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...
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