Mentor's Manual

Sec t i on I I : Under s tand i ng the Ro l e of the Mentor

63

The Mentor and Cultural Contextualization

A key difficulty in all distance learning is the ability to take content that is designed for people in a wide variety of settings and make it practically relevant to specific people who face unique situations and challenges. This problem is particularly acute in regard to our curriculums at The Urban Ministry Institute . Our learners share in common a commitment to the Church and to the practice of urban ministry, especially among the poor, but due to the nature of our mission we have a particularly diverse audience to reach. Nationally, urban ministry involves outreach to a wide variety of people and people groups. Our material will often be taught in ethnic sub- cultures where attention to particular cultural issues and practices is vitally important. Our students come from a wide range of educational backgrounds. Some students will come with college educations already completed and yet many may also come without a high school diploma. Students will also be present from a variety of socio-economic levels and often represent a number of distinct urban neighborhoods and congregations. This diversity, both within any given learning group, and between different learning groups across the nation, demands that Mentors play a key role in contextualizing the learning. In traditional educa- tion, contextualization describes the process of helping students to create meaning by connecting what is being taught in school to the everyday lives of the students. In theological and pastoral education, contextualization has as its goal: To enable, insofar as is humanly possible, an understanding of what it means that Jesus Christ, the Word, is authentically experienced in each and every human situation. . . . The gospel is Good News when it provides answers for a particular people living in a particular place at a particular time. This means the worldview of that people pro- vides a framework for communication, the questions and needs of that people are a guide to the emphasis of the message, and the cultural gifts of that people become the medium of expression.

Contextualization

The Mentor and Cultural

~ Dean Gilliland. “Contextualization.” Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions. A. Scott Moreau, ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Books and Carlisle, Cumbria, U.K. Paternoster Press, 2000. p. 225.