It has been said that no matter the length, size, team, or mission of an organization, or church, that the cultural issues and obstacles of effective leadership are related (Lingenfelter, 2008). It takes a leader who has a clear understanding of themselves and the culture surrounding them, recognizing the identity of Christlikeness, to reach and understand others, serving them effectively and with the power and great influence of the Holy Spirit. Community culture is unique, and so is the method of persuasion which is successful within each one (Dean, 2009). Unity within pluralistic viewpoints is what will bring people of differing opinions together, and so, a further review in where and how people are united by God, through His values and standards, is key to success in our culture and the mission of the church.

Culture and the Mission of the Church and Local Ministry

Christ’s church, as a global entity, is, in some ways, dependent on its national leadership, yet missionaries, Christ’s ground workers, empower the people at large and strengthen its leaders (Song, 2006). This global entity has a common mission in manifesting Christ towards the world, 1) to clash with the culture of the world, 2) to bring the elements of culture under the lordship of Christ, and 3) to transform this culture through His Spirit. Although the Church at large has a ministry on its own, local churches construct their own particular theology of cultural influence (Carson, 2012). Through their deep and intimate relationship with Christ, being moved by the Holy Spirit, effective and influential ministry is attained. Jesus said that His church would be His witness to the world (Acts 1:8), a common theme in the bible (Guder, 2005).

Mentor Like Jesus

Jesus was an interpersonal leader having a peer-mentoring and dynamic method of education (Crow, 2008). In the local ministry of a church, creating this peer-mentoring form of discipleship is key for long-term success. As Christ’s witnesses, working and revealing His love (Gruder, 2005) to the broken, the bound and oppressed, as He revealed in His ministry to do as followers (Luke: 4:18-19), ministers in the local church must embody four acts as Christ’s witnesses. These acts include:

• Receiving those in their community with brokenness,
• Remembering the goodness of God and being reverent in worship,
• Cultivating a lifestyle response to Christ’s commands and voice with those in need, and
• Socially relating in hospitality with those within the community (Wilhoit, 2009).

The cultural issues and obstacles to successful and effective leadership are similar and common to all ministry organizations, and thus, the goals of the local minister are united with that of overarching church leadership, all under the guidance of Christ (Lingenfelter, 2008). Paul, in his letter to Colossae (Col 3:5), speaks on how those within the church must be like Him in their baptism and renewal of heart and mind, of a new perspective and way of life, to break the connection with the fleshly, earthly desires (Lingenfelter, 2008). This new life is cultivated within the community of the local church, refined and shaped by His body, mobilized through prayer and lead through God’s vision. This local church community requires a response to God’s vision in corporate action of prayer, faith, and trust.

Critique of Local Ministry

Local church ministry is an expression of relationship (Gruder, 2005). Leading requires trust and leading in Christ requires a trusting relationship with Christ which manifests into relationships with others. In these relationships, local churches push to define a compelling life vision, a standard within God and His vision for His people, both societally and individually. These local church leaders must step out into the light and reveal Christ’s voice to the culture and those within it, calling for people to follow His goodness and example. These people are then empowered through the message and Spirit of He who works through being heard, by being witnessed.

Leaders aim, act, and react in environments cross-culturally, preparing people to participate in communities of trust for vision competition. Culture and the Mission of the Church habitate together through cultural structures, and their processes, which are integrated into each person’s understanding of their community relationships and work. Thus, the cultural standards of the surrounding community must be cognitively engaged within standards of accountability of the church to begin the process of cultural reciprocity.

A Call to Holiness – Defined by this Light

Christianity, by its nature of holiness—being set apart by God in purity and love—has always been at a clash with the “gods” of other societies (Carson, 2012). Niebuhr, the progenitor of Christ and Culture and the following half-a-decade of studies on the contemporary subject, states that culture can be said to be an artificial, secondary environment superimposed by humankind on nature, on the natural reality of God’s creation.

As such, cultures reflect these human superimpositions, however, Christianity’s truth-seeking, God-lead Spirit of holiness is, as Niebuhr states, a culture in itself which breaks all other cultures. The relationship of culture and the Mission of the Church is summed up by what Nancy Pearcey advocates as Christianity’s ability to liberate the “cultural captivity” (Carson, 2012, p. 8) of the listener in discourse on virtue, morality, and what is good. In the post-modern culture of America, this cultural breakaway, this shift needing to happen in Christ, can be done through a clearly articulated and defended stance on Christ and culture, on theology based on a relationship, with and through God, to others.

