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Join the Youthworks Ministry Support Team as they discuss how to have an effective youth and children’s ministry in every church in conversation with local ministry workers as well as national and international voices.
Get in touch - effectiveministrypodcast@youthworks.net
This is part of our House Conference
2026 lead-up series exploring the
conference theme, anchored and
adaptable, where we'll be diving
into a theology of contextualization
in youth and children's ministry.
On the House Conference Committee
and at YouthWorks, we are really
genuinely excited about the challenge
of thinking deeply about theology
and moving from there to practice.
But we do know that it is
just that, a challenge.
And so this series is here along
with a whole bunch of other
resources to help people to prepare
for House Conference really well.
And maybe you're listening along
and not coming to House Conference.
Well, lucky you, you get
to get stuck in as well.
And so across these three episodes
in this series, you're gonna hear two
conference papers read out and a group
reflection that is meant to help us to
move from theological reflection into
some practical ideas for discipling
and ministering to young people in the
context of a really well-thought-through
theology of contextualization.
And so in this episode, you're
gonna hear Mike Dicker's paper, Fit
for Purpose: Contextual Children's
and Youth Ministry, read out.
And to further help you access this
paper, we've included a glossary
of big words in the show notes.
But I wanna let you know a few of
the highlights, in the audio as well.
You're gonna hear words like
anthropomorphic, which is describing
God in human terms or forms,.
Contextualization is gonna be an important
one, and this is where we talk about
faithfully communicating and applying
the gospel and Christian ministry
within a particular cultural context,
but without compromising its essence.
Syncretism, this is the incorporation
of non-Christian beliefs or practices
or cultural elements into the Christian
faith, and so distorting it into something
that's no longer authentically Christian.
And lastly, divine accommodation
This is the theological concept
that God reveals himself through
human language, form, and media,
while remaining transcendent.
We really hope that this paper helps
you to think deeply about the topic of
contextualization in youth and children's
ministry, and move intentionally from
there to better practice in youth and
children's ministry for the glory of God.
And if you're gonna be at the
conference this year, I'm really
looking forward to seeing you there.
, Enjoy the paper
Speaker: Fit for Purpose: Contextual
Children's and Youth Ministry by Rev
Mike Dicker, Principal, Youthworks
College, Australian University
of Theology, Sydney, Australia.
AI disclaimer.
No AI tools were used in the
preparation of this paper.
All clumsy phrasing, poor grammar,
and spelling mistakes are completely
human and belong to the author.
Setting the context.
There's been a substantial history of
discussion around models of ministry
with children and young people, certainly
among youth ministry practitioners
and academics, and perhaps to a lesser
extent in the children's ministry space.
At their best, the discussions
have sought to improve and
critique differing models for their
effectiveness and biblical faithfulness.
At their worst, the discussions
about ministry models have
entrenched division and hostility
over adherence to opposing models.
As a particular example, the form of
discussions around models of youth
ministry during the nineteen-nineties
and early two thousands in the Anglican
Diocese of Sydney was especially
acerbic and accordingly dubbed by
some as the Youth Ministry Wars
or the Battle of the Supermodels.
There is benefit to appraising the
weaknesses and strengths of various
models of ministry and much to learn
from alternative ministry practices
that have succeeded or failed to
produce the desired ministry results.
However, the very notion of a ministry
model assumes an underlying false premise
that needs to be explicitly noted.
The implicit assumption is that there
is such a thing as a biblically faithful
model of ministry that can be practiced,
adapted, or reproduced in differing
contexts guaranteeing similar results.
It's a false notion to believe that
a model of doing ministry in one
place under certain conditions will
produce the same desired ministry
outcomes if it is replicated in another
place under different conditions.
If this were the case, we would expect
all Christian ministry in every time
and every place to be uniform in
practice with corresponding results.
The New Testament testifies to
certain Christian practices that are
normative for Christian ministry and
yet never prescribes models of ministry
to replicate, nor ever guarantees
delivering predictable results.
What the New Testament testifies to
is a variety of ministry practices
conditioned to various contexts.
For example, the differences in respective
gospel presentations to Jewish and
Gentile audiences in Acts thirteen,
sixteen to forty-one and seventeen,
twenty-two to thirty-one, or Paul's
views on circumcision in Galatians
two, three, five, two to six, and Acts
sixteen, one to three, or views on food
sacrificed to idols in one Corinthians
eight, nine and Romans fourteen.
The outcome of not acknowledging this
false premise is that, one, it intensifies
the perceived risk in discussions
about modes of children's and youth
ministry and creates anxiety around
trying to find the right or best model.
