Kujenga

Podcast – Pasadena Mennonite Church

Jason T. Smith, gifted in weaving together cultural ideas and theological metaphors, spoke to us on September 4th.

Photo: Michal Parzuchowski

Jason states that sometimes in theology, it’s best to leave some words untranslated. Kujenga means “to build” in Swahili. In Kenya, both Swahili and English are official languages. Leslie Scott, an Englishwoman born in Kenya brought a derivative of the word kujenga to the western world: Jenga. After her family moved to Ghana, she packaged and sold the family game.

Jason goes on to talk about a Mythbuster’s Jr episode tasked with whether the whole foundation of a Jenga tower could be removed while leaving the building standing?

And then Jason turns the question back to us as the church, and refers to the building up of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 3:9-17. And he asks, “What is so foundational to what we are as Christians that removing it would cause what we’ve built to collapse? Living out our faith in Jesus is a group activity. Christianity is not solitary.

Hear more as Jason continues to build on the body of Christ as a Jenga metaphor, or watch below.