IDEAS AND ACTIVITIES FOR GROWING CHRIST-CENTRED INTERCULTURAL COMMUNITIES
- Nathaniel Jennings
- Apr 7
- 3 min read
The journey towards becoming a truly intercultural church takes intentionality. Here are some concrete ideas for seeking put this into practice.
Intercultural calendar
Are their members in your congregation for whom certain dates will be significant and could be marked/celebrated? For example: Lunar New Year (Chinese), Nowrus (Persian/Iranian New Year), Racial Justice Sunday, National Days
Can your church organize social events around these where people of different cultures are the hosts and get to share and celebrate with the wider church family?
Christian Occasions
Pentecost, Easter, Christmas – are there ways of celebrating these in a way that includes the different ethnicities and languages represented in our congregations?
Intercultural prayer
Are their members in your congregation whose home countries are currently in the news?
With their input could you include these in your church’s cooperate prayer life?
Contributing to church life
Are your committees representative of the congregation’s makeup?
Is everyone given the opportunity to give input and listened to?
Are folk from underrepresented backgrounds being identified, encouraged, nurtured and given opportunities to contribute to the life of the church community?
Children & students
Is the leadership reflective of the members?
Are there specific needs or cultural knowledge that would be helpful to understand?
Are your young people being discipled to celebrate their diversity in unity and but to find their primary identity in Christ and as part of his global church?
Are friendships being formed across perceived boundaries? - language, ethnicity, class, age, disability, etc.
Hospitality
Are you creating opportunities for groups to meet together and share hospitality so that the lines of ‘guest’ and ‘host’ can be blurred?
Are you discipling your congregation to do life together beyond the church programmes?
Pastoral visiting team
How diverse is the team?
Are there any specific cultural issues/needs that have arisen?
Are their Christian individuals (or resources) with insights into or from different cultural backgrounds who could help you navigate these well?
Sunday services
How do people get the opportunity to contribute on Sundays?
Is there a wide variety of ages & ethnicities sharing from the front?
When might it be appropriate to include other languages spoken from the front? Songs and prayers in other languages?
Who is on the various teams – welcome, prayer, post service hospitality, refreshments, children’s groups? How do you get to join a team?
How are themes and issues which are addressed chosen?
How about occasionally giving church members the opportunity to anonymously put into a ‘suggestion box’ ideas for things that might be included in the Sunday service?
World Mission
How are mission partners chosen?
How are countries portrayed and prayed for? Especially when members of our congregations are from those countries.
Is there an awareness of reverse/multidirectional mission? Especially relating to members of your congregations.
Community events
Are these organised from a ‘mission with’ rather than a ‘mission for’ mindset?
Who are leading/helping out with these initiatives?
How might you connect with the different social/cultural groups in your local area to invite/involve them in these?
Small groups
Who is joining house groups?
Who isn’t?
Who is leading house groups?
What is the criteria for being asked to lead?
Leadership
How are you identifying and nurturing leaders from different backgrounds?
Collaboration Do you have relationships with other diaspora or multi-cultural churches in the area?
Are there ways of building relations and partnering which might be mutually beneficial?
Theology
Who have you been reading/listening to this past year?
Have you listened to a diverse range of voices from the global church?
(Compiled by Grace Robinson, OMF Intercultural Worker)
