{"id":17503,"date":"2018-05-10T08:06:18","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T15:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=17503"},"modified":"2018-05-10T08:06:18","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T15:06:18","slug":"cultural-navigation-or-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/cultural-navigation-or-integration\/","title":{"rendered":"Cultural Navigation or Integration?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I look into the problems associated with missionary effectiveness and sustainability, there is no doubt in my mind that what David Livermoore says is correct, \u201cCultural intelligence is an important skill set for anyone living and working in the twenty-first-century world but it\u2019s essential for leaders in order to lead<\/em>.\u201d[1]<\/a> Nevertheless, I agree with reviewer Dr. Mary Lou Codman \u2013Wilson who writes that Livermoore\u2019s book, Cultural Intelligence<\/em>, \u201cmay not be needed for most missionaries\u2019 libraries.\u201d[2]<\/a> The reason I won\u2019t be recommending this book to new missionaries is that this book was clearly written for those who \u201ctravel widely but not deeply.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Livermoore portrays himself as one who bounces around the globe like a rock skips across the water. He\u2019s writing about being able to navigate in many different cultures, not about how to integrate deeply into one culture. And these, in my experience, are not the same thing.<\/p>\n

I have actually gone through Livermoore\u2019s CQ assessment that is offered through the Cultural Intelligence Center website (https:\/\/culturalq.com\/products-services\/assessments\/cq-assessments\/<\/a>). \u00a0I was testing it out to see if it might a useful tool to use in assessing the cultural adaptation of missionaries. I chose the 360\u00b0 evaluation, in which I was asked to evaluate myself and then recruit five friends to evaluate me as well. My first clue that this test was not going to be a good fit for my missionary adaptation project was the assessors comment that it didn\u2019t matter if the people evaluating me were American or French, or Chinese or Kenyan for all he cared. Apparently anyone who knew me would do.<\/p>\n

My second clue that this test was not going to work well with my project was the type of questions that were used to assess my cultural intelligence. They were geared at gauging my ability to work in ANY culture, but did nothing to measure my ability to work specifically in the French culture. For example, an elementary acquaintance with several languages showed greater cultural intelligence than fluency in a second language.<\/p>\n

Given that Livermoore\u2019s definition of cultural intelligence is \u201cyour capacity to function effectively in intercultural contexts, including different national, ethnic, organizational, generational, and many other contexts,\u201d[4]<\/a> it makes sense that he is more concerned with cultural flexibility than cultural adaptation. But most mission experts agree that cultural integration is paramount to missionary sustainability and effectiveness. This goes beyond CQ and being able to \u201cfunction effectively\u201d to a level of assimilation that makes the missionary able to live a life and preach a gospel that is relevant to the people of their host culture.<\/p>\n

In an effort to try to assess how well missionaries were adapting to the French culture, I did some surveys of my own. When asked \u201cHow would you describe your level of cultural adaptation, seventeen percent of missionaries selected the option \u201cJe suis presque fran\u00e7ais(e)!\u201d<\/em> (I am almost French!), sixty-three percent selected, \u201cI am well adapted\u201d and twenty-percent selected \u201cI get by.\u201d However, when asked if their cultural adaptation has ever been evaluated, eighty-two percent said, \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n

French partners were asked to evaluate how well the foreign missionaries with whom they had worked had adapted to the French culture. Fifty-seven percent of the French partners gave foreign missionaries a rating of five or lower (on a scale of one to ten), indicating a low level of adaptation. One French minister stated, \u201cla culture anglaise \u00e9tait une barri\u00e8re aux \u00e9v\u00e8nements de l\u2019\u00e9glise.\u201d<\/em> (The English culture was an obstacle during church events.) When asked to evaluate if, in regards to culture, \u201cIl\/elle \u00e9tait bien pr\u00e9par\u00e9(e) culturellement \u00e0 venir en France.\u201d<\/em> (He\/she was well prepared to come to France.), sixty-four percent of French partners gave the missionary a score of five or lower (on a scale of one to ten). One respondent remarked, \u201cLa formation linguistique ne suffit pas \u00e0 l’int\u00e9gration<\/em>\u201d (Language training is not sufficient for integration.)<\/p>\n

Of greater concern for me, when considering the usefulness of Livermoore\u2019s work for cross-cultural missionaries, is the motivation behind becoming culturally savvy. Livermoore writes, \u201cIf leaders don\u2019t become culturally intelligent, they\u2019ll be managed by the cultures where they work rather than leading by their guiding values and objectives.\u201d[5]<\/a> My belief is that we need to be culturally intelligent in missions so that we can adapt to our host culture\u2019s values and objects. Whereas \u201ccontextualization\u201d has been the missions buzzword over the past fifty years, I believe \u201ccollaboration\u201d is the way of the future. It\u2019s time we stop trying to figure out how to lead others in another culture, and start figuring out how to follow and release the leaders that God has already provided in the host culture.<\/p>\n

In the book Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion, <\/em>Dana Robert observes that historically, \u201cA strange omission from western scholarly critiques of mission history has been the role of indigenous initiative in mission\u2026. Missionaries were powerless without indigenous partners who could express the gospel in their own cultural framework.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 And more recently, Engel and Dyrness assert, \u201cThere seems to be an unwarranted assumption that a Western expatriate can somehow perform the task as well or better than those who are much closer geographically, linguistically, and culturally.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

Cultural adaptation, then, is not about learning enough about the culture to be able to sell one\u2019s products or make one\u2019s point. Cultural adaptation is what enables the missionary to develop healthy collaborations and offer relevant assistance to those nationals who are equipped to be leading the work. In a review of David Platt\u2019s talk at the 2018 Together For the Gospel Conference, Richards and Yang astutely observe:<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of our missional paradigms come from an expired anthropology \u2026. In accepting underdeveloped anthropological models, we built modern missions around doing mission to the \u2018other\u2019 rather than the Antiochene model that insisted on doing mission with the other and from our collectively \u2018otherliness.\u2019\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> David A. Livermore, Leading with Cultural Intelligence: The Real Secret to Success<\/em>, Second edition (New York: American Management Association, 2015). 176.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> \u201cBook Review: David Livermore, Cultural Intelligence, Baker Academic, 2009.,\u201d accessed May 10, 2018, http:\/\/marylousreviews.blogspot.com\/2011\/11\/cultural-intelligence-by-david.html.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Livermore, Leading with Cultural Intelligence<\/em>. 14.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Livermore. 11.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Livermore. 176.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Dana Lee Robert, Christian Mission: How Christianity Became a World Religion<\/em>, Blackwell Brief Histories of Religion Series (Chichester, U.K.\u202f; Malden, Mass: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). 94.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> James F. Engel and William A. Dyrness, Changing the Mind of Missions: Where Have We Gone Wrong?<\/em> (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books, 2000).<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> John C. Richards, Jr., and Daniel Yang, \u201cPreaching on Racism from the \u2018White\u2019 Pulpit: Reflections from David Platt\u2019s Talk at T4G,\u201d The Exchange | A Blog by Ed Stetzer, accessed April 15, 2018, http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/edstetzer\/2018\/april\/preaching-on-racism-platt.html.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I look into the problems associated with missionary effectiveness and sustainability, there is no doubt in my mind that what David Livermoore says is correct, \u201cCultural intelligence is an important skill set for anyone living and working in the twenty-first-century world but it\u2019s essential for leaders in order to lead.\u201d[1] Nevertheless, I agree with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1231],"class_list":["post-17503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-livermoore","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17504,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17503\/revisions\/17504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}