How do you explain one invisible, immortal God as the only object of worship to people whose cultures have had many deities—or none at all? And how do you do that without falling into patterns that, though familiar to locals, might have a negative impact on Christian teaching?

There are approximately 1.8 billion people in some 2,000 “people groups”—denoted by language, ethnicity, region, social group or religion—who have yet to be reached with the gospel. These people chiefly reside in the so-called “10/40 Window,” an area defined by an imaginary rectangle that extends between 10 degrees and 40 degrees north of the equator, stretching from western Africa to eastern Asia. For these people, many of whom have no background in western notions of religion and culture, putting the Christian faith and Adventist message into context is crucial.

Recently, the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s administrative committee voted to approve two additional guidelines for engaging in work around the world. One centers on forms of worship, while the other differentiates between contextualization and syncretism, or the introduction of false concepts into Christianity.

According to Mike Ryan, director of the church’s Global Mission effort, “Forms of worship is an issue that is becoming increasingly important for the church. For the first time we’re going into the 10/40 window and of course being exposed to cultures where we’ve never been before.”

He adds, “As we enter into these places, we find that their culture, their customs, what identifies as worship with them is a little different than what we have introduced in the past from a western perspective. And so it becomes important if we are going to have worship be meaningful for them.”

The new guidelines stress that God “is at the very center of worship as its supreme object….no human being should usurp that divine right.”

The church says, “our faith invites wholehearted and highly participatory worship where the word of God is central, prayer is fervent, music is heartfelt and fellowship in faith is palpable.” However, Ryan explains, expressing such worship can take forms sometimes unfamiliar to those raised in a western tradition.

Speaking of a recent visit to a predominately non-Christian country, he says, “Their worship service primarily consisted of chanting. A leader up in front would say something and the people would chant it back, and it made me a little uncomfortable to start with, until I found that they were chanting a medley of scripture that was talking about the greatness of God from Genesis to Revelation. I realized that they were chanting scripture and a lot of them had it memorized. This form of worship and expression was something that was very acceptable [to] them.”

In explaining the results of this non-traditional—for western minds—sort of worship service, Ryan says that the results were different from those realized by “traditional” evangelism methods.

“What we had been doing prior to that had not been very effective,” he says. “We had been there 80 years and had baptized all of 17 people of this particular world religion and background. And the group I was meeting with was 66 [people] and it had started two other groups just like that. And it makes a difference when you say, ‘Hey, we’re willing to communicate this in whatever way is meaningful to you,’ but it doesn’t change the message.”

There remains a continuing need for effective guidelines on contextualization, Ryan says, so as to avoid syncretism.

“There is a line beyond which you don’t go, and you enter into syncretism, which is an area where you begin to adopt the practices and beliefs and values of that religion which really are not Christian, and that territory we do not want to enter into,” he explains.

“What the policy does is protects the theology so that we’re not talking about any change whatsoever in the 27 fundamental beliefs, our core values as a part of the Christian community.”