Language Learning Is Communication - Is Ministry!
Page 1 of 2by E. Thomas Brewster & Elizabeth S. Brewster
There is a popular mentality that suggests that missionaries should learn a language in order to have a ministry - that is, in order to be able to communicate with the local people. We would like to suggest that the language learning process itself is communication - effective communication.
The missionary anthropologist Charles H. Kraft was recently asked, "How much time should one who goes to serve as a two month short-term missionary spend in language learning?"
Kraft responded: "Two months."
The questioner continued, "What about one who stays six months?"
"Then spend six months in language learning."
"And if he stays two years?"
"There is nothing he could do that would communicate more effectively than spending those two years in language learning." Kraft continued, "Indeed, if we do no more than engage in the process of language learning we will have communicated more of the essentials of the Gospel than if we devote ourselves to any other task I can think of."
The idea that short-term missionaries should somehow be exempt from language learning needs to be challenged.
I recently asked a Cantonese man from Hong Kong, "Do the missionaries in Hong Kong learn the language?" I knew the answer but I wanted to hear it from the lips of an insider - maybe 5%, at most 10%, of all Protestant missionaries in Hong Kong are able to minister in Cantonese.
I was therefore surprised, and then chagrined when he answered, "Yes they do - the Mormons do." They are all short-termers, but they spend 12 hours a day, six days a week, on the streets talking with people.
The fact is that the learner posture might continue to be the most effective communication base not only for short-termers but also for those who invest their entire lives ministering as guests in another country. With a "learning is communication" perspective one can have the unique opportunity to learn important cultural knowledge in the context of community relationships - right where ministry opportunities are.
We should note here that we are talking about language learning, not language study. Millions of people have studied a language without learning it, yet billions have learned languages without studying them. Certainly over half of the world's people are multilingual, and relatively few have learned their additional languages in school. These spontaneous learners demonstrate that normal language acquisition is a social activity, not an academic activity.
The isolation of the foreigner in a language school does little to communicate positively in the community. Missionary language schools have undeniably played an important part in recent mission strategy. It is now timely, however, to address issues such as the typical student's isolation from the local people, and the frequent mediocre level of communicative proficiency achieved by graduates.
It is also time to believe God for a viable strategy that will enable potential missionaries to confidently and competently respond to the challenge of reaching an unreached people group many of whom are among the more than 4,000 languages that will never have language schools.
The positive impact of the language learning process itself is revealed in many ways. On a recent visit to South Africa we received various invitations to speak to bilingual people whose first language was Afrikaans. As an opening statement during each speaking opportunity I said "Ekis bly om hier te wees" - "I'm happy to be here with you." Invariably the audience erupted into applause. It totally disarmed them - I cared for them and demonstrated it by being a learner of their language. This provided an atmosphere so that even a discussion on a sensitive issue such as ethnocentrism could be favorably received.
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Brewster & Brewster ©1981; from Student Training in Missions Manual, 1992
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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