Unscrambling Hard-to-Reach Communities

I spent the weekend writing 3,000 words about how church plants are designed to reach specific people groups. Not just ethnicities and geographies, but subcultures and subtle communities.

God intentionally separated the cultures at the tower of Babel to partition corruption. Think of it like a water bed. You can knife one pocket without dumping the entire water-load on your floor.

But these cultural barriers also prevent the Gospel from spreading easily as well. This is why the Great Commission is to make disciples of ta ethne - or people groups.

God calls different kinds of church planters to plant different kinds of church plants to reach different kinds of people. What's imperative is understanding our community so that we can contextualize the Gospel... go Philippians 2 on our towns.

Social incarnation.

Comments

[Chris Chowdhury]

Thanks. Really good. This helps me understand.

[Chris S.]

This is so true but isn't it also the work of the Church and churches to be a part of God bringing things back to the original? We saw a picture of this on the day of Pentecost and in the early church when people from different nations, cultures, ethnicities, were all brought together. When a church begins bringing people together, it is doing its job.

[Paul Stewart]

Excellent thoughts Ben, as always. Can't wait for the book!

[Ben Arment]

chris, what's interesting about pentecost is that the message was heard in each person's own language... in other words, God met each one of them in their own cultural context. They each went back to their own communities.

[Shane Craven]

Masterful!

[Milan Ford]

totally agree with you Ben.

my only prayer is that when our communities become increasingly mixed, then our churches and ministry efforts will (and should) as well.

however - you are right on that God equips us all to reach different people.

God bless you bro.