Cultural Distance

Missiologist Ralph Winter has developed cultural distance, a useful conceptual tool that assesses how far a people group is from meaningful engagement with the gospel.

CD0 ----- CD1 ----- CD2 ----- CD3 ----- CD4

The cultural distance tool can be visualized by means of a continuum. People groups with "zero cultural distance" (CD0) have some concept of Christianity and they speak the same language, have similar interests, are probably of the same nationality, and are from a class grouping similar to your own or to that which dominates your congregation. Many of our friends, neighbors and vocational associates fit into this category.

CD1-CD2 people groups include typical non-Christians, with little real awareness of (or interest in) Christianity. Often suspicious of the organized church, these people may be politically correct, socially aware, and open to Christianity. Many have been previously offended by a bad experience of church or Christians.

CD2-CD3 people groups have absolutely no idea about Christianity. They may be part of an ethnic group with different religious impulses or even a "fringy sub-culture." Many of these people are actively antagonistic toward Christianity as they understand it.

CD3-CD4 people groups are populated by ethnic and religious groupings such as Muslims and Jews. Living in the West may close some of distance, but almost everything else about that culture hinders meaningful dialogue, amking many of them highly resistant to the Gospel.

QUESTION: Is your campus ministry effectively engaging the culture with the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Or has the witness to the Gospel from the campus ministry become isolated from and irrelevant to the campus/community culture?

Perhaps one key to closing cultural distance is incarnational (be there), not attractional (come here).

Missio Dei happens as the people of God penetrate campus/marketplace culture by seeping into the cracks and crevices of that culture and "become Jesus" to the people around them.

Missio Dei does not simply try to lure unbelievers into our ministries and impress them with our "methods." Mission does not wait till they wander in on their own.

Mission is organic, not theatrical. Mission is about loving those Jesus misses the most. Mission seeks to close the cultural distance gap. Closing the gap through incarnation (relationship).

REFLECT:

Who do you see on your campus? How do you know?

What % of CD0, CD1, CD2, CD3 and CD4 people groups are on your campus?

What strategies exist in your campus ministry to close the cultural gap with new people? Are they attractional or relational in nature?

How does your campus ministry make the gospel incarnational on the campus where God has placed you?

MAKE IT REAL: Share what you are doing with the collegiate community to close the gaps on your campus.