Praying, Learning and Practicing: The Keys to Effective Inter-Cultural Mission

Effective Intercultural Mission

Multicultural church… Intercultural church. Multicultural Mission… Intercultural Mission.

Words I am sure you are hearing more of. I have not met many who do not like the idea of a multicultural or intercultural church or mission.

The question however, is HOW do we make it a reality?

No doubt prayer must play a significant role. We must pray for any barriers in the hearts and minds of people that make up God’s church, to be broken down. As Paul asks in Colossians 4:3, we must also ask the Lord to open doors for us to engage in God’s mission. (You can join with us, as a Network, to pray on the last Wednesday of every month at 1pm. See the event page.

Obstacles Within

What do we do when God opens the doors in a multicultural society? How do we avoid being accused of cultural bias as the Apostles were in Acts 6?

Do we have enough cultural awareness to avoid offending people or to be peacemakers among cultures who live together in tension?

This challenge is not new, it was present even among the early church. As Christianity spread from the Jews to the Gentiles, there were those that were resistant, like Peter in Acts 10. Even once that hurdle was overcome, Paul and Barnabas had to defend the Gentiles from being forced into cultural assimilation by compliance with the circumcision laws. They brought the vision of cross-cultural and multicultural mission to the Council in Jerusalem in Acts 15, leading James to state “we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.”

As members of the church in the UK, it’s important for us to reflect on whether there are traditional practices that we hold to, that follow the pattern of the church in the book of Acts. Do we expect those coming into the faith to conform to our preferences, putting obstacles in the way of unity among believers from diverse cultures?

While Peter agreed that no further burdens were to be laid on the Gentiles, his previous cultural practices got in the way of him integrating with the Gentiles (see Galatians 2:11-16). Peter had been eating with the uncircumcised Gentiles in Antioch, but when some friends of James joined them, he would not eat with them anymore because he feared criticism. His fellowship was restricted.

Sometimes our ideologies and traditions can restrict us from integrating with cultures different to our own. Paul was one who challenged and broke down the walls of partition in the Church of that day. The call for us is to do the same, to help the Church to be one, in the fulfilment of Jesus’ desire.

Obstacles Without

We must also be aware of the differing vices of people groups, as Paul was with the Cretans in Titus 1:12. Even when we are aware of these vices, we must still be intentional and strategic about doing ministry in their culture and setting up structures for effective discipleship as he did. In today’s world, you would be heavily criticised or even cancelled for saying what Paul said. “The people of Crete are all liars, cruel animals, and lazy gluttons.”

These are not Paul’s words exactly, he is quoting a well-known poet Epimenides, a native of Crete. However, he does affirm the assessment as true and advises Titus what to do to make them strong in faith. (Titus 1:12-13).

We need to be self-aware of our tendencies to be like Jonah, holding biases or prejudices that get in the way of us loving the people we are sent to. We must be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of people, and still walk in love towards them.

Next Steps

Wisdom will need to be used if we are going to see God’s vision as expressed in scripture e.g. Acts 2, Revelation 7:9. We may have the zeal for multicultural ministry, but we need wisdom as scripture says, “Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good; haste makes mistakes.” (Proverbs 19.2 NLT).

We want to equip ourselves, you, your church, mission agency or organisation with knowledge that can translate into practices to do multicultural and intercultural ministry wisely and effectively.

Following our flagship training course in April, we have received growing interest in this topic area and so we will be creating more training opportunities and coffee mornings where we can grow in knowledge that strengthens our practice of doing ministry interculturally. To be notified of the events coming up around this subject area, please sign up to our mailing list by clicking on and join our growing community on the networking hub where you can pose questions and start conversations with likeminded people. Sign up to the networking hub here.

In the meantime, we have interviewed some seasoned church leaders and missionaries who engage in cross-cultural, multicultural, and intercultural ministry. You can learn from their wealth of experiences by following our podcast.

Our prayer for the Church in the UK as well as the global Church is that we will continue to grow to reflect the Church our Lord and Saviour will be pleased with in Jesus’ name.