Understanding Your Cultural Context: Part 2 (Focus Series 4 of 6)

2) the Reached Dimension. Are these a reached people, a people with enough churches to reach the remaining people with the Gospel, usually more than 2% evangelical? Or are these an unreached people, a people without enough churches to reach the remaining people within their culture or people group unless there is outside cross-cultural assistance, usually less than 1% to 2% evangelical Christians? These are the less-churched.

This is a very significant question. You need to pass through this doorway when you're doing church planting. Many people don't realize there are about 17,000 people groups. There's another definition of people groups that would take it all the way up to 27,000 in the world today. Almost everyone agrees there are about 7,000 plus unreached people.

Yes, there are believers normally in their midst, but there are not enough believers that without cross-cultural, outside assistance, they cannot reach the rest of their people. They're an unreached people. Japan has about 126 to 130 million people, 36 groups, 23 are unreached, 64% of them are unreached. To put it another way, less than one half of 1%, the largest whole number is zero (if you want to call it a whole number) in Japan are evangelical Christian

The question that everyone I think should wrestle with is, "Am I to plant churches among the unreached?" That was the apostle Paul's passion. He said basically, at the end of Romans, in Romans 15, he said, "My work is finished in the civilized, Mediterranean world." Basically, "I'm on to Spain, where Christ has not been named." I don't want anyone considering going into church planting not to at least prayerfully consider at least one time what their role might be in cross-cultural church planting among unreached peoples. Those are called Paul-type church planters.

There are Timothy-type church planters who are in reached people groups. What they're doing is mobilizing people to be radical goers, and they can have an equal or greater impact on unreached peoples by having a vision for the unreached among the reached. It's not like an A-team and a B-team. It's an issue of giftedness and calling.

3) the Developmental Dimension. By developed, what I mean here, more advanced in industrial capacity, technology, sophistication, economic productivity, and a developing culture is less. Basically, a developing culture is poor. A developed culture is more rich. Most people don't realize that most of the church today is made up of people of color who are poor. The question becomes, "Where are you called? Are these people mono- or cross-cultural? Are they reached or unreached? Are they developing, are they majority, or are they minority world?"

Another classification, 4) the Receptivity Dimension. Are they responsive to the Gospel? Are they considered to be generally receptive to the Gospel, or considered to be generally resistant to the Gospel? In terms of the northeast, in America, most people would say, "The northeast and the northwest, very hard soil. The more south you go, the more receptive the soil often is."

In terms of globally, there are two missionary graveyards out there globally. One would be the hard soil of a nation like Japan. Japan has been historically called the Missionary's Graveyard. Then there would be the Islamic resistant cultures.

The question becomes a question of calling, "Am I called to go or am I called to send?" Remember there are three kinds of questions: Radical goers, radical senders, and the disobedient. If you're not going, then where you do go, you are committed to sending. I pray if you're in a church that's not among the resistant peoples of the world that you would not devalue reports that come back that say, "Not one baptism this year." It took people willing to continue to seed and pray, and seed and pray, and seed and pray, and guess what happened in Korea? It became one of the major sending nations of the world. Our vision is not for Japan to be reached for Christ. Our vision is for Japan to become a sending nation to all the nations. That's the vision.

How about 5) the Geographical Dimension? Are you called to a city center, the central part of a city, to an urban area, a city or intensely developed area, suburban, situated on the edge of a city, ex-urban, lying beyond the suburbs, often inhabited by the wealthy, rural, the countryside, as opposed to the city, or other? It is true that the apostle Paul did have a strategy to go to major metropolitan areas as areas of influence.

There is a wisdom in going to the city centers, but there is also a great danger of actually not even knowing… I've seen this, I've seen people get caught up in this, not even knowing how they're trusting in their city platform, and in their arts, and in their cultural influences. They're actually less Christ-dependent than when they began, because of their strategic platform.

Capitalize on general revelation and truth like the concept sociologically that cities influence cultures profoundly, but do it with great wisdom. Do it with an acute awareness of its danger. Do it without devaluing those who go to the little cities and towns as somehow being out of the true will of God. People just get really excited, and they go right to the city. There's only one problem. They weren't born in the city. They weren't raised in the city. They don't understand the city. But man, are they excited about a city vision.

Okay, lastly, 6) the Generational Dimension. It is fascinating, whatever culture you go to, you can see the younger generation, you can see the middle-aged generation, and you can see the older generation. The question becomes, "Which one are you in, and which one are you seeking to reach?" As you look at the sixth dimension comparisons here, the wider the gap between the ministry focus group that your church is or will be and the context from which you have come, the more deeply you need to understand these dynamics.

One of the greatest mistakes that church planters make is not understanding these kinds of dimensions and these kinds of dynamics, Gospel, church, culture, not understanding these six dimensions.

What I want you to do with this information now is I want you to have a sober reflection on your gifts, your calling, your background, and the uniqueness of your ministry focus group, and the degree of similarity and dissimilarity, and be able to answer the question whether or not you have been gifted and called to this degree of cross-cultural ministry that you've listed.