And two, the search for a super model
of ministry flattens out cultural
and geographical distinctives rather
than recognizing that God has divided
the nations and determined the times
and boundaries of their dwelling.
Compare Acts 17:26, Deuteronomy 32:8.
Contrary to the particularity of
persons in the diversity of Christ's
body and the locality of each church,
a prescriptive model of ministry
ignores the gifts of the Spirit given
to each one as Christ appointed it.
Compare Ephesians 4:1-16, 1
Corinthians 12:1-14, Romans 12:3-8.
And it assumes that every part of
the body is gifted the same and
every local church is identical.
Instead of focusing on theological
foundations and ministry goals,
the ensuing result is a divisive
tribalism where one of you says,
"I follow Paul," another, "I follow
Apollos," another, "I follow Cephas,"
still another, "I follow Christ."
1 Corinthians 1:12.
Thanks be to God that discussions
about children's and youth ministry
since the 2000s have largely moved
beyond prescriptive ministry models
with their supporting anecdotes of
success to discussions about the
foundational theological principles
and goals of biblical discipleship in
ministry with children and young people.
Focusing on the contextual differences
of applying foundational theological
principles not only creates more
constructive and collaborative
conversations, but also creates more
effective children's and youth ministries
that are faithful to their principles,
appropriate for their context, and
achieve their desired outcomes.
This is the context for discussing the
notion of contextualization in children's
and youth ministry and why it matters.
Contextualization matters because
faithful and effective gospel
ministry with children and young
people is driven by theological
principles rather than prescriptive
or pragmatic models of ministry.
Contextualization matters because
faithful and effective gospel
ministry with children and young
people is unavoidably influenced
by particular culture and contexts.
Contextualization matters because
faithful and effective gospel ministry
with children and young people needs
to theologically engage with culture in
order to fruitfully minister the gospel.
The context of contextualization.
The term contextualization did not
originate in the field of children's
and youth ministry, and receives very
little explicit attention in children's
and youth ministry publications compared
to the volumes published in the area
of cross-cultural Christian mission,
where its definition and practice
emerged and continues to be contested.
There is much to be learned about
contextualization from the field of
cross-cultural Christian mission,
with some obvious parallels to
children's and youth ministry.
For example, translating scripture and
biblical concepts into the comprehension
of children and young people within
their categories of thinking, and
understanding the cultural mores
among children and young people or
a particular youth subculture in
order to behave with the appropriate
etiquette, protocols, and customs.
However, children and young people
also have distinct differences from
cross-cultural Christian mission.
Foremost is that being a child
or young person is a transitory
life stage common to all people
of every nation and ethnicity.
As Pollock notes, "Members of the
church Paul planted in Philippi did
not grow out of being Philippians,
and those converted by missionaries
in China did not cease to be Chinese.
But the young people in the
church do eventually grow to be
the old people in the church.
Thus, to speak of a youth culture is
quite different than speaking of a
long-established foreign culture."
Nevertheless, the notion of Christian
contextualization in the field of
cross-cultural Christian mission
has a history of being used by
various people with a wide range of
diverse and antithetical meanings.
Therefore, the notion of contextualization
in children's and youth ministry
needs some awareness of its history
and its contested meaning in that
field, whilst also discerning the
distinctives of children and young
people for contextualization.
The contest of contextualization.
Since the term was first
coined by the World Council of
Churches, WCC, in 1972 by Dr.
Shoki Co to replace and develop
the concept of indigenization,
the term contextualization has
been the subject of vigorous
missiological debate in both
ecumenical and evangelical circles.
Although initially wary of adopting
the term, evangelicals have, for the
most part, particularly focused on how
God's unchanging word intersects with
the ever-changing settings in which
people live out their faith as followers
of Christ, and therefore define it as
the process of relating the message of
scripture to local contexts and cultures.
Keller's definition is an example
of this narrowed focus on the
communication of scripture.
Sound contextualization means translating
and adapting the communication and
ministry of the gospel to a particular
culture without compromising the essence
and particulars of the gospel itself.
The great missionary task is to express
the gospel message to a new culture in
a way that avoids making the message
unnecessarily alien to that culture,
yet without removing or obscuring the
scandal and offense of biblical truth.
Children's Bibles, Bible translations, and
prophetic gospel preaching are examples
of this kind of contextualization.
Contextualization, however, also
encompasses all manner of Christian
expression from the architecture of
Christian spaces to the rhythm of
kids' programs that match school terms.
Moreau summarizes that contextualization
refers to how those people of God
live out their faith in light of
the values of their societies.
It is not limited to theology,
architecture, church polity, ritual,
training, art, or inspired experience.
It includes them all, and more.
We are all in the process of
expressing or engaging our
faith in highly contextual ways.
