Why am I calling this "a Piece of the Elephant?" It has to do with a story from India which is often used to illustrate the importance of communication in business management. The story goes something like this:

"Once there were a group of blind men who came in contact with an elephant. Each of them tried to describe to the others just what made an "elephant" and elephant. One man grabbed the elephant's trunk and said; "an elephant is like a fire hose." A second felt the elephant's leg and said; "no, it's more like a tree." Another felt the elephant's tusk. He thought the animal was better described as a bone or a knife because what he felt was hard and sharp. One man felt the ear of the beast and said; "an elephant is like a tarp." The last man grabbed the elephant's tail and said; "no, an elephant is like a rope."

Each man only had a partial "grip" of the elephant. Often in life, instead of seeing the entire picture, we only see part of the "elephant." Between cultural biases, tradition, educational differences, etc. we sometimes have major blind spots when we talk about the key issues of Christianity.

The purpose of this column is to occasionally show another side of the proverbial elephant. I do this hoping to help us think through some of the key issues in Evangelism, Discipleship and basic Theology. Much of what you'll read here comes from my having to reevaluate what I believe is Biblical because of living in different cultures. I don't expect everyone to have my view of the elephant, but it will be interesting to interact with different perspectives of the "beast."