Worldview in Missions

Worldview is the unseen guide of assumptions by which people govern their behavior. Because worldview affects every belief, decision, and even communication of a people group understanding a people’s worldview is critical to being able to effectively communicate the gospel.

The Sawi people honored treachery as a virtue and thus saw Judas as the hero of the gospel story instead of Christ. Mr. and Mrs. Richardson found a “redemptive analogy” in the Sawi way of making peace where the Sawi leader would give one of his own children to be raised by the enemy father. This child was known as the “peace child,” because it brought peace between the two tribes. In the same way, the Richardsons showed how Christ is God’s “peace child.” Now the gospel was not a story of great treachery, but a story of a fathers sacrifice for reconciliation that made sense within the Sawi worldview.