Without discounting the relevance of
contextualizing scripture, this broader
concept of contextualization needs
to also remain in view with regards
to children's and youth ministry.
Much of the contextualizing efforts of
children's and youth ministry leaders
happens or doesn't happen without
being noticed and explicitly stated.
The influence of cultural
context is explicitly absent, but
implicitly present in every act
of communication and activity.
It is precisely because the
influence of culture is unavoidable
that it needs to be made explicit.
The influence of culture Prince
proposes three main aspects to culture.
First, it is always social, bound up
with an individual's life in society.
Second, it is bound up in human
achievement, the work of humanity's
thoughts and actions, and therefore
includes speech, education, tradition,
myth, science, art, philosophy,
government, law, right, beliefs,
interventions, and technologies.
Third, it is concerned with the formation
and preservation of values, particularly
those which are good for humanity.
These three aspects are a succinct summary
of cultural traits, but importantly,
Prince adds that cultures are not
merely an accumulation of traits,
but rather an organic whole which is
greater than the sum total of its parts.
That is, the way these aspects
organically relate to each other is
more important for understanding culture
than naming the constituent parts.
In order to understand culture, it
is a matter of discerning patterns,
especially as these involve the
relation between embedded parts
and their larger meaningful wholes.
Culture, then, is that meaningful
relation or that complex meaningful whole.
Understanding culture is not a matter
of only saying what culture is, but also
what culture does as an organic whole.
Culture creates recognizable and
repeatable patterns and rhythms of
behavior, of thought, of language,
of agriculture, of architecture,
of cuisine, of work, and of rest.
Watkin proposes a schema of six
cultural figures which form the
repeatable patterns and rhythms
in creation, whether of matter,
language, ideas, systems, or behavior.
The six cultural figures are
language, ideas, and stories.
Culture is shaped by the words,
concepts, symbols, and narratives we
use to make sense of our experience.
Time and space.
Culture is shaped by how we
conceive of life's rhythms and
the spheres in which we move.
Structure of reality.
Culture is shaped by our metaphysics.
Behavior.
Culture is shaped by bodily habits.
Relationships.
Culture is shaped by how we relate to
others, institutions, and authorities.
Objects.
Culture is shaped by the things
that surround our daily life.
This ensemble of these six cultural
figures is useful for cultural analysis
and for understanding the often
invisible complexity of how culture
is operating as the work and worlds
of meaning in any given context.
The way people speak about their
world in an everyday sense is a
simple way to understand how culture
operates as an organic whole.
For example, the world of children and
young people, or the world of model car
making and the world of the New Testament,
or Shakespeare's world, or the world
of Star Wars, but also the world of
work and the world of stamp collecting.
A person's world encompasses all
meaning and rhythms of space,
time, ideas, reality, behavior, and
relationships in a particular sphere
of life among a particular community.
Cultures are not static
or distinct entities.
In fact, a dynamic in human
cultures never allows cultures
to be complete, closed entities.
This very facet of culture in turn exposes
the fallacy of cultural appropriation.
As Monk explains, since its dawn,
human culture has evolved by
remixing and reappropriating a
rich array of cultural influences.
So if we were to apply the same rules to
the groups that first produced cultural
artifacts whose use the critics of
cultural appropriation now seek to limit,
we would quickly find that the supposed
victims of cultural appropriation have
themselves perpetrated the very same sin.
This means that no individual or group can
assert any formal or informal ownership
over particular cultural practices or
artifacts, giving them decision-making
power over who gets to partake.
It quickly becomes apparent that
not only are the works and worlds of
cultures enmeshed with each other,
but that culture cannot be so easily
disentangled from Christian faith.
Christianity does not sit apart from
culture, but rather is entangled
with it to the point where we
find it hard to work out which
idea or behavior belongs to which.
As an amusing metaphor, Watkin
illustrates that trying to separate
Christianity from culture is like trying
to extract the flour from a baked cake.
It is a fool's errand that
destroys what it examines and
only creates a useless mess.
The corollary is that there is no distinct
Christian culture, for it is impossible
to construct a culture-free Christianity.
Christianity and culture.
How then should Christianity
relate to culture if it is so
infused and entangled with it?
The essence of this question is how
the divine is present with creation
and yet not confused with it, as in
pantheism or panentheism, for example,
or completely separated from it,
as in deism or monism, for example.
To be precise, how is God both immanent
with creation and yet still transcendent?
As previously stated, contextualization
is not just about the translation
and communication of Scripture,
for it encompasses all manner
of Christian expression.
But the Reformed doctrine of
Scripture is able to instructively
provide an answer to this question.
