Global cities today present many challenges to the task of disciple making and church planting. How can we effectively reach urban contexts that feature people from many varied cultural backgrounds, languages, and socio-economic groups? How does a city context shape cultural patterns and worldviews? How should the concept of cultural “hybridity” play into our urban ministry efforts? These are just a few of the many challenging question facing urban church planters.
A recent article by Paul Salem, entitled “Culture and the City: Rethinking Contextualization for Urban Peoples,” addresses such issues. His essay serves as a short but valuable missiological conversation starter, especially considering that, as Salem notes, more than four billion people across the world now live in urban contexts.
Missionaries and missiologists in the Modern period have often viewed culture as a fixed, bounded entity. In other words, they considered culture to be (mostly) unchanging, rooted in traditional belief patterns and norms. Their drive was to learn the (static) culture of their missionary context and then tailor local church planting efforts to that culture (while, hopefully, remaining tethered to the Scriptures in the process).
Salem rightly challenges this notion of culture. He points out that culture has always been dynamic—a reality that is especially evident in global cities across the world. He asserts, “There was a time when church planting was primarily conceived of as targeting homogeneous communities, with one primary culture. But cities are a mix of cultural influences, practices, and worldviews behind those practices. Furthermore, urban churches, if they are reaching their cities, will have to contend with many cultural influences at work. Contextualization that befits an urban church must be able to engage the confluence of cultures in the city simultaneously.
He continues, “The principles of contextualization have not changed. But, current understandings of culture, indigeneity, and ethnicity have changed considerably. This reality is partly because the forces of globalization, technology, and urbanization prohibit conceptions of culture in flat and static categories. In fact, culture and ethnicity have never been static…. Our goal should be to see urban churches that are able to engage within the cultural plurality of their cities.”
Those laboring as missionaries, ministers, or pastors in urban contexts will benefit from considering the issues Salem raises and the guidance he offers.