Culture Shock!

Recently a missionary friend of ours married a British man. Our friend has been to several different countries including England, several times. This time around she seemed to be getting unusually annoyed at things, and at times needed to vent. As she did we listened and finally told her that she was going through culture shock. As I was thinking about this I decided to write about it.

Culture shock is something that anyone who travels to anywhere different from their own culture will have to deal with. So just what is culture shock?

Culture Shock is the personal disorientation a person may feel when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life.

For us this experience seemed to take a long time and be very subtle. But when it did hit us it was big. Living life as a missionary is very exciting and sometimes challenging. Here in the UK things are not done like they are in America. Over the past few years I have had to adjust my thinking on certain subjects. The shift I have experienced is that of Christians drinking. For the majority of US Christians drinking is something that you just don't do, but over here it is culturally acceptable for Christians to drink. In fact there are some preachers who share stories about drinking during their sermons.

When we first arrived this was really difficult for me to handle. In fact it almost stopped me from being an effective minister, just the thought of it stirred feelings of condemnation against the people we are here to minister too.  Everything inside me was telling me that this was wrong. But then I remembered something I learned in Bible school. During my third year missions training the teacher asked this question, "What part of your Gospel is actually the Gospel, and what part of it is cultural?". This simple questioned helped me to make the appropriate adjustments.

I came to realize what parts of my Gospel were cultural, and I was able to look past the things that I don't agree with. The point to this story is that if allowed to go unchecked culture shock can stop you from being effective, and it can completely ruin you experience on the mission field.