Editor's Note: By Dwight Linton. Dr. Dwight Linton was a missionary to Korea and an 11 year staff member with CEP. Dwight assisted primarily in multicultural ministry and training.  Dwight died recently in a car accident after attending another pastor's funeral. Click here to find out more...

Unity - based on sinful human beings’ desire to control their own destiny - was the goal of the builders of the tower of Babel in Genesis. Yet God saw that it would only result in manipulative uniformity, so He brought about the breakdown of communication by frustrating the project and causing the monolithic cultural group to split up and go their separate ways. This resulted in the development of the different cultural groups. Today there are about 6,000 distinguishable cul­tures in the world.

Many centuries later, in God’s plan, Jesus Christ was born. He lived, died on the cross, was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven where He was declared to be the Head of His body, the Church. On the day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit, focusing on these special events, came upon the disciples, giving them the power to found and build the New Testament Church. The gift of tongues on that day (to be differentiated from other “speaking in tongues’’) reversed the breakdown of communication at Babel, thus pointing to the unity of the Church based on the death, resurrection, ascension and rule of Christ.

The glorious vision given to the Apostle John on the Isle of Patmos - showing him the New Jerusa­lem “. . . coming down out of heaven from God . . .” is certainly the glorified Church at the end of history toward which all Christians are looking with great expectation. There we see the many cultures which had their genesis at the tower of Babel but now, although recognizable as “the nations” (or “peoples”), living in unity and har­mony around the Lamb and the Lord God Almighty and walking in the light of the glory of God. This picture of unity and diversity is surely the final goal toward which God is leading His Church today. This is the model toward which we must strive.

Paul, a Jewish Christian addressing Gentile Christians, speaks of “the mystery” of God’s will which is that He will “. . . bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:9-10). Paul speaks of the gulf between Jews and Gentiles, but the same gulf exists between the various cultures in the Gentile world. He says that Christ has “destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations” (Ephesians 2:14-15). His use of the phrase “law with its commandments and regula­tions’ ‘ can be thought of as “Jewish lifestyle with its rules and regulations as a way of salvation.’’ The question is not what cultural lifestyle a person lives but whether he has been reconciled to God through the cross of Jesus. If that is so, then the hostility has been destroyed, and both have access to God by the one Spirit. We are all then “. . . fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Ephesians 2:19).

God’s purpose in history is to build the Church -the body of Christ - bringing together into this one body the people who represent the many varied cultures that have arisen since the dispersion at the tower of Babel. Paul speaks of this final purpose of God when he says that”. . . he made known to us the mystery of his will ... to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:9-10). The Church glorified is one body. When it comes to “the Church Univer­sal,” we confess in The Apostle’s Creed that we believe in “the Holy Catholic Church,” the one Church. When it comes to the local church, the diversity that Paul speaks of in 1 Corinthians 12 and in Ephesians 4 is in the context of diversity of spiritual gifts. It is very clear that, in the midst of the diversity of spiritual gifts, there is the unity of the body because of each member’s relation to Christ the Head.

All of this brings up questions that he below the surface in every part of the Church today. Does the unity taught in Scripture mean that we should not purposely plant churches within other cultures? Should we simply win Blacks and expect them to attend the churches we now have? Should Mexican-Americans and Chinese-Americans be reached from existing PCA churches? Should new churches be started, targeting geographical areas rather than people groups? In other words, does the New Testament insist on cultural diversity in the local church if the community is culturally diverse? Stated another way, is it scriptural to have churches made up of a homogeneous group of people when the city or community is made up of different cultures?

Peter Wagner makes a strong case for the valid­ity of “the Homogeneous Unit Principle,” point­ing out that the local churches in the book of Acts were made up of people of the same culture. His conclusion is that today we should have no prob­lem with local churches being made up of people of only one cultural group. He contends that is the only way the various peoples of the world are going to be reached.

A study of the Church in the United States today will show that most local churches are homoge­neous units. On the surface it may not always be so clear, but a careful analysis usually will show that there is a commonalty among churches that is more than the Gospel. We find that pastors and sessions have thek hands full now, promoting the unity of the body in the face of the diversity created by the different personalities and “gift mixes” found in the congregations. Pastors are usually of the same culture or “subculture” as thek people. Meaningful communication is closely tied in with the common culture between the communicator and the receptors. Church leaders - pastors and elders - are often at a loss to know how to deal with people of a different culture who might come to their churches.

