Today I've been thinking alot about the concept of Contextualization. This is basically making something understandable for other cultures to understand. It's kind of like when an music artist does a cover of a song, it shows the song in a whole new text to a different group of people. The thought of contextualization is very prominent within the Christian Culture where we must be able to share the Gospel of Jesus with others by meeting them where they are. My friend Monkey told me a quote from Karl Barth saying, "the best way to share the Gospel is with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other". We need to know our audience and where they are coming from. Though some argue this thought saying that it waters down the Bible, contextualization is found in the Gospels themselves as they were written for different people from different cultures. For example, Matthew was written with Pious Jews in mind or Luke was with poor and oppressed people in mind.
I work at a video venue church serving in one of the poorest areas here in Whatcom County, Washington. I also live in this neighborhood, where I get to meet and see the people whom I serve. One day as I drove down the road, I saw children and their parents waiting for the bus to take them to school. Most of the parents were aged 20-30 and were either Latino or African American. This is where I found myself beginning to think about contextualization within my church community.
Music is one of the biggest draws at our Venue church right now as it is one of the few live factors that come with a Video Venue. If we are going to reach these people and share who Jesus with them we need to meet them where they are. My neighborhood does not listen to adult contemporary music (i.e. Josh Groban, Celine Dion, Maroon 5), they listen to urban/hip hop music (usher, g-unit, mariah carey). Slowly but surely we are moving into this direction with music at the Video Venue.
I explained my thoughts to my boss and he agrees that people in this neighborhood will relate more to a song by Israel Houghton that has a latin/gospel feel than a song by Paul Baloche with a straight ahead adult contemporary feel. At the same time, a major thing to realize is that we have to balance with the adult contemporary as people who are from this kind of music can begin to get used to hearing a song that sounds like Santana's "Oye Como Va" instead of "In the Secret".
I'll try to keep you posted on how this pans out.
Music I dig right now: Prince's "Musicology"- Since he became a Jehovah's Witness, Prince has cleaned up his act, and brought back the nastiness of his funk.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Just know that "Shine Jesus Shine" works in every stinkin context there is. Welcome to the blog world, my man.
So my friend, how much can we contextualize before we've watered-down the gospel? This is always the confusing line we're trying to push...when can we be certain that we cannot go any further? As soon as you know, let me know so we can write a best-selling, very trendy emergent book and go speak at cool, hip retreats.
Light a candle man.
Post a Comment