Almost half the world’s population today is under the age of 25. Estimates suggest that by the year 2025, there will be about 72 million more youth than there at the present. More than any other time in history, the question of how to communicate effectively and engage in cross-cultural youth ministry must be posed and sufficiently answered. However, understanding the sheer number of youth around the globe is only one dynamic in this situation.
Were it that all the millions of youth around the globe lived in one country, region or continent, the task of reaching these youth would prove somewhat easier; but this is not reality. Since 2006, one-quarter of the youth population is in the developing regions of the world. In Africa, 32 percent of the population is youth, while Asia’s youth population is 22 percent. Latin America and the Caribbean have a youth population of 24 percent combined. These are only three areas of the world and three distinct cultures, but the fact that 96 percent of the world’s youth live outside the United States helps us understand that youth ministry in the United States is a small percentage of global youth ministry. Therefore, the issue is not simply how to evangelize and minister to the youth population around the globe, but rather how to evangelize and minister effectively to youth across various cultures. Truly, this could and should be a question we ask even of those ministering to youth within our own country. Sherwood Lingenfelter said, “In today’s world, cross-cultural ministry includes not only people going as missionaries to Latin America, Africa or Asia, but also those who are trying to be effective witnesses in the major urban centers of [one’s own] country.”
The growing population of youth worldwide, along with the diversity of cultures in which they reside, helps us understand that missions and ministry to reach the youth of the world entails understanding various cultures in the process, whether they are varying cultures within the same country or between countries. A one-size-fits-all approach to youth ministry across cultures, as with any age group, has not and will not work effectively. Therefore, we must come to understand cross-cultural missions and ministry while also outlining principles necessary when engaging in ministry to youth across varying cultures.
HUMAN DIVERSITY AND CULTURE
The Author of Human Diversity
Duane Elmer said in his book Cross-Cultural Connections, “It was God who authored human diversity.” We may not fully understand to what degree, but human diversity must best reveal our God the Creator. He created diversity among humans in numerous ways. This diversity leads to the rich, contrasting cultures we find throughout the world.
Defining Culture
Individuals, out of their uniqueness, as well as different living climates, regions and history, create unique cultures which are not duplicated in any other place by any other group of individuals. Ebbie Smith gives insight regarding culture saying, “Every culture, then, is a way of life, but only one way of life, for a particular people…Every society or group of people will develop a group of traits or components of culture that allow them to live in a particular environment—physical and ideational. Though vastly different from one another, every culture exists to help people adjust to [their] environment.”
Paul Hiebert said regarding culture, “People create a great variety of cultures. They eat different foods, build different kinds of houses, speak different languages and greet each other in different ways.” Culture can be defined as “the more or less integrated systems of ideas, feelings and values and their associated patterns of behavior and products shared by a group of people who organize and regulate what they think, feel and do.” In short, “Culture is…the sum of the distinctive characteristics of a people’s way of life.” For example, we see how “[e]ating is a biological necessity shared by all humans in every society. What is eaten and how it is eaten is learned and therefore cultural.”
Cultural Bias
Many, unfortunately, fail to see and delight in the different cultures produced by human diversity. Because we are all “products of our cultural heritage, which dictates how we see the world and how we interact with the world,” we tend to believe “our culture is better and other people are less civilized.” Bill Hodgson speaks of this writing, “A person’s personal culture is like the lens of their eye, although it affects everything they see as reality, and they see everything through it, they rarely if ever become consciously aware of it; that is, they see through it but never really see it. This cultural blindness prejudices us against accepting and comprehending cues from cultures that are contrary to our own.” Furthermore, we often “tend to think everyone else sees and interacts with the world the way we do.” This is not the case at all. Each individual in the world has a personal culture which is his or her lens to see the world. Those from different cultures view things from different perspectives or cultural viewpoints. Furthermore, even those of different generations within the same culture have varying cultural viewpoints from one another.
Cross-Cultural Ministry
The Great Commission as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew pointedly calls us to “go and make disciples of all nations” (
We, therefore, understand cross-cultural youth ministry “as any ministry in which one interacts with people who have grown up learning values and lifestyle patterns that are different from one’s own.” As we obey the Great Commission in a world that is a collection of various cultures, we will without a doubt engage in cross-cultural ministry even within our own country.
Biblical Foundation and Model for Cross-Cultural Ministry
We have just discussed how Christ has called us in the Great Commission to bear the gospel to every nation, which is home to people of various cultures. However, Christ did more than call us to cross-cultural missions and ministry: He modeled it for us. He is the perfect embodiment of what it means to engage cross-culturally.
When God sent Jesus Christ, He sent Him as an infant who had to learn. Lingenfelter said, “God’s Son studied the language, the culture and the lifestyles of his people for 30 years before He began His ministry. He knew all about family life and problems. He stood at their side as learner and coworker.” Hodgson said, “In fact, He wasn’t just fully human; He was fully first century Galilean Jew in personal culture and others in His day saw Him as such and responded to and reminded Him of the fact (eg.
A Plead to Engage Other Cultures
Obeying the Great Commission naturally will lead us to engage other cultures.
