engaging with culture today
Sharing the gospel in a multicultural world
Jonnie Green
Who is your neighbour? I’ve enjoyed living in some very mixed neighbourhoods: Cantonese families next to Pakistani families, Ukrainian young professionals sharing housing with Indian graduates. In a culture which is growing increasingly fearful of the foreigner, the church has an amazing opportunity to share the gospel globally by sharing it locally.
But how? If, like me, you have existed within Western culture your entire life, we have been submerged into the waters of modernity. The very way that we see the world sits within the frame carved out by Plato, Kant and Nietzsche. We cannot help it. As Christians the way we think, feel, and see the gospel also sits within this frame. So how can I possibly share the gospel in a way which connects with someone who sees the world in a different frame? Someone who thinks, feels, and sees the world in a different way to me?
engaging with culture today
Is the sermon in the exam?
John Owen
“Is this in the exam?” The question makes my heart sink every time I hear it – I want my students to care for more than exams; I want them to become good engineers.
At work, I’m leading a group designing new undergraduate programmes. As well as thinking about “constructive alignment” and “learning outcomes”, we’ve been wrestling with the problem of students who would rather watch online than sit in lectures, finding the balance between group and individual work, and managing the impacts of generative AI (positive and negative).
Lessons from a three-hour church service
It's sometimes said that culture is like a river. To fully appreciate its flow, you need to get in it. I had the privilege of putting this into practice recently when I visited a church with a predominantly Nigerian membership.
Rather than observing from a distance, I got to swim in the stream of their worship. It highlighted several ways in which my own multi-ethnic church values certain things differently. This doesn't automatically mean either set of practices is better or worse. But the customs reveal the creeds underneath. Experiencing the differences first-hand helped me sense what was going on under the surface.