Abilene christian university
leading god’s people:Intercultural leadership in the church
submitted to dr. christopher flandersin partial fulfilment of bmis 650: leadership in intercultural contexts
pathways project 3
by kipp swinneymay 8, 2014
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leading god’s people:Intercultural leadership in the church
Leading the people of God requires great care and diligence in any setting because all people have different ideas about what the community of God should be and do. However, culturally diverse situations and contexts increase the difficulty of the task, as people shaped in different cultures have less common ground in terms of values and beliefs than those who have similar cultural experiences. However, it would be false to assume that culturally diverse situations only occur when people of different nationalities or regional backgrounds come together. Cultural diversity exists between family unites and even between individuals, although this is more subtle than between different regional and ethnic heritages. I wish to show that churches cannot represent the full scope of the kingdom of God without a diversity of cultural backgrounds, thought processes and experiences.
In this paper, I will lay out a brief theology of multicultural ministry. I will then discuss my own cultural biases and underlying assumptions, and finally, I will discuss my practice of leadership in a context and how my theology of multi-cultural leadership and my own personal biases manifest themselves in that context.
Theology of Multi-Cultural Leadership
In every community, there is some degree of diversity. At one of the smallest levels, the family unit, there is a necessity of difference in age, experience and sex or the community cannot continue to exist. Without these differences, the family could not reproduce or meet its needs. Consideration of a larger community magnifies the differences. Without diversity in skills and experience, a community will not be able to meet all of its needs. Dealing with diversity is a key part of making communities function well. The same principle applies to churches and congregations. Even though communities necessitate diversity, communities organize and exist based on commonality, as Branson notes.[1] However, the functionality, as with a community, of a church depends on different people having different skill sets or expertise. Paul used the metaphor of the body in order to describe the church claiming that people with different spiritual gifts are able to do different tasks as different parts of the body do different things (1 Cor 12:4-31). If a diversity of gifts and abilities allows the congregation to function better, it follows that congregations with diversity have the capacity to function better than those that are more homogenous.[2] The commonality that holds the Church together is the lordship of Jesus Christ, as Paul denotes in Ephesians 4:1-6.
A central component of Christian theology has been the doctrine of the Trinity. The first two ecumenical councils[3] affirmed this doctrine. While the doctrine of the Trinity affirms that everything that the triune God does is from a singular will, it also attributes particular actions to different persons of the trinity.[4] Implicit in the idea of the trinity is diversity. The diversity of God empowers the actions of God to be more affective in the world. If the doctrine of the trinity is correct, as billions of Christians across Church History have claimed, God exists in community and diversity. The diversity of God provides an example for the church, showing that the church has much to gain from its own diversity.
While it is valuable to have diversity of experience and expertise in a church, leading a church with great diversity is more difficult than leading a church without such diversity. Although diverse churches and communities may be able to accomplish more, leading these churches is more complex and requires more diligence and expertise. This is analogous to a city being more complex to organize and lead than a family unit. Leading in culturally diverse situations requires knowledge and understanding of the other cultures represented in the community, which requires listening to the stories of others.[5] This is an important task for leading any congregation, and not just ones that are racially, ethnically, or culturally diverse, but culturally diverse situations magnified the need for awareness of the communal story.
Understanding God as the creator of the entire universe, as Christian tradition has claimed,[6] implies that God has a relationship at some level with all people. At the simplest level, the relationship between God and people is creator-to-created. The Acts of the Apostles (Acts 10:35), the Epistle to the Galatians (Gal 3:28), and the Epistle to the Romans (Rom 2:11) teach that God does not does not discriminate based on race. The Book of Isaiah commissions the servant to bring the Salvation of the Lord to the ends of the earth (Is 49:6). If one believes the Bible makes authoritative claims about God, it follows that all people are important to God as part of creation, and thus have a place in the church of God.
Branson ponders the world of Revelation,[7] which gives an eschatological vision of people from all nations and peoples coming to form a great worship service (Rev 7:9).[8] If one is supposed to understand the vision of Revelation as what heaven will look like, what are the implications for individual congregations? Nearly all of the churches that Paul founded and wrote letters to in the first century were multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, thus the biblical model for congregations is that they be diverse and not homogenous.
An essential piece to leading in diverse situations is a principle that is important for Christians in all places and times. That is the pursuit of humility. Jesus provided the ultimate expression of humility, by emptying himself of his divine qualities and becoming a human (Phil 2:5). Jesus did this in order to bring about the salvation of the world. It will not always be clear which culture or person has greater expertise in particular situation, and there will be conflict concerning the proper course of action. When leading people of different ethnic and cultural heritages, there will be different ideas about how the church or congregation should act a particular situation. One must be humble about one’s own cultural tendencies and not dismiss the wisdom of another tradition when it is contrary to the wisdom of one’s own tradition. A problem of all cultures is that they tend to be ethnocentric,[9] meaning they view themselves as superior to other.
