a man made in the image of God!

Cultural Engagement

Goal

Seek to understand the cultural backgrounds of 5-10 NHG seekers in order to understand how their cultural filters may be influencing how they see God, the world, and life in general.

Strategy

  1. Pray for potential seekers
  2. Log in to NHG Platform
  3. Have a conversation with a seeker from a culture that is different from mine.
  4. Determine if the seeker is an appropriate candidate and if the time/atmosphere is right to discuss cultural background issues with the seeker.

Resources

  1. NHG Seekers.
  2. NHG Platform.

Measurement

  1. Transcripts of conversations on NHG showing cross-cultural communication with people from different cultural backgrounds and views.
  2. Analysis report from NHG showing countries and cultures reached.
  3. PM302 Church visitation Report.

Overall Reflection Statement for Cultural Engagement 

For my competence in cultural engagement,  I am submitting a speech i delivered in Chapel at DTS which demonstrates my understanding of conflicts within cultures and how I see those playing out in the Cameroonian and American cultures. Most conflicts within cultures result from a lot for the status quo that is evidenced through proud tendencies. When people within a culture want to change but some don’t, it results in conflict. To resolve cultural conflicts, there must be a willingness to examine the root causes of the conflicts, rather than simply dealing with just the consequences of the root causes.

Artifacts With Descriptions1.

1. Throughout my internship with Need Him Global, I was able to cross cultures and speak with nearly 400 individuals, one at a time, from diverse cultural backgrounds from Africa, Asia, Europe, America. See this sample attachment that shows some of the people I met and some of the things we spoke about. There are hundreds of such transcripts available.

2. Here I am speaking about cross-cultural conflict in the chapel at DTS. I engage the American and Cameroon cultures in conflict resolution.

3. There are subcultures within each culture. For example, there are several
subcultures with American culture. In that light, I decided to visit several
other Churches within the DFW Metroplex in order to learn their different
worship cultures. I learned not to pre-judge cultures but to first take to
learn and understanding before attempting to offer suggestions for change or anything like that. Click here to download a paper that summarizes my cultural observations.

4. During the summer of 2019, I also visited 4 different churches in Cameroon in order to better appreciate differences in culture. Because one cannot compare one thing, I was able to compare the Cameroonian and American cultures, having experienced both. Click here to see a video of my visit to Praise Baptist Church in Cameroon.

5. I joined Bill Glass Ministry to visit Prisoners at the Hutchins State Prison In Dallas. The Prison has its own unique cultural dynamics.

Learning Reflection

As I developed and demonstrated cultural engagement,  I have learned that I can be very judgmental especially when entering another culture for the first time. Almost every single individual is proud of their culture and seeks to protect it from destruction or distortion by outsiders or newcomers to the culture. Because God loves diversity, it pleased him to produce differences in cultures in order to align with his nature of diversity. God himself made humans to speak different languages back in Genesis. Different is not necessarily bad.

Lifelong Development Statement

As a result of the experiences documented by these artifacts, I will continue to develop in cultural engagement by learning to appreciate other cultures that are different from mine. I will continue to work hard at trying to understand people. It is slow and takes time. I will work hard at avoiding pre-judgment and devote time to learning before making conclusions of people’s actions, words, and phrases that are unique within each culture. When I approach people of a different culture, I need to learn to be more open and transparent in the way I deal with people. This makes it easier for the people I am trying to reach to easily accept me into their culture. If I build walls and fences that are based on my own cultural worldviews, I keep people out of my presence and that hinders cultural engagement.