September 17, 2024
Karen Hedinger
When God created the world, He created us to be in community with Him and with each other. God showed Adam that it was not good to be alone, and He created Eve. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. What a sweet community!
Even after Adam and Eve decided to act independent of God and against His one command, God still interacted with His creation and us humans, just in a different way than before they disobeyed.
Throughout the Old and New Testaments, we see God interacting in community with people individually, and even more so, corporately. We are created to interact with God and with others. In fact, Jesus said that people would know we are His by the love we have for one another (John 13:34-35). Jesus also said that if we love Him and obey Him, both He and the Father will show themselves to us (John 14:21).
You may ask, what does this have to do with CultureBound, culture learning, and language learning. Our answer: EVERYTHING!
At CultureBound, we have five guiding values: GRASP
God-centered
Relational
Agile
Sustainable
Practical
The first two values guide and direct the rest of the values.
We are God-centered. We put God in first place by prayer, study of God’s Word, seeking His guidance as a board and staff, and making relationship with Him the starting point and continuing emphasis in our training. After all, Jesus said that we should remain in Him as apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). As trainers, we ask Him to direct the training according to the needs of the trainees because He knows their current and future circumstances and what is necessary for them to know and experience in the training. We trust Him to open trainees’ hearts and understanding—something that we are incapable of doing.
It doesn’t stop there, though. Both our culture and language training encourage trainees to develop relationships with the people God sent them to serve. This is practiced in the actual training as the participants interact with people from a different cultural context.
If they are moving somewhere to minister but have not left home yet, there might be people in their neighborhood. Even though they are learning attitudes and skills for future ministry, what a great opportunity to get to know people where they are currently living.
We have often trained people who are already in their place of service. There, they walk out the door and build relationships as they get to know the people and their cultural context.
For those who are wanting to get to know people who have moved into their neighborhood from other places, they can learn to build relationships in a more understandable way through our training. We just conducted a 3-day workshop in Kansas City with a group called RefugeKC. It was exciting and eye-opening for the participants.
In our language training, we encourage trainees to create a Language Learning Community (LLC). These are people who are willing to help them and interact with them, even when they are at the beginning stages of learning the language. Whether the participant is going overseas or staying and working with immigrant communities, this LLC might consist of teachers, tutors, and language helpers. Others might be the person at the market of store who is willing to give names to unfamiliar items. Or they might be brothers and sisters in Christ who will help and correct errors. Neighbors are often part of this “community.”
Learning culture and learning language are best done in community, which is also exactly where Christianity is best practiced.
Growing in our relationship with God and with others requires a learner’s attitude, humility, and the willingness to lay aside some of our ideas of how things in our lives and the world should work to learn their ideas of how life works. It requires maintaining our core values and being able to flex a lot in other areas. Learning culture and learning language are best done in community, which is also exactly where Christianity is best practiced.
Karen Hedinger, EdD, is director of language acquisition program at CultureBound. Her experience learning several languages allows her to effectively lead and teach our language courses. Karen has led both culture and language training alongside her husband Mark for many years.
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