Key # 3: The Culture Key

Every church planting movement should be focused on encouraging people to express their love for God in their heart language and culture style. Churches that are racially or linguistically mixed are important for demonstrating reconciliation, but may make it impossible for most people to feel at home in the church.

Redeem lost expressions of the culture

God is the creator of languages and cultures. Every culture reflects different aspects of who God is. Therefore, every effort should be made to search for lost expressions of a culture and to encourage indigenous peoples to revive their language and cultural practices. Jesus came to redeem culture, not destroy it. Certain aspects of a culture may have been used to worship demons, but that does not mean the practices themselves are evil, like dancing, beating drums, playing indigenous instruments, etc.

Don’t civilize, evangelize!

The way to disciple nations is to impact the culture, one person at time. That happens through making disciples, training leaders, and planting churches. The way to build a healthy church planting movement that will impact and transform whole nations is to do discipling like Jesus did, one person at a time. Jesus preached to the multitudes, but spent most of His time with a few men, helping them grow spiritually through believing in them and calling them to live holy lives. When the focus of missions is to change the culture, missionaries end up importing a foreign culture. But when the focus is making disciples, training leaders and planting churches, then a nation can be transformed by the power of the gospel.

Share the story of God chronologically

The most effective way to share the gospel is to tell the story of God. God’s story develops naturally in the Bible, one person at a time. Creation involves two people who share the Garden of Eden with God. Sin is explained through the lives of Cain and Abel. The tower of Babel explains how languages develop and where different tribes come from. That is the way the Bible was written and that is the best way to tell it to others. 

(To be continued)