Growing in our Cultural Intelligence

This week has been one of distraction for me.  I have had too much to do, and not quite enough time to get it all done.  Thankfully next week looks much better!  Yet, the result is that I am behind in my writing.

How do we succeed in ministry?  What marks growing ministry (growing both deeper in grace and truth and outward through evangelism)?  This week I have explored five traits of successful pastors.  Today I finish this set by exploring cultural intelligence.  Successful pastors and ministry leaders have a solid and growing awareness of how to apply scripture to today's world.

So what is cultural intelligence?

Cultural intelligence is "the ability to understand, acknowledge, and appreciate current contextual forces as well as the cultural background of oneself and others." (Covenant, Spring/Summer 2012, 24)  What does this mean?  I like how one Pastors Summit participant put it, "It is vital in ministry to understand cultural norms and nuances in order to discern between what we accept as correct in culture and what is truth as defined in Scripture." (24)

I could not agree more!  Study after study, as well as my experience, illustrate that biblically strong and faithful churches have a chance to grow, but churches that neglect scripture as their norm are by and large shrinking.  Why?  Churches that ignore scripture have "A form of godliness, but they deny its power."  2 Timothy 3:5  I do not believe these churches are attractive to the true spiritual seeker.

The problem is that many church that profess fidelity to scripture are more wed to their cultural understanding of the gospel and its application than they are to the true gospel and its application!

What do I mean?  Most of us are shaped by our childhood.  From that childhood, we assume that our experience is just the way things should be.  As believers in Christ, we do the same thing.  Our early experiences in Christian community often dictate "just how things should be."  

What happens when our church experience declares cultural assumptions as biblical assumptions?  We short-circuit the power of the Spirit and replace it with a cheap cultural substitute.

Let's give an example.  Children should be taught to sit through church at an early age.  Why?  They need to learn the bible and how to worship.  This is best done in our worship experience.

Is this a bad idea?  Obviously no!  It is a great ideal.  It is particularly a good ideal if the children come from homes where the bible is taught in family devotions and where church is a regular part of life.  I know entire churches where this is the accepted practice.

Yet, is this ideal both biblical and culturally aware?  I think we could argue that this is a biblical ideal.  We are to train our children in how to walk with God.  Yet, is having them sit through a worship service the best way to do this?  Maybe yes, but maybe no!

What happens when someone who the Lord is seeking comes to worship at your church?  Immediately they feel and know that their children are different.  They are not well-behaved and not able to sit still through an hour or more of worship.  In fact, they are not learning about the Lord in worship, but they also are distracting mom and dad from learning about God (notice the other cultural assumption!  Mom and Dad?  Most likely the person walking in the door with children is a single parent).  

What about our biblical ideal?  We have replaced a biblical ideal with a cultural assumption.  Culturally, many folks in leadership were brought up in homes where the bible was honored, devotions were insisted upon, and worship was a regular part of life.  These cultural assumptions no longer hold.  In fact, they are impediments to those coming to faith and to those who are in the process of becoming part of our churches!

Today, a church and leadership with solid cultural awareness and intelligence has an intentional, detailed, and culturally sensitive plan for dealing with children.  They fulfill the biblical ideal and goal of training up children in the fear and admonition of the Lord in a different way.  Maybe fifty years from now a great revival will change everything and everyone will go to church again.  At that time, we will train our children differently!

In other words, a cultural intelligent person and church will be aware of their cultural assumptions, the cultural assumptions of their surrounding area, and the unchanging principles of Scripture.  A culturally intelligent person will learn and know how to apply the principles of Scripture to their own life and to the life of the church.

So, are you culturally intelligent?  Is your church culturally intelligent?  What keeps you and your church from growing in this area?  How can you help sharpen your ability and the church's ability to reach out to those the Lord is seeking?