When the World Comes Home

Recently I was invited to speak at a forum on diversity at the University of South Alabama. The University has a new President Dr. Tony Waldrop who sees the need to recognize the shifting demographics of both students and the United States as a whole. Though I am not an employee of the University, two international Professors recommended I serve on the panel which spoke to students, faculty and other employees. I thought it was a great opportunity to speak from a biblical perspective on diversity. I would like to share briefly some of the main points I shared on building healthy cross cultural relationships. If the world is indeed moving to our neighborhoods, we will have to equip ourselves and our churches and ministries to know how to build Christ honoring relationships with our diverse neighbors!

4 Attitudes that assist in building cross cultural relationships

1. An Open Mind: When we close our minds, we become deeply ethnocentric--viewing others different than us as culturally inferior or of less value.
2. A Humble Heart: Fallen and sinful humanity is basically prideful and cultural bigotry is one example of this reality. We simply reject others as being inferior to ourselves. It takes a humble heart to consistently be open to significant relationships with people unlike us!
3. A Listening Ear: In order to be open to others we have to make every effort to listen carefully to people different from us. We need to listen for what is being said, what isn’t being said...and for what needs to be said!
4. Faith in a loving God: The greatest enemy of healthy relationships is fear. The New Testament epistle of 1 John 4: 18, 19 is clear, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.”

 Segregation is rooted in fear and pride. We seldom move in the direction of people different than us without the possession of some key character traits and behaviors that help us build the bridges that help us over the real chasm of cultural differences. We tend to choose to spend time with people similar to us. Proximity in our daily lives doesn’t necessarily lead to relationship. Someone will have to get uncomfortable before real relationships develop across cultures.

Creating a Culture of Honor

“Love one another with brotherly affection, Outdo one another in showing honor.” (Romans 12:10)

One of the key ways that assist in building significant friendships is to foster trust and respect for one another in the area of culture...we seek to build bridges of honor. We do this by asking 4 key questions to allow our neighbor to reveal his or her heart to us.

1. Show us who you are in the context of celebration--food, dress, music,dance, art and and cultural tradition that relates to a significant life passage such as a wedding.
2. Tell us who you are in the midst of suffering and difficulty
3. Tell us who you are in the area of belief, values and family
4. Tell us who you are in  the area of your dreams and hopes for the future

Do you seek to build meaningful and healthy relationships across cultures? It will take time and effort… a willingness to sacrifice your ‘comfort zone’....but it will be worth it all. Life is all about relationships; the rest is just details!

Jim Mather

Friends of Internationals