Connecting Culture and Ministry - Part Two

WHAT CULTURE TEACHES[i]

Carley Dodd gives us a more expanded definition of culture. Culture teaches, "Attitudes toward time, property, dress, food, and even the proper distance between people talking to each other all have been determined by culture. Your culture tells you what is beautiful, ugly, sexy or exciting. Your culture teaches you the value of hard work, thrift, privacy, competition, frankness and fair play."[ii] Congregations that wish to plant new churches among new immigrants, who live near their church, would be wise to learn about the cultures they wish to reach. 

SOME PSYCHOLOGY SURROUNDING CULTURAL DIFFERENCE

IN A MULTICULTURAL CONTEXT[iii]

It makes good sense to consider and acknowledge the profound emotional content of cultural difference. Dodd has done some work on the emotional/psychological aspects of racial and cultural difference, and breaks the emotional impact into three levels.

The Personal Level
This level, first of all, is very individual in nature, and begins with a personal question. At what point were you first aware of difference? In this country, for example, it is safe to say that if you grew up as a person of color, your first recollections of difference would most likely be of race. For Anglos who are older, one’s first recollection of difference would most likely be centered on religion or class. In North or South Boston, one’s first recollections of difference might revolve around one’s country of origin. In the small towns of rural America, it could easily be on which side of the "tracks" one resides.

Our first recollections of difference and the emotions connected with them will often become one center around which our lives revolve. Rarely is difference emotionally neutral. Almost always, our understanding of difference is learned, which means that it is taught. It is too often connected with concepts like, “good or bad,” “right or wrong.” Prejudice is not inherently innate; it is learned.

Some suggest that going back in time to examine and understand our first recollection of difference can help us to get in touch with our feelings about religious bigotry, racism, or sexism. Questions and unsolved issues need to be resolved, like: “Where did I get my negative feelings about a specific group of people?” “Where did I acquire my prejudices?”

In the context of ministry, we must develop the understanding that difference is simply that—and nothing more, nothing less. The Church must begin to live out Paul’s declaration that “in Christ there is neither Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free.”

The Inter-Personal Level
The inter-personal level connects us with what is going on between us and other people. Think of yourself as interacting with people who are mostly similar to you (at church, in school, shopping, etc.). Then move in your mind to situations which are increasingly different. Do your emotions change at all, as you shift from one scene to the other? If they do, how do they shift? Can you agree with Malcolm X when he said that we all need to play multiple roles as we move cross-culturally?

At this level, we must always be aware of "where we are." Am I intellectually or emotionally uncreative when I am interacting with someone whose ethnicity is different from my own? Do I find my gut churning when I know the players have changed? How do I feel emotionally when I deal with difference? Do I enjoy meeting people who are different from me (race, culture, religion, language, class, or ideology)?

The Social Level
The following questions relate to our views on the increasing role of difference in American society. What kind of impact does multiculturalism have on society? What difference does multiculturalism make in how I go about doing ministry? What difference will it make as I reconnect with my community? Am I impacting my world in the same way it is impacting me?

Ethnocentrism is the belief that my culture is superior. It expresses itself when I behave as though all other cultures are inferior. This attitude often happens very subtly, and can manifest itself in multi-congregational churches as paternalism. An illustration of a paternal statement would sound like, “We need to tell that other group how to discipline their children!”

We need to assume that other cultures will do things differently, discover how, and adjust accordingly.

What does complex culture look like where you are?

What are some of the differences you have seen and what are you going to do?

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[i] Excerpted from my book “Reconnecting the Church: Finding Our Place in Complex Culture.”

[ii] Dodd, Carley H. 1989 Dynamics of Intercultural Communication. Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown. p.42.

[iii] Dodd, Carley H. and Frank Montalvo, eds. Intercultural Skills for Multicultural Societies. Washington, D.C.: Sietar International. 1987.

Connecting Culture and Ministry - Introduction

As a pastor in Cambridge, MA, I would often walk the two minutes from my office to Central Square, the municipal center of the city. I would sit and observe a veritable United Nations walking by in that busy square. I could walk into my bank and interact with the employees, and patrons from around the world.[i]

When standing in Central Square, I could spin the Buddhist Prayer Wheels installed as permanent fixtures there. From that spot, I could walk two blocks to a Mosque in one direction, and a Marxist Education Center in another. Harvard is a mile to the North, and MIT is a half mile to the South. There are also sixty-five churches inside a half-mile radius, but only two percent of the community attends church regularly.