Encroachment of Culture on the Church

Cultural influence has, in many ways, lead to the pluralism found in Christianity today (Chan, 2007). With Greek and Roman Orthodox, Baptist, Word of Life, and other denominations of traditional and contemporary worship of God being geolocational, the culture of the area of worship clearly plays a role in the identity development of such worship. Guder states (2005) that the church has adapted to the culture of the world, its contexts and agendas, to accept a role and function in serving these cultures through an environmentally compatible role for its local setting. When looking into Paul’s ministry, this cultural adaptation is not clearly present within the churches he planted. Paul placed his emphasis on the people and their character, integrity, and love for others, called by God in their communities. What is found in the culture of Christianity today is an emphasis on the institution above the people (Guder, 2005), above the “go and make disciples” (Matt 28:19) command by Jesus.

Culture has also influenced the training of ministers in Christ. Looking into the method of Jesus’s ministry, in His one-on-one and small-group dynamic of environmental-stimuli adaptivity, through mentoring and modeling of His own actions, Christ used relationship building through mentorships to teach His disciples (Crow, 2008). Paul does the same in his journey throughout the book of Acts, taking with him on his journeys Timothy, Barnabas, John Mark, and others.

Models of Teaching

The institution of academia, influenced through the Roman system of didactic teaching, requires classroom coursework to develop public speaking, a stark difference from the didaskalos style of teaching found by James in the early church (Rawls, 2007). Roman culture influenced the teaching of the early church, as it still does today, where ministers are not taught through the didaskalos style of individual congregation instruction, losing the sense of paideia, the transmission of cultural values through teaching. In Ephesus, Paul is seen training people through the Lecture Hall of Tyrannus (Acts 19:9), yet this was no lecture as is thought of today in the academic style of teaching. It was instead done in an argumentative, two-year discipleship program.

This peer-mentorship approach to education was exactly the style of discipleship Jesus did with His disciples. In the case of Paul, peer-mentoring in a cross-cultural setting was adapted and enhanced by his well-developed skills, abilities, and cognition. Knowing the law, Paul was trained to debate with reason, with logos, an ability which produced powerful results in God’s work between culture and the mission of His Church. Christ, as the logos, was able to argue through a transient and cognitive, awareness-generating speech, using parabolic power in imagery and yet still incorporating debate as an underlying persuasion used in His work, such as with Nicodemus (John 3:1-21).

Conclusion—Culture and the Mission of the Church

The influence of culture’s method of training in the classroom has distorted not only the message of the gospel but the power of its deliverance and the ability of its ministers to be effective and loyal to the cause, the true selflessness required to follow and live “the cross”. With culture impacting the message of the gospel being taught to ministers, also influencing how these ministers proclaim the message and how they engage with people in their community, it is clear culture must be navigated through the power of Christ’s Spirit and Word in our proclamation and study. Learn more about Christianity’s response to liberalism and engaging culture as the Mission of the Church or find out how law and religion work together for the good of mankind!

References

Carson, D. A. (2012). Christ and culture revisited. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Chan, M. L. (2007). Following Jesus as the truth: Postmodernity and challenges of relativism. Evangelical Review of Theology, 31(4), 306-319.

Crow, D. M. (2008). Multiplying Jesus mentors. Designing a reproducible mentoring system : A case study. Missiology, 36(1), 87–109.

Dean, M. (2009). The contextualization debate: What about leadership? Common Ground Journal, 6(2), 38-46. ISSN: 15479129.

Guder, D. L. (2005). Worthy living: Work and witness from the perspective of missional church theology. Word & World, 25(4), 424-432. Find here.

Lingenfelter, S. G. (2008). Leading cross-culturally: Covenant relationships for effective Christian leadership. Baker Academic.

Rawls, R. (2007). Teaching and teachers in the early and contemporary church. Ministry Compass, 1(36), 93-98.

Song, M. (2006). Contextualization and discipleship: Closing the gap between theory and practice. Evangelical Review of Theology, 30(3), 249-263.

Wilhoit, J. (2009). Spiritual Formation in Community. Common Ground Journal, 7(1), 71–84.