Don’t Pursue Multi-ethnic or Multicultural Ministry Without Asking These Questions: Part 3

This blog series presents a series of questions which arose out of a recent visit with two prospective church planters.  In Part 1 I explained the background to these questions and a presented the first question, "What is our church’s track record with Otherness in our community?"  Part 2 addressed this question: Do we see those with different languages, cultures and beliefs as a threat to cohesiveness in our community?   Which leads us to the third question: 

Question #3: How does God want us to relate to Others in our neighborhood? 

As people to people!  Relating to Others in your neighborhood/community means pursuing relationship, which means spending time together, pursuing friendship.  Are we willing to take the time necessary to get to know our Neighbors?  We are called to reciprocate in hospitality, serve one another, care about each other’s lives...in other words, living as humans together in relationship—incarnating the love of the One who ‘Neighbored’ us.  Usually, we are more concerned about our agenda—‘helping’ them, evangelizing them, organizing them—than actually befriending and loving as Neighbors to Neighbors.  Often, the most we want is occasional participation in some compassion delivery system.  But, our mandate is to love fully and completely with Christ as our standard.    How are we doing in this area…especially as it relates to other Christians?   Our Neighbors...are they scenery? (to ‘color’ my world) are they machinery? (those who do the things I need) or are they people? (like me, created in God’s image)  

Don’t Pursue Multi-ethnic or Multicultural Ministry Without Asking These Questions: Part 2

Last week I began a blog series reflecting on a series of questions which arose out of a recent visit with two prospective church planters.  In Part 1 I explained the background to these questions and a presented the first question, "What is our church’s track record with Otherness in our community?"  Which leads us to the second question:

Question #2: Do we see those with different languages, cultures and beliefs as a threat to cohesiveness in our community?   

Let’s face it many Americans (i.e. those whose immigrant past has faded from present consciousness) have a basic discomfort about the validity of distinct cultures to exist in America without rapid assimilation.   Often there is disconnect between political/economic reservations and outreach motivations which often lead congregations to employ an ‘Evangelism Plus’ mentality.  In other words, not only do they need ‘the gospel’, but they also need to become more like us so that we can all live together.  (The subtext is 'if you become more like me then that makes me more comfortable'.)  Such expectations not only violate the meaning of “love your neighbor,” but they also reveal ethnocentric possessiveness which forgets there is nothing we have that we haven’t been given.  The way of Christ is to love and accept people, any person, as they are, and for who they are.   Recognize and repudiate our tendency to lump people in categories—whether it be economic, political, religious, ethnic, generational, lifestyle—and treat them accordingly, with pre-determined attitudes and arguments.  We are to not sin when it comes to people and identity; such as, realizing that actions may be ‘illegal’, but people are not...therefore, to call a person illegal is to dehumanize someone who an image bearer of God.  

Stay tuned for question #3 next week...

Don’t Pursue Multi-ethnic or Multicultural Ministry Without Asking These Questions: Part 1

A couple weeks ago I met with a couple guys who are seeking to plant a daughter church in a significantly diverse neighborhood.  Their sending church is completely homogeneous (all Euro-American), but they are desiring and expecting that their new church plant will be multi-ethnic/multicultural.  This is commendable, but is it naive? Perhaps.  Because presumption kills. 

These fellows came asking for any advice I could give them, but, before extending advice, there were critical questions they needed to ask of themselves.  Key, critical questions which determine how ready and prepared one is for intercultural ministry in a multicultural context.  So, this blog series will introduce the questions I asked of these two church planters and why I asked them.

“Don’t Pursue Multi-ethnic/Multicultural Ministry Without Asking These Questions...”

In recent years scores of pastors have shared their excitement about launching into multi-ethnic/multicultural ministry.  As one who coaches churches in this direction of ministry, I find these conversations usually begin with a series of questions...How do we reach them, or this neighborhood?  What do we do to get started?  How much time does it take?  What resources do we need?  All good questions, but are they the right questions?  When a new ministry vision takes root we naturally gravitate toward organization and implementation; besides, how else would anything get done?  On the other hand, if implementation strategies dominate our planning, then we are presuming that we are ready to pursue this vision.

Any business owner considering a new sector of business opportunity wouldn't dream of diving into a new arena without the due diligence necessary to have a clear picture of what the initiative will mean for every angle of the company.  While I am reluctant to compare church with business (I think there is already far too much of the latter in the former...) However, this ‘due diligence’ concept is a great analogy.

The motivator behind due diligence is the need for caution in the face of an unknown arena, and the list of questions above indicates a significant bloc of inexperience in this sphere of church life and ministry.  While the above questions are not wrong, they are misplaced, premature.  What they reveal is that any church asking such ‘implementation first’ questions likely doesn't have much experience with Otherness.  Appropriate due diligence begins with the right questions, and, they begin with us.

Question #1: What is our church’s track record with Otherness in our community?

Multi-ethnic/multicultural ministry involves engaging the Other, those who are alien to my life experience and networks—it is my ‘them’.  First, there is the neighbor Other, those who occupies my same community spaces, and who may be a recent newcomer, or not.  What makes ‘them’ Other to me is the gulf of life and culture between us.  Far too often, these ‘neighbor Others’ are also the ‘invisible Others’…the ‘unconsidered ones’ who populate the fringes of my awareness. 

In biblical terms, we should read Otherness as “my Neighbor;” the object of the second of two commands which summarize God’s heart for people—love God, love Neighbor.  Far too often we read only incidental immediacy in ‘my neighbor’, as in, ‘my near neighbor who is in need’.  However, Jesus’ reference in Luke 10 draws from Leviticus 19 which teaches God’s people to love “strangers among you,” and “your neighbor as yourself” because they are just like you were, aliens in a strange land.  Why?  because strangers—Others—are the hardest Neighbors’ to love!  Besides, since anyone can be your neighbor, everyone is your neighbor.  Jesus is saying, ‘love the one you are least likely to love’…with all the alacrity and sacrifice we expect for ourselves.  Attitudes and behaviors toward Others flow from beliefs and assumptions we hold about the Other.   Are ‘us’ and ‘them’ clearly understood, if not spoken? 

Lastly, what about the kingdom Others, those who worship and serve our Lord?  We seem oblivious to the reality that—‘if we belong to Jesus, then we belong to those who belong to Jesus’!   What are the implications of this ‘belonging’?   

I'll post question #2 next week...