In particular, the theological concept
of divine accommodation offers the most
succinct account of God's immanence
and transcendence by incorporating
the doctrines of the Holy Spirit,
creation, and the incarnation of Christ.
What follows is a biblical
diagonalization across an apparent
dichotomy of divine immanence with
and transcendence from creation.
Figure one can be found on
page eleven of this article.
Divine revelation is anthropomorphic.
A Reformed doctrine of Scripture
asserts that God has revealed himself
to human beings via the special
revelation of Scripture written by
human beings as they were carried
along by the Spirit, 2 Peter 1:21.
The inspired Word of God involved
both divine and human authorship.
It is a special revelation of God
that is verbally accommodated through
anthropomorphic human language and images.
As Bavinck summarizes, "Inasmuch as
the revelation of God in nature and
in Scripture is specifically addressed
to humanity, it is a human language
in which God speaks to us of himself.
For that reason, the words
he employs are human words.
For the same reason, he
manifests himself in human forms.
From this it follows that Scripture
does not just contain a few
scattered anthropomorphisms, but is
anthropomorphic through and through."
Indeed, anthropomorphic human language
is the only language available
to speak of God because the only
way for creatures to speak of God
is from a creaturely perspective.
This is why the names by which God calls
himself and allows us to call him are
derived from earthly human relations.
In fact, all that pertains to
humans and even to creatures in
general is also attributed to God.
This includes descriptions of physical
features attributed to God, his face,
for instance, compare Exodus 33:20 to 23,
his emotions, his sorrow, for instance,
compare Psalm 78:40 and Isaiah 63:10, and
his activities, his working, for instance,
compare Genesis 2:2 and John 5:17.
The divine accommodation of
Scripture is the communication of
God using the creaturely faculties,
human reason, and the senses for
God to be truly known as he is.
Were it not that the divine and
transcendent God saw fit to make
himself known via human media,
there would be no way for anyone to
properly and personally speak of him.
Our knowledge of God is never exhaustive
or equivalent to God's own knowledge
that we never know him precisely as he
knows himself, and yet he is truly known.
The dual authorship of Scripture
identifies God with the human word of
his creatures, his imminence, and yet
maintains his transcendence through
the inspiring work of the Spirit.
the incarnation of Jesus and the work
of the Spirit to perfect the divine Son.
The Spirit is instrumental
for the incarnation of Jesus.
Compare Matthew one eighteen, twenty,
Luke one thirty-five, which is the
accommodating act par excellence.
That is, the incarnation is the most
magnificent act of divine accommodation.
The Spirit perfects Jesus to be
the divine Son in his incarnated
creaturely life and ministry,
empowering him to resist temptation
and to entrust himself to the Father
in the face of opposition and death.
This perfecting work is consummated in
his resurrection to eternal life by the
Spirit and into his ascension at the
right hand of God the Father, where he
continues to be both divine and human.
Through the salvific work of the Son,
the Spirit opens the sonship of the Son
to incorporate others, who as children
of the Father are given the name son
or daughter and made new creatures in
Christ, two Corinthians five seventeen.
The Spirit perfects believers to continue
the ministry of Jesus in new contexts The
revelation of God in the accommodating
manifestation of the Son is the zenith
of God's self-disclosure in Scripture.
However, the Book of Acts bears
witness to the continued ministry
of the ascended Lord Jesus beyond
the specific time and place of his
incarnation in history through the
work of the Spirit in his disciples.
In this, the revelation of God
does not lose its original context,
but is still contextualized and
accommodated for new times and places.
Compare Acts 13:16 to 41, 17:22 to 31.
Even the Gospels themselves bear witness
to this accommodation through the
editorial explanations of unfamiliar terms
and concepts from the time and setting of
the Gospel to the contemporary audience.
The revelation of God in the canon of
Scripture continues to be communicated and
accommodated through human agents that are
perfected by the Spirit for proclamation.
The divine revelation is accommodated
through the disciples of Christ since
they are chosen out of belonging to
the world, compare John 15:19, 17:13 to
19, even though they must remain in the
world to bear the fruit of witness to
Jesus for the glory of the Father, John
15:8, 16:27, comparing chapter 17:18.
That is for familiar fellowship and unity
as children of God, John 1:12 to 13.
This is always the dynamic of
Gospel communication in the New
Testament as Jensen demonstrates.
When we consider how the Gospel was
actually transmitted by Jesus and the
apostles, we see that human effort,
whether the physical, personal,
or intellectual, is not bypassed.
On the contrary, in accordance with the
incarnation itself, the human is regarded
as fit to communicate the divine message.
God is pleased to use creaturely
human faculties in the transmission
of his divine revelation.