Personal Refection on Culture and Strengths
My personal cultural identity comes from conservative Texas culture. I value certain traits because I grew up in a wealthy socio-economic group and have never been in a situation where material goods were difficult to get regardless of work ethic. A narrative of the community that I matured in was that those who work hard will be successful and those who do not will fail. Therefore, those who are not successful are lazy, and refuse to work hard. In this model, most the problems people face are because they created their problems through action or inaction. I have tried to reject this cultural narrative, but it still affects my biases.
Being part of the Churches of Christ has also greatly affected my cultural biases. The setting that nurtured me valued low power distance. My culture views democracy as the best form of government because it holds elected officials accountable to their people, and church hierarchy was similarly arranged. People have the right to form petitions and complain about the work of their leaders. At church, the culture said that ministers must be approachable people. Everyone in the church had the right to talk to the minister and give his or her opinion. When the church was going through a minister search process, the elders gathered the opinions of the people. The congregation chose new elders through simple majority vote. While there were certainly voices that carried more weight than others, for the most part, the decision was fairly democratic. In this area, I have not departed from my source culture. I think that low power distance has a strong ability to communicate the power of the Gospel.
Another large cultural bias from my source culture was individualism. This manifested itself in some bad ways, such as consumerism of the church. Many people came or left the congregation based on what the congregation was offering them. People had a low proclivity to commit to the congregation as an authoritative community. The members saw the congregation for what it could do for them. If there were ever a disagreement between one of the member of the congregation and the leadership, the member would most likely leave. While there are a few positives of individualistic cultures, I have reacted negatively to the overwhelmingly individualist tendencies of my source culture. However, this is still a major factor, and I need to take this into consideration in order to lead a church. I am sure that the individualism of my source culture has shaped the way I view leadership more than I realize.[10]
The culture of Abilene Christian University and particular the College of Biblical Studies has been extremely influential on my personal cultural understandings and biases. This is the context that I gained my suspicion of structures that are overly individualist. It has also influenced my view of power distance in relationships. I regularly interact with people who have some degree of power over my life, and there is not equality in the system of the university, but this is appropriate for the context, thus I have a slightly higher view of power distance than I otherwise would have had.
The Strengths Finder assessment[11] noticed some of those reactions against individualism when I took it. It categorized me as an “includer” – one who seeks to include others in processes and leadership. This plays into my cultural bias of low power distance. I believe that all people should have a voice in important conversations. The test results signified that I have strengths in the areas of: 1) harmony – keeping communities in good relationship, 2) learning – the desire and ability to learn new material, 3) including, and 4) context – awareness of the factors that played into the creation of the culture of the community.
My culture would probably count as a medium-low context culture. People in the communities that I have been a part of prefer clarity to ambiguity. However, there is no cultural that is free from contextual social cues. There will always be more unspoken than spoken in communication between two people or two groups. Another symptom of preferring clarity to ambiguity is that my cultural tendencies are to be high on the Uncertainty Avoidance scale.[12] For the people in my context, there is little that is more frightening than the unknown. In my source culture, people with plenty of money in the present, but no job, will typically have more anxiety than those who have a low quality job. In a church setting, this manifests itself in anxiety when there are transitional periods between ministers or other periods of uncertainty.
In this area, I have retained the attributes of my source culture. I prefer stability and certainty to change and uncertainty. When communicating, I prefer people to be clear in what they are saying rather than relying on context clues to communicate. I like to build on existing traditions rather than starting new ones. In situations where uncertainty is necessary, I tend to make contingency plans. While I take comfort in consistency, I do not tend to sacrifice functionality for it. However, I do tend to have a hard time letting programs or traditions die, and it would probably be appropriate if I learned to relinquish things when they have run their course.
Leadership in Context
The context that I have worked in the most is the Campus Ministry for a large Church of Christ congregation. My role there has ranged from volunteer, intern and Interim Campus Minister. Due to the nature of campus ministry, the group is constantly evolving at a rapid pace. By default, there is a twenty-five percent turnover rate each year, but reality is that this number is typically higher. The Campus Ministry is not very diverse in terms of ethnicity or race. The students in the ministry are mostly white Americans, although there are a few minorities represented. The way in which the Campus Ministry is most diverse is in regional backgrounds. The students comprising the Campus Ministry come from many different parts of the country. Although many of the students are from Texas, there is a significant degree of different Texas sub-cultures represented in the Campus Ministry, which their alignments with the major cities in Texas or rural regions typify. There is also a significant amount of diversity among the religious heritage in the group. Despite being a Church of Christ, the Campus Ministry has attracted a diverse group of people in terms of their denominational affiliation in the past, although all of the church traditions represented in the Campus Ministry tend to be characteristically evangelical and conservative.[13]
A significant way that the Campus Ministry has challenged the way I prefer to do ministry is in the area of Uncertainty Avoidance.[14] I personally prefer to keep things as they are, as change produces anxiety. College students frequently view change as exciting and refreshing. In this area, I have had to let my own biases be over ruled. Having a low power distance and high communal preference means that I feel that I should accept the decision of the community, even if I have the highest leadership position, and I believe that the decision the community has reached is the wrong decision.