As I review conversations and meetings with tentmakers from the past year, a few frequent issues have become increasingly prevalent. The first of these is cultural adaptation. One would think that in our connected world, cultural differences would slowly melt away as people travel more and interact with people from other cultures in their own homelands, particularly when you factor in the desire to reach another culture group with the Gospel.

The often-quoted four stages of culture shock first proposed by Kalervo Oberg, a Finnish Canadian from British Columbia, puts this process into four simple stages: Honeymoon, Frustration, Adjustment and Acceptance. For some reason, people are struggling with the Frustration stage. A tremendous amount of time and energy is spent comparing the new culture with their home culture, seeing the negatives of the new and only the positives of their home.

A quick Google search will give more information on these four stages. There are many good articles available.

The GO Equipped Tentmaking Courses have multiple sessions on cultural issues because we are aware that this topic is a central one that affects all the other challenges of being a tentmaker.

Active tentmakers may find it helpful to take a refresher course and learn how to deal with this debilitating challenge.

Click here for upcoming courses this year.

By Ari Rocklin