Cross Culture Stressors
Ministry is a high-calling but ---- it is very hazardous to your health.
Ministry values include self-giving, sacrifice, seeking change in self and others, as well as in the social context. These are dangerous because they set up the minister for burnout and a sense of failure.
- There is no end to what needs to be done
- No good way to know when you have done enough
- No good way to measure your success
And then when you do ministry in a different culture, you greatly compound the difficulties.
When one becomes a foreign missionary, or ministers in a different area/culture, he/she has a position of perpetually high stress levels because almost everything in one’s self and life must change.
- language
- value systems
- climate
- geography
- social system
- role definition
- support system
- host of other items
- self image – it is painful to find out that we are not nearly as good or loving, or as committed as we thought we were
One of the biggest shocks can be discovering that for us to “fit in” with the local culture and be accepted by them, we have to change some personal values that we highly value. Sometimes we even find that our view of God changes.
E. Dixon Murrah
June 29, 2007
