CONTEXTUALIZATION - INDIGENIZATION - INSIDERS

Contextualization means that you share the gospel within the context of the culture where you are serving. Like Paul, expats must adapt to local culture and become all things to all men, that they might by all means save some (1 Cor. 9:19-23). Indigenization takes place when the church is no longer a foreign implant.

Christ-Centered Communities have been placed on what missiologists call the C-Scale:

C-1: Those who are a Western clone complete with European language, songs, sermons, architecture and even dress codes.

C-2: Churches adopt local language whilst the rest remains the same.

C-3: Indigenous churches that avoid cultural forms related to their past religion, whether Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu or traditional. These grow biologically or by poaching rather than by multiplying.

C-4: Culturally indigenous gatherings that retain biblically permissible past religious forms, including dialect, dress, music, smells and bells. They do not call themselves Christians but “followers of Yeshua” etc. Messianic Jews, for example. This is the most rapidly growing form.

C-5: God fearers in other faiths who follow Yeshua as Lord and Savior forming fellowships of like-minded believers within their communities. They continue to identify culturally as Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu-Background Believers. If they remain in their own communities and retain their culture, they are more likely to be invited to their feasts, festivals, weddings and social events where they can share their faith.

C-6: Secret believers including C-4 and C-5 are called Insiders. They continue to live in their communities identifying themselves as Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists or whatever. They are the key to seamless spread of the Gospel as they do not abandon their families and communities. 

The traditional church makes a huge mistake by extracting them from their communities wrongly thinking that they are in danger of syncretism. However, Yeshua instantly sent the Samaritan woman to evangelize her community; He sent the Gadarene demonic to be a witness to his people and He sent the 70 new disciples into wolf infested oikos to pray and prepare harvesters of soul. Not the westernized Christians but fresh converts are the best ambassadors of the kingdom, who like the children of Issachar know the context of what the Ekklesia should do. Remember while all the other Tribes sent thousands of warriors to support David, Issachar sent all their 200 leaders and their kinsmen who knew what Israel should do at a time like that (1 Chron. 12:32). The new believers know the culture and the context of their oikos and prove to be the most effective harvesters. Today, they are the ones who are changing the religious landscape of the world.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF BELIEVERS DURING APOSTOLIC TIMES

Messianic Jews: Jerusalem and Judean Ekklesias were an Insider Movement of Jews who remained zealous for the law. They practiced circumcision, Sabbath, sacrifice (Thanksgiving, not Atonement), shaving of the head, kosher food, etc. (Acts 21:20-25; 18:18).

Proselytes: Those from other faiths who had undergone Jewish conversion rites such as circumcision, mikve (immersion) and observed Sabbath etc. (Matt. 23:15; Acts 6:5).

‘Godfearers’ or Worshippers of God: Gentiles like Cornelius, Lydia, and the Ethiopian Eunuch, believed in the biblical God. They were baptized but did not undergo Jewish conversion rites but continued in their culture, eating pork etc. (Acts 10:2; 13:16, 26; 16:14).

God blessed Abraham to be a blessing to ‘Households.’ Most paradigms of missions will fail to multiply, for they retain Christendom's extraction model of church planting even if they call it a "movement". Only house church movement with insider paradigm can realistically bring about the plentiful harvest of souls, families and communities that will disciple all nations and transform whole nations, so that the kingdom announced in Nazareth, inaugurated in Calvary and empowered in Pentecost, brings glory to the King of kings!

Copyright © 2023 Dr. Victor Choudhrie

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