Abstract

NELL, Ian. Outside the confines of the known: Cross-cultural experiences among a random sample of ministers in the Dutch Reformed Church. STJ [online]. 2019, vol.5, n.3, pp.495-513. ISSN 2413-9467.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17570/stj.2019.v5n3.a23.

This article looks at one of the questions posed in the Church Mirror questionnaire to a number of pastors of the Dutch Reformed Church. The question is: Tell us about the best experience you have had in your congregation where believers met across cultural boundaries or did something together? The sample forms part of a ministerial panel conducted every three years among ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church with the aim of finding out what pastors think and do about a number of current church activities. The choice to focus on this question comes against the backdrop of contemporary discourses related to the missional nature of church life and the challenge of multi-culturalism in faith communities. The study is qualitative in nature and falls within the interpretive paradigm as part of phenomenology. The data shows an interesting number of activities identified by the ministers related to multiculturalism and also provides some directions for missional development in the future.

Keywords : Kruis-kulturele bediening; kwalitatiewe ondersoek; multikulturaliteit; missionaliteit; missionale teologie.

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