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Cross-cultural relationships in the church are often shaped by unseen power imbalances—but through humility, intentionality, and the example of Christ, those dynamics can be transformed into mutual, life-giving partnership.
By Aaron Myers
By Aaron Myers
Power.
Power does funny things to relationships. It changes the dynamics of how relationships form and grow and become.
When I met my first friend in kindergarten, we met and built our relationships on even ground. Neither of us could read or write, we both struggled with things like tying our shoes and sitting still in class, we both came from similar backgrounds and approached our lives which had similar challenges and opportunities. Furthermore, we both spoke English, the language of our neighborhood, region and country.
As I grew older I began to realize that forming relationships takes work. It takes time and it often takes patience. Sometimes relationships come easily. Other relationships takes more time and more energy, and sometimes I realized, our differences in life experiences create relational dynamics that make it more difficult to build authentic relationships. This is often the case with cross-cultural relationships.
Cultural differences create relational challenges that are often difficult to overcome. There are many types of differences; some obvious, some less obvious, but these differences impact the relationships we form. While we can all work to overcome these differences, some create power dynamics which inhibit the normal formation of relationships.
Let me give you an example.
I was at a conference in a North American city. The conference was a gathering of African pastors and elders from around the upper Midwest. All of them had come to the U.S. as refugees following a season of intense persecution against their particular tribe in their home region. All of them were men of reputation in their communities back in Africa, and those reputations in many ways transferred with them to the U.S. They were leaders of men.
They had invited several American leaders from their denomination to teach at the conference. Though I wasn’t part of that denomination, I had been asked to lead a training on engaging and sharing the gospel with Muslims. Even though my session wasn’t until the afternoon, I chose to attend the full day of meetings.
The morning teaching went well until one of the African leaders voiced a concern.
His question was, "How can we do more to serve the North American church?"
The American leaders assured them there was no need to feel like they needed to do anything.
What was missed in the exchange was the underlying feeling of the African pastor that they were being seen merely as charity cases. The Anglo churches who were allowing them to use their buildings were doing so in good faith, believing they were serving their brothers and sisters in Christ. But a number of things were at play that prevented authentic relationships to develop between the African churches and their American host churches. These dynamics led to relational realities that left these African pastors feeling like they were not being understood or appreciated.
First was a general assumption that the African churches were basically poor and needy. In that sense the African pastors were struggling with a sense that they were being viewed as charity cases.
That was unfortunate.
Power does funny things to relationships. It changes the dynamics of how relationships form and grow and become.
When I met my first friend in kindergarten, we met and built our relationships on even ground. Neither of us could read or write, we both struggled with things like tying our shoes and sitting still in class, we both came from similar backgrounds and approached our lives which had similar challenges and opportunities. Furthermore, we both spoke English, the language of our neighborhood, region and country.
As I grew older I began to realize that forming relationships takes work. It takes time and it often takes patience. Sometimes relationships come easily. Other relationships takes more time and more energy, and sometimes I realized, our differences in life experiences create relational dynamics that make it more difficult to build authentic relationships. This is often the case with cross-cultural relationships.
Cultural differences create relational challenges that are often difficult to overcome. There are many types of differences; some obvious, some less obvious, but these differences impact the relationships we form. While we can all work to overcome these differences, some create power dynamics which inhibit the normal formation of relationships.
Let me give you an example.
I was at a conference in a North American city. The conference was a gathering of African pastors and elders from around the upper Midwest. All of them had come to the U.S. as refugees following a season of intense persecution against their particular tribe in their home region. All of them were men of reputation in their communities back in Africa, and those reputations in many ways transferred with them to the U.S. They were leaders of men.
They had invited several American leaders from their denomination to teach at the conference. Though I wasn’t part of that denomination, I had been asked to lead a training on engaging and sharing the gospel with Muslims. Even though my session wasn’t until the afternoon, I chose to attend the full day of meetings.
The morning teaching went well until one of the African leaders voiced a concern.