Our dilemma is that all of us are committed, in principle, to reaching the people of every culture for Christ. However, we simply do not know how they are to be discipled and brought in to the visible Church.

There are two or three prevalent views for us to consider. One is to take the route that Peter Wagner suggests - to bend every effort toward planting homogeneous churches, targeting specific cultural groups. It can be demonstrated that these churches grow rapidly when they are located in the right place and use the right strategy.

Another view is to insist that the church must reach all of the people groups within its geographic area. Thus, the church is not what it should be until it has, in fact, become a cross section of its neighborhood.

One other group, which is probably the largest one, consists of those who simply go about their ministry in the only way they know how and trust that God will bring in the people in His own good time. Yet these churches will become homoge­neous churches, I might say, by default.

The problem with the first group is that the focus is only on evangelism and fast numerical growth. The hope is that at some later date the gulf between Christians of different cultural groups will be bridged. Historically, this has rarely happened. (We Presbyterians should note that when it has happened it tends to be among the churches with a congregational type of government and, in recent years, among charismatic groups.)

The problem with the second group is that there are few churches actually reaching all of the diverse groups within their neighborhoods. Rarely have churches been able to mix subcultures with their own culture. Most of our churches represent a certain socio-economic “slice” out of the cultural group that it represents.

In the face of this dilemma, I would like to propose four guidelines, not as neat solutions to the problem, but rather as basic principles that will move us in the right direction:

1. Let us keep the biblical model in view. We see it clearly described in Revelation and by Paul in Ephesians. The late Francis Schaeffer emphasized that the world has a right to judge whether Jesus has really come from the Father by looking at the unity shown by Christians (commenting on John 17:20-21).

There are many practical things we can do. I will suggest only one. When the PCA General Assembly authorized the organizing of Korean presbyteries, one of the ideas was that there would be Anglos visiting Korean presbyteries and vice versa. The idea was to build bridges between the Anglo majority within the PCA and the second largest group, the Koreans. The First Korean Pres­byterian Church of Atlanta has invited North Georgia Presbytery to meet in their facility for their spring meeting in 1989 - a positive step.

2. The leadership of local churches needs to give thought to developing cross-cultural skills among their people. It is true that not everyone is gifted with this kind of understanding. However, I am sure that God has blessed some of the people in each church with special gifts in this direction. Think in terms of getting special training for some in each congregation to help them to be “space-makers, ‘‘a term some of us use for the person who is the communication link between “the mono­lithic establishment” and the person from a differ­ent culture.

There are seminars available for this training. There are video tapes that can be borrowed from the CEP video library that will aid in this ministry. In addition, we at CE/P can suggest Sunday school material that emphasizes cultural awareness.

3.1 would encourage our denomination to con­tinue to use what I call “the suspension bridge strategy¹’ - to be realistic and recognize the depth of the gulf that divides our culture from other cultures. First, bridgeheads need to be built on both sides by planting churches cross-culturally. Within these churches, the Lord will raise up leadership. The second step is to string cables across. They represent working together on the leadership level. From that structure, the roadbed can be suspended over which traffic can flow - the coming and going of lay Christians.

4. On the local level, leadership - especially pastors and elders - can begin to develop “net­works’ ‘ by getting to know pastors and leaders in churches of other cultures in the nearby vicinity. This kind of activity takes some time and energy and might not “pay off” quickly. Yet one PCA pastor, Frank Barker, began over twelve years ago to make contacts in the Black community in Bir­mingham, Alabama. Those efforts have resulted in the creation of a base from which most of the PCA’s Black ministries are now being carried on.

In conclusion, we need to have the spirit and attitude of the Apostle Paul. In the face of cultural diversity, he said, “Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. . . . I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:19, 22).

The United States is .made up of many diverse people. They come from all over the world. In fact, God has brought the mission field to our doorstep. The challenge before us - as Christians, church members and as a denomination - is to demon­strate a heart for God’s people wherever they are found. Be willing to invest some precious time and energy becoming equipped for this work of minis­try. Our present assembling together as Christians is to be a foreshadow of that gathering at Mt. Zion when the Church Universal will meet in worship, nurture and witness with the living God and all believers.