Every day in that city, people are confronted with multiple cross-cultural experiences, be they visual (dress), auditory (language), or experiential (personal interaction). In Cambridge, cross-cultural experiences are an integral part of every person’s life, and they are celebrated by almost every resident.

With the history of slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and ongoing discrimination, race is rightfully considered a most significant difference in the United States. However, without diminishing the importance of the historical racial struggle in our country, the immigration patterns of the last fifty years have brought many added cultural dimensions to our country.

Seen from a broader anthropological perspective, depending where you live in the world, culture can be more important than race. If you live in Europe, for instance, being White is not as important as being Italian, or Danish. If you live in Asia, being Asian is not as important as being Korean, or Japanese.

For new immigrants in our country, the same dynamics apply. When a person from Armenia, for example, immigrates to the U.S., he or she will most likely be looking to connect with other Armenians. The same can be said of immigrants from most cultures when they first take up residence in our country. Language is often an additional factor driving those decisions, but it is only one of several factors. We will examine those factors more closely later on.

Dr. Soong Chan Rah, who was a pastoral colleague in our multi-congregational church in Cambridge, now a professor at North Park Seminary, has recently published a book, entitled, The Next Evangelicalism. In it, he gives us a needed perspective. He writes that in the next few decades, the majority of evangelicals in the United States will be people of color. His conclusion is inescapable. Evangelical congregations must be more welcoming to people of color, or risk becoming anachronistic and an endangered species.

The rewards of reaching out far outweigh the risks. This series of posts will attempt to give you a little insight into some of the issues one can encounter when ministering cross-culturally.

How is your church serving people of color in your community?

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[i] Excerpted from my book “Reconnecting the Church: Finding Our Place in Complex Culture.”

What Is Generational Creep?

Paul Hiebert has suggested that all institutions experience a growing rigidity and a loss of vision through the processes of institutionalization. Churches and para-church institutions are not exempt from this process.

The kind of change we have been discussing very often has its roots in the age of the institution. It helps us to track those developments. If we think of them in terms of stages or generations in the life of an institution, each succeeding generation has, generally speaking, identifiable traits. Based on Hiebert’s description of institutional development, we can observe the founders as a baseline. From there, we can identify characteristics of a second and a third generation of an institution. The progression is what I have termed “generational creep.”[i]

As time goes by, the structure becomes increasingly bureaucratized. If measures are not taken to counter Generational Creep, significant changes and the possible death of the institution can occur. Such a death is most often slow. One example of this are the Shakers. We all know of churches that have been closed. The bad news is that generational creep is, over time, an unavoidable phenomenon. The good news is that there are ways to slow it down. We will first look at the process.

This chart describes in general terms the ways in which succeeding generations tend to care for the founder’s vision. The value of the chart is not in figuring out the number of years involved in each generation. It is, however, helpful as a way of discovering where your institution may be in the creeping process. Where do you find your institution in the chart? Which of the column descriptions apply?

This chart is not offered to discourage you. It is intended, however, to help you to see clearly where your church or institution may be, what you may be experiencing, how you got there, and what you can do.

The process we are examining is more sociological than spiritual in nature. The church in question may indeed need a revival, but it is also important to come to grips with the sociological reality. It is possible to track the progression of generational creep when examining any institution, large or small, including any local church.

Institutions have many benefits. People come together, discover common causes, form strong bonds, and share belief systems. When people organize themselves and pool their resources to promote their commonly held passion, they benefit, and society benefits.

As an institution grows, certain patterns and traditions begin to develop which are particularly difficult for local churches to overcome. If not halted, generational creep can lead to rigidity and depersonalization. In the remainder of this chapter, we will be examining what may be done to slow down this process.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE CHURCH

What does all of this mean for the Church? When generational creep slips into the Church, any change it brings to the original vision is often seen as being a spiritual problem. While there may be spiritual undertones, the progression of creep is most likely attributable to sociological factors. As institutions grow, mature, and age, relationships deteriorate, and people become ever more entrenched in tradition and bureaucracy. In the end, programs become more important than people, and they tend to weaken the institution as well. This is what makes renewal so necessary.

