A busy weekend got off to a great start at CMS where Debbie James delivered some excellent training on culture for those involved in Mission In London.

I think everyone was challenged and caused to either start think or re-think how we can re-interpret our faith so that we speak in a language that those we are led to work with can understand our message.

One particular act of genius was when Debbie got us to play a game of Taboo. For those that don’t know this is a game where you have to describe something without being able to use certain words. An example might be ‘cream cracker’ without being able to use the words cheese, dry, eat, spread. Another could be ‘salvation’ without using the words cross, sin, Jesus, Son of God … and so on.

This was great as it showed in a concrete way the frustration of being able to share and hear when certain things are taken away from us. It’s an idea I’ going to be using – but I will always give credit to Debbie for it being her idea!

People left CMS feeling that the day had been incredibly valuable and had already started to think out loud about how to be culturally relevant in both language and thinking through what would be good news to those we work with.