One of the funny elements in my video interview with Pastor Chen included a reference to a Bluegrass concert (he calls it Greengrass in the video).

Phil Johnson (of Grace to You and John MacArthur fame) made a comment about it. Phil and I have traded tweets twice, both in regards to contextualization, so he is enthusiastic about the subject. ;-) Anyway, Phil tweeted:

OK, Ed Stetzer seems excited by this, but but I don't get how bluegrass helps contextualize the gospel for Taiwan: http://bit.ly/25TivB

I don't remember being excited or saying it "helps contextualize the gospel," but Phil and I like to tweet about contextualization, so I responded:

@Phil_Johnson_ LOL. I was a bit surprised, but he said it was a great outreach. Bluegrass in Taiwan-- who knew? ;-)

Well, here is the rest of the story.

People in Taiwan have no context for bluegrass music (there's not a term in Mandarin for bluegrass), but they love music and American culture. So, it led to an interesting outreach event.

A team of "young missional Calvinists" (thought Phil would like that) from Southern Seminary has been sent to Taiwan for five months to proclaim the Gospel alongside career missionaries. In America, they are known as "The Long Run Players" here their Chinese name translates as "Mighty River Music Group."

Sarah Morrison, Matt Shirley, Cameron Beckerdite, Paul Martin, and Jeff Gayhart are learning Mandarin, engaging the Taiwanese culture, meeting people, building relationships, and sharing the Gospel--all through the use of guitar, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and upright bass. Jeff says, "People always asked us before we came, 'Do they like bluegrass in Taiwan?' I would say, 'Not yet.'"

The ultimate goal is to make something much greater than bluegrass music fans; they want to lead people to Christ and make disciples. So, not really contextualization, but a neat opportunity for connection. (Though a bit surprising to me!)

Now, in regards to contextualization, you won't want to miss my next post. It will deal with contextualization and ancestor worship-- and it will be fascinating.

The circles that I run in often do not create space for young leaders. And, as a father of three daughters, I am particularly concerned that we create such space for young and emerging women.

As I did with Sharon Hodde Miller, let me introduce you to another talented emerging leader. This is only my second musical digression here on the blog (the first being for my friends at Sojourn). But, I wanted to tell you a little about Cassie Curtis.

When it comes to music, I tend to think, "if it ain't an 80s rock ballad, why bother?" As I tweeted this morning, some music never dies. (And, yes, my iPhone reflects my taste.)

My taste in music accounts for the low incidence of music related posts here at edstetzer.com (total thus far is zero). But a few weeks ago at Advance 09, I bumped into my friends from the music ministry at Sojourn Community Church (sojournmusic.com) who passed a copy of their new CD on to me. Then, I saw them again at the B21 panel and I thought that their new CD warranted a mention.