Understanding Your Cultural Context: Part 1 (Focus Series 3 of 6)

Most church planters are gifted and called to start churches in a cultural context that is recognizable because it is similar to the culture from which they've come. Most church planters plant churches in cultures that are similar to the culture they've been raised in. When called to plant a church in a dissimilar culture, developing an integrated understanding of the gospel church and cultural contexts becomes a much greater challenge.

It almost comes, we might say naturally or intuitively. It's like they know the culture and they might not be able to write it out, or describe it, or have terms for it, but they just intuitively know it. It is very natural and very organic, but it's when you're moving into the cross-cultural dimension you need to be more alert and aware of the specific components that we're speaking of.

In particular, you need to understand what we call 6 dimensions. It is almost like an assessment of yourself and your ministry focus group in 6 particular areas or dimensions in order to help you recognize the extent of your similarity and dissimilarity with your ministry focus group. You need to be aware of these 6 dimensions. Let me name them for you.

1) Is your ministry mono or cross-cultural?

2) Is your ministry to reached or unreached people?

3) Is your ministry to developed or developing people?

4) Is your ministry to responsive or resistant people? 

5) What is the geographical limitation or dimension of your ministry.

6) What is the generational dimension of your ministry in terms of the 3 to 4 generations in a particular culture?

One of the top mistakes church planters make is not being aware of the similarities and the dissimilarities that exist in these six dimensions.

Let's look at them one at a time, and you use this as a time of personal assessment. After each dimension, I want you to select a description that best defines the ministry focus group your church plant is or will be serving, and that best describes the culture from which you have come. "The ministry focus group my church plant is or will be serving is..." and then you talk about which aspect of that dimension. 

Then notice "the culture from which I come is..." which aspect of that particular dimension. There is nothing wrong with having a different answer. "The church is this but my culture is this." It just makes you aware of those areas where you need to focus with more specificity in terms of having an impact. Being ignorant of this dissimilarity is very dangerous.

1) Is your ministry going to be mono-cultural? Is your ministry focus group is more of a single homogeneous culture or will it be cross-culture? More of a mix of two or more cultures? Examples here would be different ethnicities, languages, socioeconomic, education. Think for just a moment about your ministry focus group. Is it more mono-cultural or is it more cross-cultural. Now, we've got to be very careful when we start talking about the different between multicultural and multi-ethnic.

We talk about this more under philosophy of ministry, but let me just give you a quick heads up. The old line is, I had been in search for decades for the multi-cultural church. I haven't found it yet. Most churches that are considered to be multi-cultural, when you examine them closely they are mono-cultural but multi-ethnic. Meaning they are different ethnicities but they share a common cultural ethos that is not necessarily one of their ethnicities.

For instance, Redeemer Church in Manhattan when you go to Redeemer Church you will see a lot of Asian people, a lot of Anglo people, you'll see different ethnicities. And people say, ah it's a multi-cultural church. No it's not. It is a mono-cultural church that is multi-ethnic.

In other words, no matter what ethnicity you find in that church they're almost all Midtown Manhattan educated types. They are just different ethnicities, so they share a culture that is not tied to their ethnicity, so they're mono-cultural although they are different ethnicities. What you need to understand, as soon as possible, is what do you see as the make-up of your church. Will it be multi-ethnic? Or will be more monolithic? What we're not saying here is that anyone is ever excluded from any church. Every church shows the welcoming love of God to everyone who comes near the church, either gathered or scattered.

The question is, who are those people who will have the minimum number of barriers to the gospel in light of who you are and who the people are in your particular church plant? We want one barrier. We want the barrier to be the cross. We don't want any other barrier.

I have a friend named Doug who does church planting in the hood up in North Eastern United States. It is a total African American area and it is Afrocentric, and it's very different than a lot of African Americans who are not Afrocentric.

The idea of accusing Doug because he understands that his ministry focus group is primarily Afrocentric African Americans who love their heritage and don't want to go to a multi-ethnic church, and there is not even one available to them; to say that he is guilty of the sin of prejudice or favoritism is wrong. It is just like saying that would be wrong of a missionary going into a culture where you don't even have the capacity to reach beyond these people and God has planted you here.

I want you to be thinking right now, what is your answer to that question? What does the cultural dimension look like?