A friend called a few months ago, and the first words were, “Wow. The whole world seems to have fallen apart since the last time we had a visit.” And that was just weeks into the pandemic. We are living through a difficult time of upheaval, some of which has taken us by surprise, and some of which reflects the brokenness in our world that has been simmering just beneath the surface for quite some time. These events bring us to moments of anger, sadness, and frustration, but this may also be a time for learning and insight that can better our ministry in our communities if we will just ask the right questions.

It has been said that all communication is, at some level, cross-cultural. This truth never sank in as deeply as it needed to until a conversation with a sibling a few years ago. We had been reflecting on childhood memories, and it was surprising how different our memories are. Within a family we take for granted that, since our experiences are shared, they are also the same. The truth is that we grew up in the same family, the same house, and went to the same schools, but our experiences of those settings, people, and events are as different as if we had lived in different countries. Our conversation, as close as we are as brother and sister, was cross-cultural. I listened more closely that night than usual, more like I would have if I were hearing a friend in Russia tell me about their experiences of childhood. It was eye-opening, life changing.

I am a minister in small town congregation where many of the people have shared life for decades. There is a strong community identity and a deep love of state and country. As many watch the news or read about the latest violence in cities a thousand miles away, we find ourselves unable to understand, in a country that we love and where we’ve enjoyed life so much, why some are as angry as they are. We wonder how they have not experienced what we have. We ask, “Why don’t you understand? Why don’t you see?” But are those the right questions?

If a sibling can grow up in the same house, attend the same school, be loved by the same parents, be baptized in the same church, and yet experience a completely different life, how great can the variance be for those who grow up in the same country or city, but with a completely different set of circumstances? We hear some of the shouts of protestors and ask, “Why don’t they understand? That’s not my experience!” And there it is. The difference. We are at a cross-cultural moment. We struggle to understand because we assume our experiences must be the same because of our shared points of commonality: country, constitution, and language. But to a small boy in Chicago or an elderly woman in San Diego or a small town minister in Texas, life is as different as it would be if we were separated by continents.

“Why don’t they understand?” is not our best question in these moments as we attempt to understand our country’s struggles or our sibling’s perspectives or our child’s hurts. A better question, as I ruminated over the conversation with my sister, was this: “What don’t I understand? What is so different about that person’s experience of our country, church, family, etc., that is so different from mine that I do not understand them?” Ask, and then listen. Listen to learn, not to react. Be a student.

Years ago an elder and I went to visit one of our members. We knew that she had clearly been harboring some resentment and seemed increasingly distant from the church. We wanted to encourage her. She shared about how distant she had felt in that church, how it just did not seem like family, like the church she had grown up in. Our experiences in the same congregation had been completely different. For us, it had been a warm, welcoming congregation where we made lifelong friendships. But that was not her experience. We knew as we listened that she was not lying, she was not exaggerating, but she was experiencing life differently in the same church, the same town, among the same people. We learned a great deal about our church and ministry that night. The elder and I choked up as we listened, and repented and planned for better ways on the drive back to town. “What do we not understand?” had opened our eyes to a new perspective.

As we seek to understand our world and bring the healing of the gospel of Christ to our communities, we should approach each person and each national crisis with the same question. The better question. “What do I not understand?” And then listen.