reminder that we are not called to help
people in a way that presents us as superior or role models. The truth is that
superiority and paternalism are two of the most common mistakes (mostly
unintentionally) we can make when serving people. In his book, Elmer gave us the
burden and challenge of "Towel" servanthood to prevent our pride from
getting in the way when entering into a cross-cultural ministry. He used the
"Monkey Serves the Fish" story to illustrate a potential harm to the
people we want to serve when we don't put ourselves under the local context and
instead force our understanding upon others. Elmer suggests we use a six-step
process to improve our awareness of cultural difference in order to witness
Jesus through serving others in a different culture.
Servanthood: The Process
The six steps are Openness,
Acceptance, Trust, Learning, Understanding, and Serving. Elmer argues that we
can't serve someone we do not understand; at best, we will serve like the
monkey. We can't understand others until we have learned about, from, and with
them. We can't learn important information from someone until there is trust in
the relationship. And to build trust, others must know that you accept and
value them as people. Before we can communicate acceptance, people must
experience your openness - your ability to welcome them into your presence. The
challenge of openness with people different from ourselves is to step out of
our comfort zone to initiate and sustain relationships in a world of cultural
differences.
Step 1. Openness: Welcoming Others into Your Presence
Elmer points out that to achieve
our openness, we must intentionally and purposely deal with our tendency to
judge people and things in the area of "like me" (good) or
"unlike me" (bad) - dichotomizing. The quick judgment and
stereotyping work hand-in-hand which sometimes leads to so called
"Negative Attribution"[2]
that whenever we hear, see, or experience someone or something that confuses
me, I will assign him, her, or it a negative characteristic. Elmer gave us
several practical suggestions toward openness, including suspending judgment
(keep an open mind), tolerating for ambiguity (lesson of patience and trusting
God), thinking gray (wait to judge), and positive attribution (assume the
best).
Step 2. Acceptance: Communicating Respect for Others
Elmer uses Romans 15:7 to
illustrate how God accepted us first and demands us to accept one another, in
order to bring praise to God, which means Christians need to "put down
their false feeling of superiority and restore love and unity to the body of
Christ."[3]
While Elmer gives acceptance a definition of "proactively communicating
respect and dignity to each human being based on the fact that each is an
image-bearer of God", my understanding of acceptance is to comfortably sit
and eat with sinners and tax collectors without casting judgment just as Jesus
did. Elmer also points out several obstacles of accepting others, including
refusing to learn local languages, impatience in a different culture, ethnocentrism,
narrow category width (quick to put things in the "wrong" category),
dogmatism (fixed flexible principle), and an evaluative attitude (evaluate as
right or wrong).
Step 3. Trust: Building Confidence in Relationship
Once we become accepted by others
because of our openness and respect for others, the next step is to build a
mutual trust so that a deeper learning experience can be possible. According to
Elmer, trust is the "ability to build confidence in a relationship so that
both parties believe the other will not intentionally hurt them but will act in
their best interest."[4]
Although building trust is so important, it may be hard to build and maintain
the trust relationship because it is fragile, and it may take a long time. We
learned the trusting relationship from modeling how God loves us and we trust
God in return through His unending love and His covenants over our long human
history. Elmer also points out that trust is culturally defined, what it takes
to build, to break, and to restore a relationship is difference from one
culture to the other.
Step 4. Learning: Seeking Information That Changes You and the Biblical Foundation
Once we built the confidence in a
relationship, we can then start learning about other people's culture by
collecting information about others, learning new languages, gathering the
facts from public resources. Elmer warns that learning about a culture from the
superficial facts is just to prepare us for further deeper understanding. If we
develop the "right answer virus"[5],
then we may stop learning and feel that we already know everything. Elmer
suggests that we need to move on to the "learning from" and
"learning with" modes. "Learning from" is the attitude to
humble ourselves and take the role of a child and listen to what others say
about their cultures. "Learning with" is the interdependent learning
relationship which the "We-they" category is replaced by
"us" category. Once we developed this "us" category, we
will then be able to learn from others and start to appreciate the wisdom existed
in other cultures. Once we have learned about, from and with others, then we will
know why people do what they do.
Step 5. Understanding: Seeing Through the Other's Eyes
Elmer defines "understanding"
as "the ability to see patterns of behavior and values that reveal the
integrity of a people,"[6]
which means we can see as others see. Elmer uses tapestry as an analogy to
point out that we may have learned all about the cords but we still cannot see
the whole picture, because we are looking at the back of the tapestry. We will
need someone expert in the local culture to help us see the picture from the
right perspective which is from the front. Elmer summarized two problems that hinder
us from seeing the whole picture - Egocentrism and Ethnocentrism. If we want to
fully understand a culture, Elmer suggests that we need to stop comparing, look
for God's common grace in local culture, see things through other's eyes, and
check our motives. Now we are ready to move on to the final step - serving others.
Step 6. Serving: Becoming Like Christ to Others
Serving without understanding can
create confusion or even causing damages just like what the monkey did to the
fish. Elmer says that serving is "the ability to relate to people in such
a way that their dignity as human being is affirmed and they are more empowered
to live God-glorifying lives."[7]
This definition helps me understand the helping is not about an one-time
merciful giving, not a "I am here to help you" mentality, it's a holistic
relationship building process to restore a person's dignity so that he or she
can live a life that will glorify God.
Summary
Jesus said, " The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they
may have life, and have it abundantly."[8] Indeed, if we let our pride take leads in helping other people, we
are depriving their dignity like a thief. Corbett also warns about this
"sense of superiority" because once the other person develops "the
feelings of inferiority", it will bring "harm to both materially poor
and non-poor."[9] Corbett wants us to be part of "helping others to recover their
sense of dignity, even as we recover from our sense of pride."[10] which nicely sums up what servanthood is about.
[1]
Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Servanthood:
Serving the World in Chirstlike Humility (Downers Grove, Illinois:
InterVarsity Press, 2006), 1.
[2]
Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Servanthood:
Serving the World in Chirstlike Humility (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity
Press, 2006), 49.
[3]
Ibid., 60.
[4]
Ibid., 77.
[5]
Duane Elmer, Cross-Cultural Servanthood:
Serving the World in Chirstlike Humility (Downers Grove, Illinois:
InterVarsity Press, 2006), 91.
[6]
Ibid., 125.
[7]
Ibid., 146.
[8]
John 10:10.
[9]
Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, when
Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself
(Chicago, Illinois: Moody Publisher, 2012), 64.
[10]
Ibid., 64.
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