COMMUNICATION SKILL A PREREQUISITE TO SUCCESSFUL CROSS-CULTURAL MISSIONARY OUTREACH

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COMMUNICATION SKILL A PREREQUISITE TO SUCCESSFUL CROSS-CULTURAL MISSIONARY OUTREACH

One of the problems we are facing witnessing for Christ in any part of this world is communication problem. This is because; the natural man we are trying to reach with the gospel finds it difficult to understand the things of the spirit.

Except God through the Holy Spirit opens the mind (enlightens the understanding) of the sinner as he listens to the gospel he cannot understand what we are talking about.

1 Corinthians 2:14 (KJV)

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

A cross-cultural missionary has greater problems (than the one I have just mentioned) standing before him as he tries to reach the people with the gospel. Even the little that he could be expected to communicate will be misunderstood because he and his audience interpret things differently according to their culture and world-views. The missionary thinks he is saying one thing, while the people in the other culture get quite a different message.

This problem will be best solved if the missionary will first learn and understand their culture and world –view. For the people to get the real message intended by the missionary, it has to be presented to them in terms familiar to their way of reasoning..

Therefore, this study is prepared in order to equip every child of God, especially those who are praying that God should use them beyond their present environment, as-well as those whom God has called for missionary work so that they will not find it difficult in reaching their target audience with the gospel.

UNDERSTANDING COMMUNICATION.

(i) What is communication?

It is the process of transferring meaning in form of idea or information from one person to another. It is also the chain of understanding that links the members of family, or one ethnic group to another. Communication bridges the gap between idea and people. In every communication there is a messenger who has a message and a language for his communication. There is also a receiver (audience) and feedback from the receiver.

(ii) Process of communication:

Communication is the same, whether normal communication or cross-cultural communication, because in every communication the communicator sends out a message to people which he in turn expect to get an answer or feed back.

Now there are processes this must pass through, they include: (1) the sender (2) ideation (3) encoding (4) medium (5) the receiver (6) decoding
(7) feedback.

(1) The sender is the person who initiates the process of communication in cross-cultural setting it is the missionary that initiates the process of communication.

(2) Ideation. This is the process of forming ideas in the mind of the sender-(the missionary). The source of these ideas that comes into the mind of the missionary are numerous.

The may come:

(a) From God through the Holy spirit inside the missionary.

(b) From the word of God-the bible.

(c) Christian literatures.

(d) From what he sees on ground where he has gone to minister.

(e) From his pass experience etc.

(3) Encoding: This is the process of the sender putting the ideas he has into a message form through symbols that are familiar to those who will receive his message. A symbol here means some thing that exist between the people and can be simply understood and manipulated to exchange messages.

The symbols include: (a) language-which is the vehicle for transmitting ideas. (b) Facial and body expression. (c) Clothing-eg. Police uniform, military uniform or any official uniform, speaks of the people that wear it. (d) Voice modulation- that is the way a person put his voice can help to communicate a message either that of anger,joy.fear etc.

(4) Medium-this is a means by which the message moves from the sender to the receiver, this included Television, Letter, Radio, P.A.system etc.

(5) Receiver-This is the person or group of people who receive the message or information from the sender.

(6) Decoding-is the process of interpreting the symbol used in the message to get the understanding. This process determines the type of response the sender will receive.

(7) Feedback- It is the response of the receiver to the sender for the message he received.

With the above explanations the missionary student will understand what normal communication involved and it will also help him to understand what he is going to learn from this study.

(iii) Culture: its definition.

Culture is defined as the whole system of living made up of what a society knows and does. Culture is also the total life style of a society. For instance, the way people dress, greet, marry, build houses, the type of food they eat, their eating habits, family inheritance, trade, religion, language, type of government, the way they fight their wars etc. reflects their culture.

Example of functional description of culture.

Culture is the integrated system of a learned pattern of behaviour, value, beliefs, and worldview of a given people, group or tribe.

Tradition:

Tradition is the handing down of information, beliefs and customs by word of mouth or by examples from one generation to another, without written instruction.

Cross-cultural: Going by the definition of culture above we can say that cross-cultural is the total life style of a society or people of other tribe or geographical location, which is different from our own.

In every culture we have the following things to consider:

(a) Cultural – worldview.

This is the beliefs that are based on the basic assumption people of different culture have made about the nature of reality.

(b) Behaviour. It is what people accepted as a way of doing things and if anybody in the society whether a native or stranger did not follow that pattern of learned behaviour, those who hold to that pattern of behaviour will see him as misbehaving.

The missionary should seek to find out the pattern of doing things in the area he is going to serve as a missionary.

(c) Value.It means what is good or best. It also means what is good and beneficial to the people. Much of our behaviours are dictated by the system of values, standard of conduct and judgment which guides us in accepting what is good, best or beautiful.

The value system overlaps with a giving culture’s felt needs ie “what is good or best” is related to the question, what is needed.

(d) Belief. Is the conviction that something is true or real. in culture. People’s belief may not be verifiable but born out of superstition.

Values reflects on underlying system of belief, idea or cognitive patterns of belief which is often a theoretical beliefs held by people, but they do not affect values or behaviour as the operating belief system. Beliefs function as a mental map of the world, guiding our decisions and actions.

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