The question arises, “Can anything be done to halt generational creep?” The short answer to that question is that probably nothing will halt it altogether. Any attempt to attack generational creep head on, will likely create virulent opposition to any change. The following ideas are offered to assist you in taking action against it.

SLOWING DOWN GENERATIONAL CREEP
There are some things you can do to attempt to retard the ongoing advancement of generational creep. Those ideas below, if used, might help to slow down its progress.

• Start new congregations as a way of life. Nothing energizes a congregation like birthing a new community of faith. It is also a natural way to help to ensure that the life cycle is renewed.

New starts are particularly needed in a climate of accelerating change in our society. New churches can be structured and methods incorporated that are designed to reach new generations and new language groups with the gospel message.

• Develop networking relationships with other churches and para-church organizations. Networks formed to address specific tasks enable the members of the network to do together what they could never accomplish by themselves. One of the advantages of networks, is that they exist for a finite period of time, do a specific job, and then they are disbanded.

Results can be achieved without creating new institutions. Generational creep is bypassed. All the participating institutions experience the feeling of accomplishment.

• Place the majority of your lay-workers and their ministries as close to the grassroots as possible. Grassroots ministry best occurs when ministry connects with people who are not yet in the church. An institution can delay generational creep if its people are on the frontlines.

• Those doing ministry at the grass roots should also be empowered to make ministry decisions at that level. One way to implement this idea would be to adopt a team structure, where the team leader is given the authority to make decisions and have access to a budget.

• Keep a feedback loop in place. Both workers and the community need to be in the information loop. Encourage constructive criticism. Realize that the workers, who minister at the grass roots level, are in the best position to execute midcourse corrections. If they have that kind of input and authority, they will also have a greater sense of ownership.

• Practice the Great Commission. The Church needs to acknowledge that a large part of its true constituency consists of those who do not yet attend. Even more important is to take active steps to minister outside the church. This, too, will help to slow down generational creep.

• Establish the core values of your church. Core values encapsulate the essence of the congregation. They are values which the congregation has decided a) will never be changed, b) will be the impetus behind everything the church does, and c) will be adhered to, even if it costs the local congregation its existence.

• Encourage members to volunteer in secular organizations. This policy keeps the church’s mission focus outside the church.

Even though we will not be able to avoid generational creep altogether, these are a few ideas to help you possibly to delay it.

Where is your church, denomination, or institution in this chart?

What can you do, given your situation, to slow down the process of institutionalization?

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[i] Adapted from chapter 19 in “Reconnecting the Church: Finding Our Place in Complex Culture,” by J. Timothy Kauffman.

Renewing Dying Congregations

We are experiencing a season in which a larger number of churches are being closed. With a few exceptions, local churches and denominations, like all institutions, are born; they grow, and mature, they age, and eventually they die.

This reality is very often triggered by sociological factors rather than spiritual laxity. I will examine the impact of institutionalization, and some ways to counteract it, in my next post. When small towns shrink in size, the churches there find it difficult to survive. Churches in metropolitan areas become endangered when complex culture (see a description of complex culture in July and August, 2012, posts) replaces a large percentage of their traditional white middle-class constituency. The question, then, is: “What, if anything, can be done about it?”

A couple of decades ago, Harry Reeder identified some characteristics of dying churches, and suggested some possible remedies. I have organized them in the chart below.

REVIVING OLD “FIRST CHURCHES”

