Intercultural Studies
Distinctives
Intercultural Studies is about learning how to love well across cultural, ethnic, and linguistic barriers. A good grasp of culture enables us to communicate the Gospel clearly and redeem those parts of culture which can be used to worship God. While my original goal in pursuing this degree was to support the spread of the Gospel in Japan, I also love seeing the Church worship God in diverse artistic and cultural forms in any setting.
Artifacts
People Group Profile: Bedouin Arabs of Jordan
Synthetic Chart of Ruth
Missional Paper
A paper and chart created for BE109:Â Ruth, Psalms, Jonah and Selected Epistles
This paper contains one of my favorite synthetic charts from my required Bible Exposition courses. Like all Old Testament studies, a bit of cultural research was required to understand the story and interpretation of the book. Though the cultural references are subtle, I believe understanding them well helped me to write a better paper and chart of this book.
A paper and presentation created for WM5420: Mission Strategy for Unreached Peoples
The project contains information helpful for understanding basic issues relating to the history, culture, and geography of this people group. It includes a brief presentation which might be helpful for short-term workers traveling in the area, or church groups who might want to have a better understand of the people groups for which they are praying.
Reflection Statements
Overall
For my competence in Intercultural Studies, I am submitting a people group profile presentation, a synthetic chart of Ruth, and a missional paper. The people group profile demonstrates my passion for understanding and presenting other cultures with dignity; a perspective that considers how the people group views and understands their own quality of life. The synthetic chart of Ruth is a sample of many other synthetic charts I completed within this degree program, and it demonstrates the integration of scripture interpretation, with culture, art, and other sources which is helpful for explaining biblical concepts. Finally, my missional paper details both my attitude towards missions and my own sense of calling. In all, these items demonstrate my ability to research and synthesize material from cultural sources, scripture, and missiological theories into new content useful for improving my own conceptualization and teaching intercultural topics.
Learning
As I developed and demonstrated ideas from the Intercultural Studies program in other areas of my degree and ministry experience, I have learned that the principles of intercultural studies can be utilized in almost any setting. I have used what I learned in overtly cross-cultural settings and settings that reach across genders, generations, and geographical regions in the U.S. I learned that even these small differences between people can result in the formation of unique sub-cultures, and I find that I enjoy and appreciate these differences more by viewing them through the lens of intercultural interactions. In each of these settings, I found what I have learned from this program to be helpful for gaining a deeper love and understanding of the people with whom I interact.
Lifelong
As a result of the experiences documented by these artifacts, I will continue to develop in Intercultural Studies by continuing to research and present topics on intercultural studies and missiological issues, improving upon my writing, and spreading out the writing process over a longer period of time. As I reviewed my previous Intercultural Studies papers to include in these artifacts, I found that my writing was often too rushed for me to feel comfortable including the paper as an artifact. This process of reviewing and presenting the work from my classes has encouraged me to update and revise some of these papers so they can be useful for teaching or presenting research. In order to accomplish this, I will need to slow down and review and revise my writing more carefully and I think this would be worth doing even as I move out of a student role.