In this sense, divine accommodation
is not just God's accommodation
of himself to humankind, but an
accommodation of humankind to himself.
That is, God makes people his witnesses
to the wisdom revealed in the Gospel of
Jesus, even though they be neither wise
by worldly standards or influential or
noble, but appear as lowly and despised
fools, 1 Corinthians 1:26 to 29.
God's people carry the treasure of God's
glory revealed in the face of Christ
in jars of clay, 2 Corinthians 4:7.
The abundant evidence of God working
through weak and lowly human agents
throughout the testimony of Scripture
demonstrates that the biblical
writers are not in the slightest
embarrassed by the human involvement
in the transmission of revelation.
For them, God uses human nature without
abusing it to accomplish his ends.
God is not embarrassed to use his creation
because created matter is good even though
creation is frustrated by sin and decay.
Compare Romans eight,
nineteen to twenty-one.
If created matter has any inherent
evil, then the sinless incarnation
of Christ becomes untenable,
for he is truly made flesh.
Compare John one, one to eighteen.
Scripture is both a divine word
and a human word because divine
revelation delivered in Scripture is
communicated through human cultural
media and yet dynamically transcends
human cultures to be applicable and
transformative of every human culture.
See figure two, Divine Revelation,
Culture, and Scripture, page fourteen.
It is both shaped by and
transformative of human cultures
as figure two seeks to illustrate.
Contextualization is
inculturated and transformative.
Contextualization is not a matter
of giving in to the ways of the
world, nor is contextualization
capitulating to worldly cultures.
Just as God remains both immanent and
transcendent with His creation by the
power of His Spirit, so too does the
Christian world remain both entangled
with culture and transformative of
culture by the power of the Spirit.
Compare John seventeen, verses
ten to twenty, especially verse
eleven and fourteen to nineteen.
Faithfully accommodating Christianity
to a cultural context does not mean
Christianity must conform to the
expectations of culture, even as it
uses cultural media to be understood.
Contextualization doesn't mean looking
the same as the world's wisdom, rather
God utilizes the foolishness of the gospel
to emphasize the power of the cross of
Christ, one Corinthians one seventeen,
compare chapter two, one to thirteen.
This is the practice of the apostles who
didn't contextualize the message by using
words of flattery, one Thessalonians
two, four to six, or temper God's
Word with cunning or craftiness, but
instead put forth an open proclamation
of the truth, two Corinthians four two.
Christian witness does not cover over
the foolishness of the gospel or the
weakness of human agents by trying to
appear wise to those who see and hear it.
The revelation of God in the gospel of
Jesus, mediated by the Spirit through
His believers, is communicated in a
way that's culturally understandable
and yet also transforms everything
that pertains to the world of human
beings towards God's appointed end.
See Ephesians one ten.
The dangers of contextualization.
Contextualization implies a fixed
object to be contextualized.
The object must be recognizable
as itself in a new context, or
else it is not contextualized,
but altogether something else.
The revelation of God supremely
in his word made flesh, the gospel
of Jesus, is the fixed object
for Christian contextualization.
The reformed doctrine of Scripture
and the theological concept of
divine accommodation demonstrate
how God is truly revealed and truly
known immanently through human media
whilst maintaining his transcendence.
The gospel of Jesus continues to be
contextualized through human agents
so that people in every culture may
receive the Word of God, not as a human
word, but as it actually is, the Word
of God, which is indeed at work in
you who believe, 1 Thessalonians 2:13.
This is the primary concern and rule of
Christian faith expressed explicitly in
the Reformation principle sola Scriptura.
This is the supreme doctrinal
foundation of all Christian practice.
All traditions of the church, the practice
of Christian believers, and cultural
customs are subordinate to the rule of
Scripture even as they are dynamically
accommodated for diverse contexts.
Church history bears witness to the way
Christians have done this for centuries.
As an example, Article thirty-four of the
Thirty-Nine Articles declares, "It is not
necessary that traditions and ceremonies
be in all places one or utterly like.
For at all times they have been
diverse and may be changed according
to the diversity of countries, times,
and men's manners, so that nothing
be ordained against God's Word.
Whosoever, through his private
judgment, willingly and purposely
doth openly break the traditions and
ceremonies of the church, which be
not repugnant to the Word of God, and
be ordained and approved by common
authority, ought to be rebuked openly
that others may fear to do the like.
As he that offendeth against the common
order of the church and hurteth the
authority of the magistrate and woundeth
the consciences of the weak brethren.
Every particular or national church
hath authority to ordain, change, and
abolish ceremonies or rites of the church
ordained only by man's authority, so
that all things be done to edifying."