by Harry L. Reeder

What a Dying Church Looks Like	Some Possible Remedies
It has a reputation of being a church in decline. This reputation is more serious than the decline itself. Few are willing to begin an association with a loser.	Preach and exude a growth mindset that is both biblical and practical. 1.      Emphasize conversion – to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. 2.      Reform what has been deformed including discipline. 3.      Renewal through joy and praise. 4.      Bring the congregation to a new commitment to mission. Change the image of the church 1.    The community does it for you. 2.    Other churches assign it to you. 3.    You earn it yourself. 4.    You may choose what you want it to be and then go for it. Image: "The communication of your biblical vision for the church to the members and through the members in ministry to the world.
There is a lot of nostalgia. The people dream about how it used to be.	Work on the worship service: reverent, positive, joyful. Seldom is a church revived that does not have a better than average pulpit ministry.
They are encumbered with a great deal of tradition. However, the last 50 people are the most loyal, if they will accept change.	Work at discipleship at all levels: II Tim. 2:2. Develop a new and viable infra-structure. Find positive events in the church’s past that can be included.
They have low expectations, and are prepared for defeat.	Instill a new vision as to what this church can be by the grace of God.
Disrepair is seen everywhere: a) the building, b) the program, and c) the people.	Break the chain of mediocrity: bulletin, sign, paint the church, preaching ministry, more prayer, remodel if possible. Break-down jealousy toward other churches.
They have unrealistic expectations, like a cancer patient running around looking for a miracle cure.	Work toward a transformation of the church at its deepest level of homogeneity.

HERE ARE SOME ADDITIONAL OPTIONS:

1.   Inculcate a new vision as to what this church can be by to the grace of God. Help the people to see what God can and will do when His people are faithful.

2.   The pastor can work on the worship service: a) reverence, b) positive attitude, and c) joyful.

3.   II Tim. 2:2 - the pastor works at discipleship at all levels, and develops a new and viable infra-structure.

4.   The pastor preaches and exudes a growth mentality that is both biblical and practical. Functional renewal will bring growth, i.e. attract and hold new people.

*     The reforming of what has been deformed—including discipline.

*     Renewal through joy and praise.

*     Bringing the congregation to a new commitment to serving the community.

5.   Break-down jealousy toward other churches.

6.   Work on a transformation of the church at its deepest level of homogeneity: new birth in Christ—while working on including everyone in the community.

7.   Change the image of the church; its image is formed in one of four ways:

*     The community does it for us.

*     Other churches assign it to us.

*     We earn it ourselves by our own good/bad decisions.

*     We choose what we want the church to be and then go for it. A definition of image: “The communication of your biblical vision for the church to the members and through the members in ministry to the community.”

8.   Break the chain of mediocrity: a) bulletin, b) sign, c) paint the church, d) preaching ministry, e) more prayer, f) remodel inside, if possible, and so on.
9.   The pulpit ministry: Reeder has yet to find a revived church that doesn't have a better than average pulpit ministry.
My next post will attempt a brief explanation of the impact of institutionalization on the Church, and what might be done to keep the Church fresh.
How is your church doing?

For more information and practical projects you can do to discover the make-up of the complex culture in your community, I would refer you to: Kauffman, J. Timothy. Reconnecting the Church: Finding Our Place in Complex Culture. Bloomington, IN: Xlibris, 2010. It can be purchased at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com, the iBooks Store, and Xlibris.com; it is also in Kindle and Nook format. Check it out.

Approaches to Lay Training

One of the most significant traits of effective pastors is their success in mentoring their laity. This is particularly true in complex culture. No one person can mentor everyone. It is at this point, training becomes significant. In complex culture, that affiliation might be linguistic, cultural, generational, ideological, or racially related. If you are planning cross-cultural events, it might also be helpful as you help your people to be respectful of people whose language, culture, race, generation, or ideology is other than their own.

Here is a chart to help you plan and implement a training process, particularly as the need to reach out to people of diversity increases. I am not certain of its origin, but I have found it very useful. The people to be trained will enter the process with different levels of expertise. In addition, any training needs to instruct the trainee from cognitive, affective, and implementation perspectives. Depending on your circumstances, this chart will help you to plan your training sessions.

The Role of Religion in U.S. Society

The role of religion in the United States is regulated by the First Amendment. The courts have, rightfully, taken on the responsibility of interpreting the religion clause in that document. What has happened is that the Supreme Court's decisions have resulted in removing religion from public activity. As most know, the concept of the Separation of Church and State was first expressed in Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural as governor of Virginia. His intent was to prevent the Massachusetts model (strong Puritan influence) from happening there.

With that as background, "the metaphorical separation of church and State originated in an effort to protect religion from the State, not the State from religion."[i] By inverting the intent of the amendment, it seems that the courts have made it possible for the State to regulate Christianity in a way the amendment was determined to prohibit.

