This has become a popular word in discussions of mission, culture, sociology, economics, and other similar studies.
One simple definition states: “to place in a context”
Within the conversation, challenge, and community that is campus missions (ministry) the word contextualization tends to represent an effort to communicate the Gospel in ways that are meaningful, relevant, and readily grasped by college students. This does NOT mean that we change the message of the Gospel, just the method of communicating and sharing that message (I know, the message-method statement is sounding very cliche these days).
I believe that there are basically two ways of approaching our mission of engaging with college students:
- In ways that reinforce negative stereotypes of Christianity (see Unchristian by Dave Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons) and push students further from God and Church
- In ways that challenge, suprise, and attract students to the Gospel and to Jesus
As I understand Paul’s approach to sharing the Gospel with gentiles, (Acts 17 etc) he did NOT simply regurgitate the Jerusalem Church’s teaching throughout the Roman Empire and Asia minor. He contextualized the method in order to place the message in a particular context.
What makes any of us (especially campus missionaries) think that we can get away with anything less than that? And do we understand the Gospel thoroughly enough (via our own experience and study) to respeak it into our own contexts?
Apparently, John Piper would disagree.
Completely agree! That’s a good word to all of us – especially when you get feisty toward the end
– “What makes any of us (especially campus missionaries) think that we can get away with anything less than that?” I don’t know why we think we can… but we do…
One understanding that might make us realize the need for contextualization even more, is understanding that we don’t just have to contextualize our mission work for collegians, but also for individual campuses – and even for the individual segments of individual campuses. None of us will be perfect at it – and God is so, so gracious. But we should strive to get great at it, even in all three levels.
As for the Piper quote, I THINK what he’s trying to get at is what you’re getting at, too, when you talk about not changing the actual message. I think he’s focused there on not adjusting the “news” part of the Good News, not on how the surrounding conversation / mission work / approach is or is not contextualized. But maybe I’m hearing him wrong. Guys like John MacArthur seemed to have staked out that position – of less contextualization in both message and method – and I’m not sure that’s Piper’s stance. But again, I may be wrong.
Excellent post. Thanks!