The Guardrails of Good Contextualization

What exactly are the practices of “good” contextualization that lead to effective mission?

First, we might say that good contextualization starts with the right constraints. Mission is constrained by the narrative shape of the Missio Dei found in scripture, and must be continuous with the work of the Spirit and direction of the Biblical story. It finds itself constrained by the means given by God — the community of believers empowered for mission by the Holy Spirit, to proclaim the Kingdom of God and work for the reconciliation and renewal of the world. This anchor to the Scriptural text is the “faithfulness” constraint.

Stephen Bevans, one of the leading thinkers on the issue of contextualization, talks about the shape and constraints of good contextualization, saying, “The church only becomes the church as it responds to God’s call to mission, and to be in mission means to change continually as the gospel encounters new and diverse contexts. Such change, however, is not arbitrary; rather, there have always existed certain constants that, while they might differ in content, are always present as a kind of framework by which the church identifies itself and around which the gospel message takes shape.” This is what is meant by the “faithfulness constraint,” as fidelity to the Missio Dei always govern the particularities of mission in a context.

Good contextualization means mission must also be sensible, plausible, credible, and desirable by the people we seek to reach. This moves our ministry toward translation, adaptation, and intelligibility among those whom we are ministering to. It constrains us to engage with a cultural reality, re-shaping our mission by observing and meeting the spiritual and physical needs of the community, and adapting our symbols and language and stories and thought forms, in order to help the gospel story to become as plausible and desirable as possible, without losing its power. We seek to “become all things to all people.” This is the “cultural fit” constraint.

However, I would argue that we desire to contextualize for a culture because of our deeper desire — to see real missional fruit. We want our mission to result in more people hearing the proclamation of Good News, understanding it, and being transformed by it. There are always, of course, winter seasons and rocky places with tough soil and direct opposition that will challenge our effectiveness and remind us of the essential work of God in mission. But the missional desire should be to strive for a truly fruitful harvest as good stewards. So along with the faithfulness constraint and the cultural fit constraint, there is a “fruitfulness” mandate. We are driven toward cultural adaptation because we desire to see the Gospel unleash its effective power. The fruitfulness mandate acts as a sort of forward force that evaluates our alignment to faithfulness and cultural fit. If we contextualize well, we believe that our mission-in-practice should be as biblically faithful as possible, as culturally plausible as possible, and thus — as effective as possible.

As Tim Keller says, “Contextualization is not — as is often argued — ‘giving people what they want to hear.’ Rather, it is giving people the Bible’s answers, which they may not at all want to hear, to questions about life that people in their particular time and place are asking, in language and forms they can comprehend, and through appeals and arguments with force they can feel, even if they reject them.”

The space between the faithfulness constraint, the cultural fit constraint, and the fruitfulness mandate is the space where mission is contextualized. This leads us to somewhat of an “undefined” problem, as we then ask, “within that space, how do we practically do mission well in our context?” This opens a wide field of possible answers, and thus requires a certain synthetic way of answering the question. The mission contextualization process is, therefore, an open-ended problem that requires a process for determining or developing the best solution.

This is a “design” problem, and requires a design process.