Planting Churches among the City's Poor - Volume 1

40 • P LANTING C HURCHES AMONG THE C ITY ’ S P OOR : V OLUME 1

Adaptability to the Needs of the City Finally, a multicultural church has the potential to spread the gospel to many different people groups in the city. Harvie Conn speaks of this potential when he says, “The church needs to recognize that the gospel has spread and will continue to spread most naturally in the city through people groups. The evangelistic task should be seen not so much in terms of individuals or countries as in terms of peoples.” 49 If the com position of the church represents the neighborhood, the church is likely to impact the entire community for Christ. Since ethnic composition of neighborhoods continually change, multiethnic churches have a distinct advantage in adapting to those changes. Ethnic Sub-Cultures in the City Whenever cultural groups converge, a process of `acculturation’ or `assimilation’ occurs. Acculturation refers to “the changes in cultures that arise from contact with other alien cultures.” 50 Marvin Mayers says, Acculturation and assimilation differ in degree of adaptation to the new culture. Within the context of acculturation, people adapt to the degree they can effectively function within the context of the new culture. They assume they will leave the new culture at some time and return home. They are fully accepted and respected members of the new culture, yet in essence have a dual identity. . . . Assimilation is the more extreme process. It comes from the realization that one will never return to the society of origin. So one takes on the entire lifeway of the new. 51

The process of acculturation produces many sub-cultures. Charles Chaney recognizes four divisions within ethnic people groups:

1. Nuclear Ethnics – those explicitly and self-consciously concerned about ethnic tradition.

2. Fellow Traveler Ethnics – those to whom ethnicity is a relatively important part of self-conscious identification.

________________________________________________________________________

49 Harvie Conn, A Clarified Vision for Urban Mission (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1987), p. 216

50 Paul G. Hiebert, Cultural Anthropology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1983), p. 417

51 Stephen A. Grulan and Marvin K. Mayers, Cultural Anthropology: A Christian Perspective , (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988), p. 81