'Killer cows' & the importance of contextualization

I grew up in a medium-sized city in the Midwest. As a teenager I moved to a small city in Virginia and after college I lived in a small city in South Carolina.

Since my entire life had been spent in the city, what a culture shock it was when I moved to rural Vermont in 1993 with my wife and family. We had come to a small village to serve as missionaries with the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. We served a rural church with less than 20 members that was struggling for survival. The first week I lived in that tiny village I had what was then a traumatic experience but has since become quite humorous. It was also a great teaching moment which impacted how I view ministry.

I love to walk in the mornings and pray about what God is doing in my life. That first week of living in a rural area I walked down the main street, which was also the only paved street in town. I did not get very far before I encountered a cow that had escaped from the pasture and was standing in the middle of the road. Having grown up in the city, I did not know quite what to do, so I froze in my tracks. My life flashed before my eyes. My heart raced with fear. Would this cow charge me? Would it trample me? Would it eat me? Surely this vicious creature was a killer cow! To read more, click here.