Main Takeaway from 3D Gospel

[Jaylen]

Overall, the reason it’s very important to understand culture is so we can be adaptive in the way we treat people. It is ignorant to not make an effort to change yourself (within moderation) for the sake of respecting, and ultimately reaching a person.
I say respecting because it’s just human decency to lay aside your cultural traditions and therein extend the hand of courtesy to another individual. This makes them feel seen and loved, especially when their culture values respect to a higher degree.
I say reaching because not only will the gesture of compromise cause people to be more trusting and vulnerable towards you. But you also cannot effectively connect and relate to a person of a different culture if you are rigidly unwilling to meet them in the middle, or even 75% in their direction. If you are stuck in your own worldview lens, you will have great difficulty loving people who see the world fundamentally differently.
Paul teaches on this concept in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23. To become like people (but not of people) in order to win them for the gospel.

[Emma Hodges]

After doing the culture test, reviewing the 3D Gospel on Honor-Shame cultures, and doing more research on this topic, my main takeaway from this topic is just how important it is to understand the culture you are in. If you go in trying to share the gospel from your perspective of the guilt lens, it will not translate to others who are in the honor/shame culture. You need to go in very openly to learn and understand culture in order to relate to individuals in that culture well. Taking the culture test was very helpful for me as it opened me up to thinking about things in my own culture that I don’t often reflect on.

[Jerry]

Great observations Taliya. Thanks for sharing. Hope this equips you both better for those you will be reaching with the love of Jesus.

[Taliya]

I’ve always been aware of the different types of cultures but this really opened my eyes more to the honour/shame culture. The exercise of sharing the gospel using honour and shame vocabulary was more difficult than I expected. I’ve always looked at the gospel through a guilt/innocence lens. I will be more aware of these words and themes as I continue reading the Bible and practice sharing the gospel story through a honour/shame lens. It’s important for me to grasp this perspective so that I understand how the people group in my mission field will resonate with the gospel!