Contextualization: Our Challenge

What is the largest challenge that we face for planting a Saddleback regional campus in Johannesburg, South Africa?  In a word, the issue is contextualization.  Seeking understanding of world views, and guidance in our approach to lay plans, we interviewed people on the streets and also sought counsel from seasoned professionals in the Joburg area from organizations including churches, schools, and evangelical outreach.  

To contextualize is to adapt the visual appearance, the music and arts, the language, the terminology used, and the social references so that they are well understood by the local audience.  Most importantly the presentations, songs, stories, and prayers must be from and of the local community.  The gospel preached with integrity remains the truth.  The bible based principles for growing membership in spiritual maturity and growing the church remain the same.  The style of implementation adapts to the local culture.

The largest stumbling block reported for black South Africans, especially the young professionals that a Saddleback regional in the Midrand area wants to serve is the issue of animism and specifically the practice of ancestor worship.  Only in close relationship can this strong influence be effectively countered.  The first missionaries in colonial times tried to completely do away with African culture and to replace it with a Christian culture.  This might seem like an easier approach, but it is a disastrous destruction of identity.  There is no substitute for growing spiritual maturity through discipleship.

On one Sunday afternoon our team visited the Shisanyama (beer garden) to meet local young adults and to learn something about their culture.  My wife and I struck up a conversation and immediate friendship with Dr. Sambelo Mhlomi, who is a trauma care doctor in Kagiso Mall medical center.  He described how young black professionals live simultaneously in two different worlds.  The traditional beliefs and practices are closely tied to home (your birth village), and to your family.  Your education and professional work probably displaces you to a location far from home, and gives you knowledge and principles quite foreign to your origins.  Sambelo described that most of African culture is positive and good.  He has systematically excluded any practices that run counter to Christian principles.  

I asked Sambelo if one could recognize the bad practices because they tend to create fear or somehow trap and enslave the individual.  He agreed.  The nature of the gospel truth is to free the individual.  There is true freedom in Jesus Christ.  Practices that run counter to this freedom are to be avoided.  

Sambelo also confirmed that marriage is complicated for young black professionals.  Africa has the tradition of labola.  The groom must give a sizable payment to the bride’s family.  In most cases, there is a traditional wedding, followed later-on by a Christian ceremony.  This represents a double wedding expense.  Sambola had already gone through the traditional ceremony back in the village.  The Christian ceremony for Sambola and his fiancee is scheduled in a couple of months in the Midrand area.  Due in large part to the financial hurdles associated with marriage, many young professionals now choose cohabitation as an option.