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Today’s scripture is essentially a series of prayers that Jacob prays for his descendants. Jacob speaks prophetically about the future of many of his children; he does not hold back on their flaws, nor does he hold back on praising their virtues. Ultimately Jacob asks God to continue in his descendants the blessing that began with Abraham.

How often do we take the time to pray for our children? Only when we are dying? How often do we take the time to ask God to continue the blessing he has begun in our lives, in the lives of our children? It does not matter if our children are small or grown, they need our prayers. They need us to pray, ‘The God before whom my fathers walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless them’.

I think that our modern society has missed out on the joy of blessing others. At one time, a blessing was a formal and ceremonial occurrence by which an elder would symbolically hand off his power to a younger generation. We have the opportunity to bless people every day. Our source of power is not from our wealth, or our age, or our heritage, but from our Lord Jesus Christ. We have the opportunity to spread that power to the world around us at every moment. Do we make use of that power?

Today, before you do anything else, take the time to pray for your children and bless those around you.

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The ethnocentric phase is made up of 3 stages. First a cognitive stage of denial in which the individual through isolation and separation denies the existence or validity of other cultures. Second an affective stage of defense in which the individual may denigrate a foreign culture or claim cultural superiority in an effort to defend his or her own culture from a perceived threat. Third a behavioral stage of minimization in which the individual attempts to prove that all people all ultimately the same; we are all born, die, created by the same creator, etc.

An individual can then move to an ethnorelative phase made up of 3 stages. First a cognitive stage of acceptance in which the individual through respect for behavioral and value differences can appreciate another culture. Second an affective stage of adaptation in which the individual chooses to empathize with the foreign culture and recognizes that there is more than one correct way of interacting with the world. Third a behavioral stage of integration in which the individual is able become a part of and apart from a given cultural context through contextual evaluation and constructive marginality.

I have difficulty fully grasping the complexities of the integration stage. I believe that I am still working on empathizing with cultures I am not a part of. As I look around me it seems that many of the people I most respect are those that are able to become a part of and part from the cultural contexts they interact with.

I would be interested to discuss where most Christians in the average church tend to stay in this developmental model. It appears to me that there are many (if not a majority) who function in the ethnocentric phase. What are the ways that we can develop our congregations toward the ethnorelative phase. Bennet gives a few suggestions, but I will not go into those thoughts at this time. How do we move people beyond defending their cultural and minimizing differences, and toward acceptance of cultural differences and the value inherent to those differences? It is a difficult task I think the church would benefit from pursuing.

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