The good news is Jesus transcends all cultures. Jesus is not modern. Jesus is not postmodern. And his body the church is neither modern nor postmodern, though it lives within both cultural paradigms. Ultimately, Christ s community is a way of life that incarnates into and challenges any and every culture, in every time, in every place.
Mission is an intrinsically translational task.
Throughout history, God has shown himself relating to people within their cultural frame of reference. The life and work of Jesus Christ set a pattern for the church s mission. In the incarnation, God became more than words. In his influential work, Translating the Message, Lamin Sanneh appraises the translatability of the gospel. Just as Sanneh developed the idea of translating the gospel message across cultures, so we must learn how to translate the gospel community across cultures.