The principle expressed in this
article is that Christian practices
should be contextualized according
to the diversity of countries, times,
and men's manners so that nothing
be ordained against God's word.
The vestiges of Christian ministry,
the traditions, rites, and ceremonies,
are to be contextually dynamic.
It is perhaps ironic to state that
Anglicanism is dynamic in form but static
in regards to the authority of Scripture
as the rule of faith, when some branches
of Anglicanism have abandoned Scripture
and instead retained the vestiges.
The current state of the global Anglican
Communion is one cautionary tale, but
there are any number of examples to call
upon where Christian contextualization
has tragically incorporated non-Christian
elements of culture that have
distorted the saving gospel of Jesus.
As Keller observes, this may be
done with ignorance of culture or a
hyper-focus on cultural relevance.
Urban pastors struggle to connect
doctrinal foundations to ministry
expression in a meaningful way.
There is a tendency either to
over-contextualize to the city,
which usually leads to weakening or
relativizing a church's commitment to
orthodoxy, or to under-contextualize,
which leads to inward-facing churches
that reach only certain kinds of
people and fail to advance a movement
of the gospel in the community.
The two dangers Keller observes in
his terms, over-contextualization and
under-contextualization, are useful in
considering the danger of syncretism,
which is a long-established feature
in the debates about appropriate
contextualization in the field of
cross-cultural Christian mission.
It becomes apparent that both over- and
under-contextualization are positions
that lead to the danger of syncretism.
The danger of syncretism.
In the field of cross-cultural Christian
mission, the debate over contextualization
has mostly revolved around the danger
of syncretism and the parameters for
evaluating whether it has occurred.
Syncretism can be defined as the
incorporation of non-Christian
elements into the Christian faith
resulting in the formation of a new
entity which is no longer Christian.
In the field of cross-cultural
Christian mission, the primary
concern is the incorporation of
practices from other religions.
For example, reciting the
Quran and praying the Shahadah
into the Christian faith.
This can be termed religious syncretism.
This is the mixing, blending, or combining
of foreign religious beliefs and practices
such that it creates a new entity
which is no longer recognizable as an
authentic expression of either religion.
This may occur through deliberate
appropriation of foreign religious
beliefs over contextualization or through
ignorance under contextualization.
Adjacent to the concern of religious
syncretism is the recognition that
cultural values, customs, ideologies,
and expectations are not only
difficult to separate from religious
beliefs, but are also able to act
as distorting elements themselves.
This can be termed cultural syncretism.
This likewise may occur through deliberate
appropriation of cultural customs and
norms over contextualization or through
ignorance under contextualization.
If cultural context is ignored
and only remains tacitly
subconscious, then cultural
syncretism is especially insidious
in distorting the Christian faith.
One such sobering example of this is the
latent ethnocentrism of early European
Christian missionaries to Australia, who
uncritically assimilated their European
cultural customs with Christian faith.
Warmington writes that the work of
Christian missionaries during the
nineteenth century generally had a
twofold aim, to convert the heathen to
Christianity and to introduce them to
European civilization, such that the
words of Christianity and civilization
were sometimes used interchangeably.
In practice, this meant that some
missionaries refused to baptize Aboriginal
people unless they saw total absolute
changes of lifestyle as evidence of
conversion, which meant denying virtually
all Aboriginality and becoming European.
This kind of distorting cultural
syncretism seems obvious when
viewed with the distance of time
and from a context with a different
set of cultural assumptions,
but this is exactly the point.
What is absent but implicit needs
to be made explicit in order
to avoid cultural syncretism.
As Van Hoozer warns, we need to be
aware of the way in which culture may be
influencing or programming us, especially
as this pertains to the way we do church.
The church is never wholly isolated
from its surrounding culture.
Like cultures themselves, the
church has porous boundaries.
For some, the danger of religious
syncretism in children's and youth
ministry may seem only a remote
possibility unless the ministry is
deliberately trying to engage a particular
ethnoreligious group or is being
conducted in the liminal space between
a dominant and a minority culture.
However, for those engaged in faithful
gospel ministry with children and
young people in a dominant culture,
the danger of cultural syncretism
is perhaps the most present danger
alongside that of relativism.
The danger of relativism.
Much of the literature in
cross-cultural Christian mission
focuses on the danger of syncretism
with regards to contextualization.
In fact, Prince argues that syncretism
and contextualization are on a spectrum
at opposite ends of the continuum.
Relativism is often included as an aspect
or subtype of syncretism, and although
it poses a danger similar to syncretism
with the incorporation of non-Christian
elements, it is a particularly significant
hazard in regards to children's and
youth ministry, and as such, is worthy
to be considered as a distinct category.