Following the Supreme Court ban on prayer in the schools, emboldened secularists have waged a campaign to remove Christian expression from all official public forums. However, it has not ended there. Those who might want to include Judeo-Christian values as being evidence in public policy are most often dismissed as being irrelevant at best or dangerous at worst.

The consistent message of modern American society is that whenever the demands of one's religion conflict with what one has to do to get ahead, one is expected to ignore the religious demands and act ... well ... rationally.[ii]

Having lived for eight years in West Berlin, I had the opportunity to observe the position of the East German government on religious liberty. In that society, freedom of religion was guaranteed to all citizens. However, it was against the law for citizens to give voice to their beliefs outside of their homes or their congregation. Likewise, the exercise of one's freedom to be religious, even within those parameters, did not mean that there would not be a social/political price to pay. Such individuals would be shunned, could be denied access to higher education, good jobs or promotion at work, travel privileges, and more. In certain instances, treatment of those who practice their faith openly in America seems to be moving in that direction. Stephen Carter has written, "You are free to believe as you like, but, for goodness sake, don't act on it."[iii]

We are also living in a cultural complexity in which many religious traditions have a stake in religious freedom. The question is, to what extent their rights to express their traditions are protected, and to what extent they can bring their beliefs into the public square for discussion. For example, does Sharia Law have the same right to be considered in the discussion over public policy as Judeo-Christian beliefs? If not, does the constitution allow for that religious prohibition?

If this is the condition of the State vs. religion debate, then new rules need to be established that allow for non-prejudicial dialogue. To commemorate the bi-centennial signing of the United States Constitution, the Brookings Institution convened a diverse group of religious leaders. Leaders from the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and secularist traditions met to contemplate how, within the Constitution, religious dialogue might be structured. The result of their work, over several years, was published as a book, Williamsburg Charter. Central to their deliberations were the "three R’s of religious liberty in a pluralistic society: rights, responsibilities, and respect".[iv] This troika of trust is spelled out in the Charter itself. Those who claim the right:

1.    to dissent should assume the responsibility to debate.

2.    to criticize should assume the responsibility to comprehend.

3.    to influence should accept the responsibility not to inflame.

4.    to participate should accept the responsibility to persuade.[v]

The product of listening and persuasion within a climate of respect will go a long way in recapturing responsibility in the framework of freedom. Such an endeavor is more likely to spawn a productive dialogue, than a divisive confrontation.

Most churches are ministering in communities where an increasing percentage of people are not positively disposed toward the Church or the gospel. Just a few musings…

What role does the Church have in this kind of context?
How will your church meet this challenge to the continued viability of the gospel?

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[i] Carter, Stephen L. The Culture of Disbelief: How Americans Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion. New York: Basic Books, 1993, p. 105.

[ii] Ibid. p. 13..

[iii] Ibid., p. 130.

[iv] Brookings Institute. "The Williamsburg Charter." Articles of Faith, Articles of Peace: The Religious Liberty Clauses and the American Public Philosophy. Ed. James Edison Hunter and Os Guiness. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute, 1990, p. 11.

[v] Ibid, pp. 141-143.

Contrasting Prophets and Priests

For millennia, prophets and priests have had their respective places in both the Church and society. Priests and pastors walk alongside their parishioners, love them, serve them; teach them the whole counsel of God. Prophets see sin and unrighteousness in people and society, and call it out in no uncertain terms. One point of contrast would be when evangelical churches hold revivals regularly, where pastors (priests) call evangelists (prophets) to preach to their people. However, we are ministering in a context where, the very nature of complex culture (see the posts of July, 2012, for a definition of this term) tends to create a climate in which the prophetic black and white can be blurred. When prophets have spoken out in such conditions, they have most often been reviled by the status quo. Maybe that is one reason why revivals are being held less frequently.

Priests tend to nurture and want to preserve the status quo. The truth is that almost everyone in the ministry is a combination of both. I have attached a chart that contrasts the differences between prophets and priests. It will help you better to understand yourself.

In the light of complex culture and its impact on the Church, several questions then arise. These are only a few of them.
How would you characterize yourself? Are you predominantly a prophet or a priest?
Is the Church trying to play the role of prophet and priest simultaneously?
Could this be why the society is reacting negatively to the Church?
What is the role of the Church in a culture with such heterogeneity most of which is not its traditional clientele?