Sidewalk Contextualization

4 comments | Nov 17, 03:12 PM | | by Earl Creps

Americans now send 35 billion text messages a day. That’s on top of the 2.2 trillion wireless minutes (100 billion more than last year) they spent actually speaking to each other.

With all those electrons flying you would think communication would be easier than ever. Surely the tsunami of radio waves we all wade through every day has purged us of any barrier to full understanding.

Not so. Our church planting project in Berkeley has proven that connectivity is not the same as connecting. In other words, having superb channels available is no guarantee of being understood by another person.

Consider this example: our community features fairly consistent protocols for how and when to speak to someone you don’t know. They look something like this:

Two walking people passing on the sidewalk – no speaking allowed, greetings are often met with suspicion or with the most perfunctory responses possible. Exception: if the other makes eye contact first, a brief greeting may be permitted, but nothing too friendly.

A walking person passes a stationary person on the sidewalk – speaking is permitted, but the walking person usually must initiate it; compliments on the stationary person’s house or yard are permitted. Exception: activist personalities may greet you first even if they are the stationary one, often with a remark about our excellent weather. I sense their goal is to contribute to a harmonious vibe in the neighborhood.

One or more people walking a dog pass on the street – speaking is encouraged if it pertains to the dog; two dog owners meeting is the communication “sweet spot.” Exception: if the other is walking multiple dogs they are likely at work (as a dog walker) and should be left alone.

Spending time in a coffee house – Berkeley coffee houses are not the classic “third place” environment. Two thirds of the customers are hunched over Mac computers as if they were playing slot machines. The other third are arguing with each other (over things like Israeli/Palestinian relations) in too-loud voices. Approaching an unknown person is simply not done. Exception: a specific request can spark conversation, as in “May I plug my Mac into the outlet behind your North Face backpack?” Our coffee houses tend to be just another “second place,” that is, the other place where I get my work done. I love them.

Inviting others to your home – not done unless you know them well already. Our houses are quite small for one thing, and “the good life” is one of the community’s core values, so why meet in a tiny dining room when you could be in one of our 375 restaurants? Exception: once a relationship is in place, neighbors will drop in unannounced. Also, solicitors for various non-profit organizations are knocking on our door all the time.

I am not describing these attributes because I think they are unique. Anyone who serves in an urban area will recognize them. But these protocols are a significant part of our everyday environment here in the east bay.

So how do we adapt? Here are some options.

1. Swim upstream: Having spent 10 years in Midwestern communities where people wave to each other when they pass on two-lane roads, we could conclude that Berkeley’s practices are just wrong. Armed with this judgment, the next logical step would be to condemn the way people act here, and attempt to change things by force of our personal example. This would mean acting Bible-Belt-cheerful with strangers, talking more than everyone else in town, and approaching those we do not know as if we did. Upside: extending respect and encouragement to others is always a good thing.

2. Drown: After a season of attempting to transform the community with a dose of red state good manners, we might just become discouraged with that and give up. This decision would set the stage for wholesale adoption of native communication practices, meaning that in a year or so, we would be passing strangers in silence, wearing Calvin Klein gear (all in black), and being as quiet as furniture in coffee houses. These practices are matters of conscience, so living by them is a personal choice. But our wholesale adoption of local custom would signal a retreat from the objective of influencing this aspect of culture by practicing the opposite. Upside: we would need to ask ourselves whether that’s really why we came here, i.e., did Jesus die to change Berkeley’s conversation style?

3. Swim with the tide: A middle option would suggest that, as long as we’re not departing from biblical standards of conduct, we are free to be as “native” as we choose. In fact, Janet and I have both noticed an increase in the number of our conversations on the street in just the last month or so. We think (but cannot prove) that our dress and non-verbal style are changing slowly in a direction that the community here recognizes. Early on when we walked the Cal campus, we would notice people noticing us, averteing their eyes quickly when we caught them staring. This experience was unnerving. My theory is that our very casual style of dress (jeans and a t-shirt) was too close to that of students for people our age. We since have adopted a more formal look when on campus, paralleling that of the Cal faculty. This gives the indigenous population a category into which they can fit us. Otherwise, we look like someone’s parents dressing like sophomores. I also have a sense that our non-verbal style is changing subtley, but I am not yet sure how.

Swimming with the tide, then, means that over time the local customs begin to find their way into our lives in a way that makes connecting with people more organic and spontaneous.

As long as we are faithful to the witness of the Scriptures, becoming part of the people we serve is the only way to do ministry with them instead of to them. In other words, respecting the culture we engage, and letting God use it to grow us in Christ, can open the door for the kind of witness we want to live and speak among these people—our people.
Missionaries call this practice critical contextualization. I call it learning unconditional love by talking with people who don’t agree with me. I call it learning humility by constantly feeling awkward in new social situations. I call it learning local forms of language by letting the locals teach us.

Getting past connectivity to actual connection removes the cultural obstacles to our witness so that the only remaining stumbling block is Jesus himself.