David Turnbull - Supporting Those in Local Cross-Cultural Ministry

Last week I facilitated a book club evening organised through a program called ‘Bridging the Gap’ (a shared partnership between Tabor Adelaide, Interserve, Scripture Union and Uniting Church Multicultural Ministry). The book, ‘Cross-Cultural Servanthood’ by Duane Elmer, was the focus. It has challenged me greatly in the last 12 months. The thrust of the book is to equip people to be able to serve others through humility, especially through building open and accepting relationships.

It is great that there are South Australian believers going into places to build relationships with people of other cultures such as mosques, community centres and the local swimming pool. Such people are hungry to learn and to grow in their skills and understanding of what is involved, and to share their experiences with others.

As the book was discussed during the evening a number of interesting topics were explored. I would like to raise one here.

Several of the people felt isolated in what they were doing and felt that within their local congregations it was not possible to get sufficient support and sufficient space to explore the issues associated with being in paid or voluntary roles with people of other cultures. The local church should be the place for the mission preparation. The challenge is how to do this and what factors need to be addressed to build communities that can explore the issues. It should not be left to parachurch organisations to organise and facilitate such environments in the long term. I am sure this could not be said about all local churches.

I look forward to the feedback and any examples of where local churches are providing such.support.