Culture and the local church

Those of you who have been a part of our 2000 years of Missions seminar, part 2, have heard me talk about Dr. Donald McGavran.  His 1955 book,”The Bridges of God” started many hot debates about the way we “do” missions and church.  One of the issues that McGavran brought to the table was how to deal with different cultures, or people groups.  (Visit this page for seminar resources)

The challenge came home to me walking down a road in Belize.  First I passed a church.  It was an English speaking congregation (English is the official language in Belize).  Then I came to a little village.  My team and I went door to door, meeting the friendly people of this village.  The amazing thing was, not only did most of these people not speak English, we found that from house to house the languages were different.  Here were many languages and cultures side by side, but if the only church was a one-culture English speaking church, how were these people being reached?  The challenge is the same in Mexico, and perhaps in every country in the world.

If you want a great, real-world example of this tension, I recommend three posts by Keith Smith, the first one here, then the next one, and this most recent installment.  You’ll realize that this is a challenge even here in Canada.  The danger may be that people leave church because it’s not “relevant”, or they isolate themselves into little church groups and no longer interact or support the larger church.  What’s the best way to really show love to our brothers and sisters in Christ?  What do you think?