See Figure 3, Contextualization
in Between the Dangers of
Syncretism and Relativism, page 20.
Relativism can be defined as the denial
of any absolute or objective truth,
morality, and knowledge so that each is
subject to the differing perspectives
of individuals, cultures, or contexts.
This kind of relativism is a dominant
feature of the postmodern Western
world, which has largely jettisoned
transcendent reality in preference
of an immanent reality and discarded
the sacred in favor of the mundane.
The relativism of the postmodern era
is especially bound to the rise of
expressive individualism and the authentic
expression of self as a primary concern.
In its favor, relativism acknowledges
the influence of innumerable variables
on human knowledge, that context
matters for understanding, and that
forms of communication change in order
to convey the truth of a meaning.
Good and proper biblical exegesis likewise
acknowledges the dual authorship of
Scripture as both a divine word and a
human word, which inherently contains the
contextual dynamics of human language,
genres, and specific situations.
However, relativism completely
collapses in on itself by absolutely
denying any absolutes except for
the absolute truth of relativism.
Nichols explains the danger here of
relativizing Scripture in that it
denies the finality of revelation
as recorded in the Bible in terms of
its historical and verbalized truth.
It assumes that since all theology
is culturally conditioned, it is not
possible to know with assurance what
is the word that God has revealed.
It confuses the supracultural
with the cultural.
It reduces all theology
to the storytelling of
one's experience and faith.
The rise of expressive individualism
and the primacy of storytelling
one's experience is pertinent for
contextualizing children's and
youth ministry because this cultural
phenomenon has also coincided with
the development of incarnational
approaches to youth ministry, which
emphasize a contextualized theology
to and for youth subcultures through
incarnational commitment and experience.
Incarnational youth ministry, so-called,
shifted the focus from bringing young
people into the church, an alien
cultural experience for the young
person, and instead focused on going
out to meet young people where they are
at, a culturally familiar experience.
The admirable intent is that youth
ministers will move outside the church
to find young people who need to
be heard, to be cared for, to find
healthy and supportive community.
The intent is that gospel ministry will
fit the context of young people and will
establish authentic personal relationships
in order to successfully evangelize them.
As Borgman rationalizes it, "God, who
has treated us from the beginning as
stewards and co-creators or partners
in the work of this world, now asks
us to make the Word understandable
in all cultures of the earth.
This means that the Word must enter
the world of skateboarders, surfers,
mall rats, rappers, gang members, as
well as those around the country club."
The focus of incarnating into the
culture of those outside the church
lays the foundation for a further
development into what has been termed
neo-incarnational youth ministry.
The incarnational youth ministry
epitomized by Ward and Borgman is
youth-centered, relational, and
culturally contextualized in order
to evangelize, disciple young people.
Neo-incarnational youth ministry
epitomized by Andrew Root, however,
critically removes the imperative to
evangelize and instead makes relationship
the goal of the contextualization.
For Root, the incarnation cannot be
appropriated as a method of relationship
which leads to a greater end.
Rather, the incarnation has changed
all relationality, both divine
and human, making relationality
an end in and of itself.
And thus, relationality is not a
means to an end, but is the very
purpose of our youth ministry.
For neo-incarnational youth ministry,
the goal of incarnating in the
cultural context of young people for
their knowledge of and conversion
to Christ has been replaced with
helping the young person be what
God created them to be, human.
Rather than the original intent of
incarnational youth ministry presenting
a relevant gospel disencumbered from the
peculiar and unfamiliar long-established
church culture, Neo-incarnational youth
ministry presents a relativized gospel.
Root's neo-incarnational youth ministry
has succumbed to postmodern relativism by
prioritizing expression of the individual
over and above any third thing, whether
that be conservative politics, moral
behaviors, or even the gospel message.
Ironically, in critiquing other models of
youth ministry as being individualistic,
Root has propagated the expressive
individualism of this secular age, an age
in which each one of us has his or her own
way of realizing our humanity, and that
it is important to find and live out one's
own as against surrendering to conformity
with a model imposed on us from outside
by society or the previous generation
or religious or political authority.
The danger of relativism demonstrated
the primacy of authentic self-expression
is not only a danger for contextualizing
youth ministry through the pervasive
influence of incarnational ministry
approaches, but is also evident in
approaches to children's ministry
broadly categorized under the children's
spirituality movement, and in particular,
the child-centered approach of the
contemplative reflective model.
One such example is the
children's curriculum, Godly Play.
This curriculum is a non-directive
pedagogy constructed and developed
by Jerome Berryman in which a child
is given agency to make theological
meaning for themselves through play.
