In his book Cross-Cultural Servanthood, Duane Elmer shares how in his many years of research and experience he asked people from many different cultures how missionaries could be more effective in representing Christ in their culture. The most common answer he received was, "Missionaries could more effectively minister the Gospel of Christ if they did not think they were so superior to us."
Now no missionary I know would claim to be superior to the culture they are living and ministering in. After, however, you spend 6 months or a year in a place where people appear to be much more rude & reserved than you are used to, a place where your apartment stairwells are filthy & smell like a combination of urine & vomit, a place where apathy, alcoholism, & a lack of efficiency seem to be ever present, then feelings of superiority come flying to the surface.
One of the most frustrating aspects of this first year on the mission field is the lack of ministry opportunities for us, and how unexpectedly slow it’s been building relationships with the people here. It’s been a time of learning to let our original expectations die & open ourselves up to the purposes God may have for us during this time. I think one of those purposes has been to expose and deal with a superiority complex that is more ingrained in us than we realize. It is a humbling reminder that in order to bring about change through the Gospel, we ourselves must continually be changed by its truth.
