Discipleship as Part of a Holistic Cross-Cultural Ministry - Part 1
This article is the first part of two articles on this topic. To read part 2, click here.
When Jesus made disciples, He didn’t just teach them—He invited them into a way of life. He met both their spiritual and physical needs, demonstrating that discipleship is one part of a holistic ministry.
In this article - Eric Costanzo, pastor at South Tulsa Baptist Church & Scott White, Vice President of Global Partnerships at One Collective - explore the first three elements of a six-part framework for discipleship that reflects this integrated approach.
Eric Costanzo:
In my first few years of pursuing a call to ministry, God blessed me (Eric) with an experience that forever changed the way I viewed the Church. It was just before my senior year in college, and I was invited to represent my university at Amsterdam 2000, which was the final global evangelism conference under the leadership of Billy Graham.
The opening ceremony of the conference was a procession of all the nations represented in the room—211 in total. Representatives from each nation streamed in dancing and waving while also wearing native dress and colors and carrying their nation’s flag. Once every seat was filled, we sang in a wondrous chorus that joined together countless languages. Neither before nor after have I ever seen such a full, diverse picture of the body of Christ in one place. It was like a window into the glorious future promised in the book of Revelation: “I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Rev 7:9).
My trip to Amsterdam was not only my first trip outside of the U.S., but it was also my first real encounter with the Global Church. From that day forward, my personal journey of discipleship has been tied to cross-cultural engagement and leading the churches in which I’ve served to see God’s heart for the nations.
In the church I pastor today, South Tulsa Baptist Church, God has led us to develop a Great Commission-focused, cross-cultural ministry framework through which we’ve grown both in our ethnic diversity and in building up disciples. We’ve found that our own process of growing as disciples is shaped through cross-cultural engagement in unique ways that rarely happen in other settings. Cross-cultural ministry inherently moves us away from what is comfortable and stretches us into often-neglected spiritual disciplines that were important to Jesus’ own ministry like hospitality, generosity, and sacrificial servanthood. Cross-cultural ministry opens the door for the Holy Spirit to produce new and different kinds of fruit in us that we’ve neglected or perhaps didn’t even know was possible. Such growth is essential to an authentic Jesus-journey.
Our church’s growth-inducing journey has led us to embrace a cross-cultural ministry framework that takes shape on six different levels. I picture them as concentric circles with each level leading to the next with sharpened focus while maintaining each level as present and active at all times.
In this article, we’ll look at the first 3 levels, which we consider Foundational.
Level 1: Welcome
Eric Costanzo:
The first level is Welcome, which means providing a place of safety, kindness, and hospitality for those previously unknown to us. At South Tulsa, our international and refugee ministry and its partners provide welcome through things like airport greetings, preparing and furnishing a family’s new home, helping families get connected to our local schools, community events, partnering families together, and personal invitations to church.
Scott White:
Such ministry was certainly a part of Jesus’ own pattern. He regularly showed his disciples how to have a proactive, authentic, welcoming posture toward the marginalized. Famous examples included those who were “unclean” because of disease, like the hemophiliac (Mk 5:25-34) and the leper (Mt 8:2-3), as well as spiritual outcasts like the immoral woman (Lk 7:36ff), the tax collector (Lk 19:1-10) and the demonized (Lk 8:26ff). Putting such a posture into practice automatically begins to shape the heart of the Christ-follower to care less about the opinions of men and care more about the vulnerable. In One Collective’s global work, we’ve seen such generous welcome become contagious, so that others want their community to be a place where no one is invisible.
Level 2: Conflict
Eric Costanzo:
Though welcoming is usually the easiest and most fun part of our approach, it often results in new challenges. We’ve come to anticipate this and have built it in as the second level of our framework: Conflict. Conflict arises naturally because of the inevitable clash of the known with the unknown and the comfortable with the uncomfortable. Our strategy is not to pursue conflict, of course, but rather to expect it. Conflict is one of the hardest parts of doing cross-cultural ministry, but not all conflict is bad. One positive thing that conflict can produce is awareness of “blind spots” that affect our interpretations of Scripture, people, and situations. Addressing blind spots and managing conflict helps us to remain teachable, which is an essential part of growing as a disciple. Because we anticipate conflict, we can help prepare our people for it and intentionally make it a growth opportunity when it arises.
Early on in our immigrant and refugee work at South Tulsa, we faced internal conflict that was largely based on skewed and incomplete political narratives that are intended to arouse emotion and stoke fears. It took time, but we’ve learned various helpful ways to educate our church and others on the work we are doing, the people we are serving, and why their needs should matter to us as people of faith. Above anything else, however, the personal engagement that happens with our neighbors from among the nations diminishes presuppositions and misperceptions as hearts are opened to living, breathing people rather than nameless and faceless categories.
““The personal engagement that happens with our neighbors from among the nations diminishes presuppositions and misperceptions as hearts are opened to living, breathing people rather than nameless and faceless categories.””
Scott White:
Jesus did not soften the cross-cultural conflict his ministry produced. When His disciples struggled to understand His interactions with a despised Samaritan at Jacob’s well, he decided to immerse them for a couple of days in a Samaritan village so that they could learn about the Father’s heart and the Father’s priorities (Jn 4:4-42). For the follower of Jesus, choosing comfort over compassion means more than just missing a God-ordained opportunity for growth. It means choosing a life trajectory toward self-centeredness, rather than Christlikeness, where personal comfort becomes an idol. Within One Collective, growth in this area includes training in emotional intelligence and intercultural intelligence. Anticipating conflict and having categories to understand are is essential for healthy relationships with locals and teammates.
Level 3: Community
Eric Costanzo:
The third level of our approach is Community, which results from well thought-out efforts to help people move from the margins to belonging and participation. Being welcomed is one thing, having a sense of belonging and having the opportunity to contribute are much more difficult and yet vitally important things. In our international and refugee ministry at South Tulsa, this level happens regularly through the many classes we offer including English, cultural orientation, sewing, prenatal and childcare, and citizenship. One of the ways we measure our success in building community is listening for those we’ve welcomed and with whom we’re building relationships to use the word “family” to describe our church. To be family is to belong and to share in the responsibility of contributing to the well-being of all.
““Being welcomed is one thing, having a sense of belonging and having the opportunity to contribute are much more difficult and yet vitally important things.””
Scott White:
Radical, cross-cultural community was built into Jesus’ strategy from the very beginning as he assembled his team of 12. Perhaps the most startling example is his inclusion of Matthew the tax collector along with Simon the Zealot. These two disciples came from lifestyles and value-systems that were diametrically opposed to one another. Perhaps nothing has the potential to be so transforming than when we live as “family” with those different from us. Nothing does more to expose the blind spots in our own value systems and cultural practices. Forging community out of diversity means deeply believing that we need each other. One Collective’s collaborative model is built on this conviction and takes form in a myriad of cross-cultural relationships marked by interdependence and mutual fulfillment.
The next article (linked below) will look at what we might call Focused levels of our cross-cultural ministry framework, but we’ve found these three Foundational levels of engagement to be powerful for the spiritual formation of Jesus’ followers.
Certainly, we’ve seen some who were unable to move past the Conflict stage, or others who were unwilling to even start with Welcome for fear of the conflict. But for those who join the Jesus-journey by choosing compassion over personal comfort, the growth in Christlikeness is Jesus’ faithful reward. Indeed, it may well be true that he offers no other path.
Continue reading part 2 of this article, where we explore the second 3 elements of this framework by clicking below.