multicultural social theory and christian leadership

Over the past couple months I have been doing a good chunk of reading, research and writing in preparation for a plenary presentation at an upcoming academic conference in Toronto. I will be presenting a paper on "Can multicultural social theory help in leading multicultural faith communities?" This has given me a chance to do a major update on academic reading in this field since my book on this subject was published in 2005. I must admit that I would love to do a new edition of the book with all the new research and reflection, plus info about a lot of the practical tools and experiences I have acquired over the past decade since I first started focused research, training and consulting in this field. [I will post the full paper on this blog sometime after I have presented it.]

Diversity in Evangelical Mission Today     April 15, 2010 is sponsored by the Evangelical Missiological Society (Canada Region), EMS and the TIM Centre at Tyndale

Andrew Lau, Senior Pastor, Cornerstone Christian Community Church, Markham will also be presenting a paper, "Biblical Foundations for the Intentionally Intercultural Church." Andrew gave a response to my book at the release event in 2005 and wrote a review of it for the Journal of the Canadian Evangelical Theological Society; both of which I have been thankful for in helping see the place of my book, with its strengths and weaknesses.

Comments

[Dan]

hey Larry,
actually in most urban centres outside of north america, multicultural congregations function with at least 2 languages being used in the services (ie translation). South Africa had 11 official languages; translated communication was just a part of everyday life.

[Larry Winckles]

Dan,

Are you assuming that the multi-cultural communities will have a common language of communication? We have an interesting situation in Budapest with a Sri Lankan student (who speaks English and Singhalese) an American (who is monolingual - he speaks New York-ese), mono-lingual Hungarians, a bi-lingual Romanian (Romanian and Hungarian) and bi-lingual Hungarians and Americans (English and Hungarian). We don't have one language that is commonly shared by everyone.

Keep us posted!

Larry