A good cross-cultural partnership is like a good conversation.  The topic is less important than whether each person can play both roles well in the conversation. Each needs to be both a good listener and a good communicator. Good listeners are rare. Most often people care about being heard rather than listening. What are the marks of a good listener? 

• He or she is truly interested in you and what you have to say. She asks questions for clarification and to learn more about what is on your mind.
• He is fully present, not trying to multi-task while you are talking; perhaps even ignoring incoming cell phone calls.
• She is patient, giving you the sense that she has all the time in the world to listen to you.
• He cares about you as a whole person, not just your role in a task the two of you are working on. He wants to know how you are doing in other areas of your life and how significant people in your life are doing.
• She listens for lessons to apply in her own life.

A good conversationalist, however, is not someone who only listens and says nothing. To do that is to ask the other person to be transparent and vulnerable while you hide in safety behind a wall. In a good conversation, both people step out into the open. Both share feelings that the listener may not affirm or understand. Both share incomplete thoughts that may be misunderstood.  What, then, are the marks of a good communicator?

• He shows trust in the listener by sharing his thoughts and feelings.
• She phrases things in a way that can be understood by the listener, trying different approaches if the listener is having trouble understanding.
• He is not seeking to change the other person without also being open to change himself. He is anticipating the Holy Spirit’s activity in the conversation and in the lives of each conversation partner.

Good cross-cultural church partnerships involve these same skills, but at a higher level because of the cultural differences. For example, in a relationship between an American and a Ugandan church, I may find it harder to be fully present with a Ugandan friend from a rural village than with a fellow American who is accustomed to multi-tasking.  And I may need more patience and persistence to communicate in a way that he is culturally accustomed to. 

Each of these skills is important, but I want to highlight one of them: not seeking to change the other without seeking to be changed oneself. A common alternative to cross-cultural partnership is paternalism in which one church (often from a wealthier country) seeks to improve or work through another church (often in a resource-poor setting). Perhaps money is given to accomplish a project, or experts are sent to provide training.  These relationships often entail task-oriented conversations, where one participant is expected to change more than the other. Only when we both come to the relationship as broken and see the other as God’s agent in our lives can we move to a relationship where the Holy Spirit is truly free to bring change.

What have I missed in this description of a good conversation? What would you add?

 

(Painting entitled “Oracle” by Amal Ghosh)