Building Synergy in Cross-Cultural Relationships

I just got back from Cincinnati, Ohio on Sunday. I attended my first Christan Community Development Association Conference there and had a great time.

I was really privileged to be a part of a workshop on my first outing thanks to a friend, Ruth Arnold, who works at 2nd Mile Ministries in Jacksonville, Florida. She invited me and some other folks to discuss the topic: “Building Synergy in Cross-Cultural Relationships”. Here’s a quick list of the panel: Ruth Arnold
Alvin Sanders
David Park
Juanita Irizarry
Scott Lundeen
Mandia Gordon

Here’s the description of the workshop:

An accurate reflection of God’s Kingdom includes people living, worshipping and working together in synergistic relationships. That synergy is often broken because of misunderstandings, ignorance and a lack of communication. This workshop promotes synergy through understanding and dialoguing about tough subjects related to race and economics.

Any conversation on race is difficult to have, and is particularly hard if you’re doing it under the pressure of an audience. It’s also hard if you don’t know your fellow panelists either. But we did the best we could and engaged the audience as much as is possible in the 70 minute timeframe. So it’s not a perfect recording, but have a listen if you’d like.

In Class Today: Mosaic Churches

 

Some notes again from my class, “Emerging Models of Church” with Prof. Steve Hayner. Today, we’re discussing Mosaic or intentionally multi-ethnic churches. I’m not going to try transcribing every word like I did last time, but I will be trying to get the high points. Enjoy~

We started today’s class with a viewing of “King of the Hill” looking for a new church (h/t: pomomusings).

Point #1: Everyone is ethnic. And by ethnic we mean:

ethnicity describes the characteristics of our origins – our family, tribe or national identity—our customs and characteristics—our corporate identity as a member of a unique people group.

Culture is one of those weird words. Anyone who has studied anthropology may know how slippery this word is. Some definitions then…

• Culture: variously defined–all culture participates in both the dignity of humanity created in God’s image AND in the brokenness of humanity.
• Multiculture: either pluralistic, where each culture contributes to the whole, or particularistic, where concern is to preserve the particular characteristics of each.
• Multiethnic: consisting of people from various “people groups” (cultural, tribal, national identities = “the ethnos”)
  • Preference not to use the word, race. Race is a 20th century invention that is designed around external characteristics…race is not a good enough indicator of who a person is as is ethnicity.
• Counterculture: intentionally discerning direction contrary to norm based on faith .If multicultural ministry is not countercultural, it is simply political correctness.

Globalization, tribalization (aka balkanization), immigration are huge phenomenons affecting the world we live in.

John Long, Director of US Census Bureau. By 2040, we can extrapolate these demographic changes:

• White 54%
• Black 14%
• Hispanic 22%
• Asian 7%
• Multiracial 2%