As further described by Barfield, Godly
Play is a non-directive method enabling
a child to encounter God and relies
heavily on a specific understanding
of the imagination in learning.
A child encounters God when the child
wonders in the space that silence brings,
which will be stifled by adult direction.
What is notable in this description
of Godly Play is not that the child is
encouraged to have agency or exercise
their imagination and wonderment,
all worthy and recommended aims, but
the primacy given to children making
theological meaning for themselves
without the directive instruction of
objective gospel truth in its historical,
literary, and theological setting.
The affinity with postmodern
relativism and expressive individualism
described by Taylor is obvious.
Crispin and Barfield helpfully identify
the development of incarnational
approaches in youth ministry and
child-centered approaches in children's
ministry as bottom-up approaches.
Bottom-up approaches are concerned
with walking alongside and listening
to children and young people according
to their context and development.
They are a welcome correction to
impersonal, instructional, and directive
approaches that leave little room
for discovery, questioning, and the
personal agency of inductive learning
and didactic top-down approaches.
However, because they fit with wider
changes in society and culture in the
postmodern period that have impacted
the church and are centered on the
expression of the individual's own
spiritual discovery and meaning-making,
bottom-up approaches elevate the
danger of relativism in contextualizing
children's and youth ministry.
For appropriate contextualization that
remains both entangled with culture and
transformative of culture by the power of
the Spirit, the twin dangers of syncretism
and relativism need to be avoided,
as represented back in figure three.
Navigating contextualization.
Contextualization may feel dangerous as
it threads a course between syncretism
and relativism, but that is all the
more reason why it is essential to
theologically engage with culture in
order to fruitfully minister the gospel.
Neither ignorance of context or
hyper-focus on context is a safeguard
to either syncretism or relativism.
In fact, ignorance of hyper-focus will
lead to straying into one or the other.
Religious syncretism is an
obvious danger in cross-cultural
settings where the non-Christian
religious beliefs and practices are
normally well-defined and visible.
However, cultural syncretism and
relativism are hidden dangers in familiar
idiocultural settings where cultural
customs, beliefs, and conventions
are assumed rather than explicit.
This is a danger where the norms of
children's and youth ministry programs
are presumed, the means of discipleship
are taken for granted, and models of
ministry are uncritically reproduced.
In this regard, the warning
of Keller is apposite.
An inability to see one's own
enculturation has other results.
One of the most basic mistakes
ministers make is to regurgitate
the methods and programs that
have personally influenced them.
After experiencing the impact of a
ministry in one part of the world,
they take up the programs and methods
of that ministry and reproduce
them elsewhere virtually unchanged.
If they have been moved by a ministry
that has forty-five minute verse-by-verse
expository sermons, a particular kind
of singing, or a specific order and
length to the service, they reproduce
it down to the smallest detail.
Without realizing it, they become
method-driven and program-driven
rather than theologically driven.
They are contextualizing their
ministry expression to themselves,
not to the people they want to reach.
The warning is that if you ignore
culture, then you'll end up synchronizing
your cultural beliefs with the
gospel, and likewise, if you focus
acutely on culture, then your cultural
beliefs will dominate gospel beliefs.
Rather than pragmatic and method-driven
ministries, ministry with children
and young people should be driven by
foundational theological principles.
Focusing on the contextual differences
of applying foundational theological
principles will create more constructive
and collaborative conversations, and
in turn, more effective children's
and youth ministries that are faithful
to their principles, appropriate to
their context, and achieve the desired
outcomes of the gospel discipleship.
In summary, Christian
contextualization is not just about
the translation and communication
of scripture, but encompasses all
manner of Christian expression.
The vast scholarship on contextualization
and the coining of the term originates
in the field of cross-cultural Christian
mission, and that while children's and
youth ministry has similarities with
the fields of cross-cultural Christian
mission, children and young people also
have particular and distinct differences.
Culture is made up of work and worlds
of meaning, not separate to the
Christian faith, but entangled with it.
The doctrine of scripture, and
particularly the concept of divine
accommodation, demonstrates how God
works through human culture to reveal
Himself, and through human agents
to proclaim the gospel of His Son.
The gospel proclaimed by human agents is
transformative of human cultures as they
become children of the Father with Jesus
the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Appropriate contextualization in
cross-cultural Christian mission
is dominated by the debate on
syncretism, religious and cultural.
However, contextualization in children's
and youth ministry furthermore risks
the danger of relativism through the
influence of bottom-up approaches to
ministry and the dominant cultural
feature of expressive individualism
in the post-modern Western world.
And lastly, navigating contextualization
between syncretism and relativism requires
establishing foundational theological
principles that can be applied into
new and changing cultural contexts.