In the last year I have met young Danish leaders of Vietnamese, Burundi and Burmese decent. English Church planters of Nigerian heritage and American-Koreans who are ministering to congregations from equally diverse background. All I have to do is take the short walk from my office to the post office to hear Greek, Farsi, Samoan, Cantonese, Korean, Malay, Dinka and Mandarin being spoken.
If you are doing ministry in the West you cannot run away from the fact that the face of Western cultures is changing. The new leaders are coming from all kinds of cultural and ethnic backgrounds. This is why Eric Bryant’s new book Not Like Me is a really important read. It is not an academic tome on the topic of how the West is being reshaped (for that try The Next Christendom) but instead it is as it describes its self -a field manual for Christian leaders navigating the new landscape of multicultural urban and suburban hubs. It is a book born out of Eric Bryant’s ( a white guy like me) learnings as he minsters in a multi cultural church and context. Get onto it!
