When I was 15 years old, I went on a mission trip to Nashville, Tennessee. Being a lover of music, I was excited for walking up and down the streets, and, even though I wouldn’t be allowed in them, getting to stand outside the bars and listen to that syncretic, Nashville, country, honky tonk-y, bluegrass-y, blues-y sound pouring out of them. I was going with a lot of friends, and I was excited to share my experiences with people I cared about, too. And, of course, I was very excited for a week where the Holy Spirit would push me to share the Gospel truth with the people of Nashville.

The program through which had several tracks in which to serve, but I was placed in the “games and recreation” track. My group’s job was to go to a local all-day camp and make connections with the kids there, who ranged from five to seventeen years old. Ultimately, our goal for building these relationships was creating avenues for sharing Christ’s message of salvation. Being a kid that loved being active and playing any sport I could, I was looking forward to having common interests with the kids I would be playing with. Being 15, I also had a unique opportunity to be able to relate to my own age, as well as the younger and older teens. When we got to the mission location for the first day, we tried to divide up based on age, personality, and interests. Sporty, thirteen-year-old girls in our group tried to reach the other sporty, thirteen-year-old girls at the mission. Some of the older girls and a couple of the guys tried to reach the youngest kids, running around with them and playing on the playground. The group of guys that I was with figured we’d try to reach the older teens by playing basketball or whatever sport we could and talking with after the games. However, just as we were about to embark on our first attempt to share the Gospel, I realized just what a challenge it would be to reach them.

There is one key factor that I haven’t told you about my group of young evangelists: we were almost all white. There is one key factor that I haven’t told you about the group we were evangelizing to: they were almost all black. The biggest obstacle in this week of missions was racism, and that issue was the last thing that I was prepared for when I went on this trip. I’m not sure what was going through the minds of the black teens, but they seemed like they must’ve had some really bad experiences with white people, or they were taught that white people were evil. All I know is that if I had bad experiences with a particular race, and then a whole bus full of people of that race walked into my spot to hang out for the summer, I would not be excited to see them. I don’t know why these guys didn’t want anything to do with us. I don’t know why they would call us “cracker” more than our names. I don’t know why they would sometimes pull the young kids away from some of our group members that were trying to engage with them. Most of all, I don’t know why an omnipotent God did not break down those barriers in miraculous ways like I prayed he would. I tell this story to highlight why we Christians, having been commissioned by the Lord, should have context for the culture in which we plan to share the Gospel.

I write cautiously here because I don’t want to imply that after experiencing one week of mild racism from some teenagers that, suddenly, I’m deserving of being some kind of champion for civil rights. I also don’t want to imply that I now understand what it is like to be a racial minority of any kind, including African American. I simply write about this to illustrate the importance of knowing how to reach people where they are.

Thankfully, there are organizations that understand the need for context. One of these organizations is called Team, which describes itself as a “global alliance of churches and missionaries.” Team gives missionaries careers in whatever country they are going to, specifically those nations with a social or political culture that is especially antagonistic towards the Gospel. The career or job that this program connects a missionary with serves as an avenue for relationships which can lead to conversations about Jesus in everyday life. This model often helps the missionaries avoid social alienation and political persecution while still effectively proclaiming the Gospel and making disciples. Yes, Jesus promises that we will face persecution in this world, but why use a strategy that we know leads to persecution when, through entrepreneurial thinking, innovation, and strategy, we Christians can become integral parts of the communities most hostile to the Gospel? The God of the Bible, Yahweh, is the one true God, and He is working through us, His people, in His ultimate plan for the redemption of all mankind. We must press on for the sake of the Gospel and continue to innovate so that the Gospel can permeate. We must pray for organizations like Team that think outside the box so that others may hear the Gospel. We must raise up the next generation of leaders within the Church so that they might go out into all the nations and proclaim salvation for all through Christ—even those nations and peoples that think they don’t want to hear the Gospel. Yes, contextualization is important, but all of this is possible only by the power of the Holy Spirit. I urge you, brothers and sisters in Christ, to always contextualize your Gospel message, think creatively about how to deliver it, and then entrust and submit your words to the Lord as you seek to spread the Good News to the ends of the Earth.

https://team.org/about/our-mission/what-we-do