How do you peal a bannana?

Have you ever thought about what was the best way to peel a bannana?  In the North-Western hemisphere, most people peal a bannana from the “stem end”.  After all, this is the top of the bannana, isn’t it?  Actually it isn’t.  Bannanas are attached to their tree by the stem but they do not hang, rather they grow in a cluster and point up towards the sky.  The actual “top” is the end that does not have the stem.  A study has been done, and it has been determined that most people in the world peel their bannana from the “top” or the end without the stem.  This gets rid of the black “bannana button” and solves the problem of bannana “mush” that sometimes occurs when you peel it from the stem end.

What does any of this have to do with minstry?  Today in class we studied about “embracing our adopted culture”.  As part of this study we began to learn how we western Americans view the world.  We learned that many times our worldview is different from others and is sometimes an “inaccurate or incomplete view of reality”.  Many cultures have different ideas about time, family, community, work, climate, gender roles, etc.  We must be diligent learners and observers of our new culture, while maintaining Biblical absolutes.  It is challenging because we have to reevaluate what part of our worldview is Biblical and what part is American.  Its harder than you may think.