Transforming Culture: A Challenge for Christian Missions

Rating:
Summary: Good For Understanding the Social Games We Play
Review: "Transforming Culture" is a useful tool for understanding the social games we play. Lingenfelter points out how we unconsciously follow different social orders at home, at work, at church and in various other situations. He uses plenty of examples from mission experience in a number of cultures to apply this to church work. As a missionary in Brazil, South America I found this book helpful in understanding and interpreting the culture in which I find myself. HOWEVER, I do NOT recommend Lingenfelter's follow-up to this text, entitled "Agents of Transformation." This latter work is thickly technical and impractical, an example of how modern missiology is too often losing sight of reality. Instead, I would heartily recommend "Cross-Cultural Conflict" by Duane Elmer as a good read after "Transforming Culture."

Rating:
Summary: Good For Understanding the Social Games We Play
Review: "Transforming Culture" is a useful tool for understanding the social games we play. Lingenfelter points out how we unconsciously follow different social orders at home, at work, at church and in various other situations. He uses plenty of examples from mission experience in a number of cultures to apply this to church work. As a missionary in Brazil, South America I found this book helpful in understanding and interpreting the culture in which I find myself. HOWEVER, I do NOT recommend Lingenfelter's follow-up to this text, entitled "Agents of Transformation." This latter work is thickly technical and impractical, an example of how modern missiology is too often losing sight of reality. Instead, I would heartily recommend "Cross-Cultural Conflict" by Duane Elmer as a good read after "Transforming Culture."

Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading for Missions Students
Review: This is a graduate-level missiology text. Lingenfelter offers some important theoretical insights into cross-cultural ministry. The ideas help the missionary to think critically about several areas of the target culture: social order; property; labor and productivity; generosity and exchange; authority and family; authority and community; disputes, conflicts, and communication; and transforming culture. This is important reading for missionaries; if you are in a graduate missions program, this will likely be a text for your worldview course.