Learning over Power: moving beyond cross cultural competency to cultural humility

Event Details

Dr. Debbie Kramlich will speak about the essentials for transformative learning in ministry and mission.

Speaker Bio

Debbie, originally from the USA, has lived in Sweden, Germany, and currently lives in Thailand. Her Ph.D. dissertation examined the role of the teacher in fostering and facilitating transformative learning. She then held a postdoc research associate position at Payap University. Since 2017, she has been teaching English in Chiang Mai at a German school. Her MA is in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and Intercultural Studies and she has written curriculum for universities, language schools, adult education programs, and national schools. Today, she presents at academic conferences, facilitates workshops for schools and universities, and also teaches several graduate courses including: Transformative Adult Education in Intercultural Contexts (MA level) at the Academy for World Mission in Germany, and Educational Theories and Instructional Design (EdD level). Part of her current research focuses on transformative listening and is done in collaboration with a global learning community of 8 academics. In addition, she is writing about and researching the role of the educator in creating a culture of belonging in the multicultural classroom. She is passionate about using the framework of cultural humility to guide her in living respectfully as a learner of new cultures and enjoys helping others follow the same path.

The Organisers

For this webinar, the Alliance for Vulnerable Mission (AVM) partners with the Rethinking Forum (RF).

The Alliance for Vulnerable Mission encourages cross-cultural workers to make themselves vulnerable to the people they serve - mainly by using local languages and local resources in ministry. This webinar is a platform to listen, ask questions and engage in conversations focused on this theme.

Prioritising cultural and missiological humility, the Rethinking Forum seeks to strengthen the witness of Christ to the Theravada Buddhist world. We want to address barriers and overcome hinderances to the Gospel, taking a critical look at what lessons can be learned from the past, deconstructing unhelpful approaches (such as neocolonialism and western worldview). Likewise, we seek to learn from and engage with new movements to Christ taking place on the ground and culturally appropriate foundations and expressions of faith. Engaging on a missiological (theoretical) and practical level, we seek to incorporate the two. We aim to become vulnerable towards those we are there to reach, seeking to discover what God is doing beyond our limited frameworks.