When we first started seeing South Americans coming along to our church, they expressed gratitude for the love and welcome we gave them. They particularly appreciated that we were willing to go out of our way to provide translation but they admitted that they were struggling and needed something more. These hungry people were desperate to be able to pray, worship and hear God’s Word in their own language. There was something different to this than hearing something in English, even if translated.
This is one of the challenges with multi-ethnic church. Heart language matters because the Gospel and worship are about heart relationships. God speaks to our hearts and we speak from our hearts. This links to the puritan’s approach of preaching not just to the intellect but to the affections. People ministering cross cultures will want to consider this need.
However, in focusing on providing for a person’s heart language we can miss something else. A few years ago, we had a person from another culture spend time with us, serving in our church. Over time they found that they naturally and instinctively were thinking in English not their native tongue. Don’t quote me as I might be misremembering but I’m fairly certain that they even reached a point where they dreamt in English. They had become so emersed in the culture, arising out of a missional concern and so their heart language had changed.
It is helpful for us to realise this first because it helps us to think about how we care for people from other cultures within our congregations. Furthermore, if we are crossing cultures ourselves then whether it’s a literal language or a cultural language such as moving from middle class to working class cultures then we should be willing to let our own heart languages change.
Faithroots 