His question was, "How can we do more to serve the North American church?"
The American leaders assured them there was no need to feel like they needed to do anything.
What was missed in the exchange was the underlying feeling of the African pastor that they were being seen merely as charity cases. The Anglo churches who were allowing them to use their buildings were doing so in good faith, believing they were serving their brothers and sisters in Christ. But a number of things were at play that prevented authentic relationships to develop between the African churches and their American host churches. These dynamics led to relational realities that left these African pastors feeling like they were not being understood or appreciated.
First was a general assumption that the African churches were basically poor and needy. In that sense the African pastors were struggling with a sense that they were being viewed as charity cases.
That was unfortunate.
This dynamic was in many ways the result of a number of relational misunderstandings. As the two groups met and interacted, the Anglo churches and their leaders entered the relationship from positions of power.
This power dynamic shows up in various ways:
There are of course other challenges, but when relationships are built in these dynamics of power imbalance, relationships won't develop into the kinds of healthy relationships where both parties come to the table with gifts to share, with talents to contribute and with experiences from which we can all learn.
To be clear: this is just a reality. The North American church isn't sinning any more than my Turkish friends were in not knowing me better. They are not actively creating this imbalance of power - it just is. It is the crucible in which we find ourselves however and it is the challenge we must actively seek to understand and seek - in any ways we can - to disrupt and overcome.
We must not merely throw up our hands in despair. There is much we can do to right the balance of power. And we have a good example!
This power dynamic shows up in various ways:
- Financial Power - Established legacy churches (traditional American churches) have established wealth. We are, in comparison, rich, and too often we look from our place of wealth on anyone who has less and assume poverty. It is difficult to build healthy relationships when one party perceives the other party to be constantly in need of help.
- Cultural Power - Immigrant churches and pastors often enter into relationships with their North American counterparts with a lack of cultural knowledge. They have to navigate American culture but also a church culture which has developed over the last two centuries that they just don't completely understand. They won't always understand why it is so important to be done by 2:00 pm or why we don't allow drinks in the sanctuary. It can be disheartening to always be feeling like "we're not doing it right." This can become a space that creates difficulty for the development of true relationship.
- Theological Power - North Americans love their theological training. It's not a bad thing to have so much seminary training but too often that becomes a gauge for spiritual maturity which can often lead to feelings of superiority or inferiority as relationships are built. This too can be another hurdle to the building of healthy relationships.
- Linguistic Power - Language! When I went to Turkey, one of the greatest challenges I faced in building relationships was that no one really knew who I was because I could not express myself fully in Turkish. My Turkish friends were gracious and kind but the reality was that they only knew a version of me - they didn't really know me. They knew a lesser form of me. I know of refugees and immigrants who were engineers and teachers and government leaders who are working in a meat packing plant now because they don't have strong English skills. My African pastor friends who spoke weekly before crowds in Africa, who were regularly invited to speak at conferences in Africa, who led churches and hours long prayer meetings have in many ways been relegated to the sideline when interacting with their American counterparts because they don't speak English. While they often invite American pastors to their conferences to teach; they are rarely invited to the American conferences to teach. The challenge of language is a real barrier to developing relationships from an equal footing.
There are of course other challenges, but when relationships are built in these dynamics of power imbalance, relationships won't develop into the kinds of healthy relationships where both parties come to the table with gifts to share, with talents to contribute and with experiences from which we can all learn.
To be clear: this is just a reality. The North American church isn't sinning any more than my Turkish friends were in not knowing me better. They are not actively creating this imbalance of power - it just is. It is the crucible in which we find ourselves however and it is the challenge we must actively seek to understand and seek - in any ways we can - to disrupt and overcome.
We must not merely throw up our hands in despair. There is much we can do to right the balance of power. And we have a good example!
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death--
even death on a cross!
-- Philippians 2:5-8
A Few Ideas
Here are a few ways you can disrupt this relational power dynamic.
The task before us is not an easy one. Building healthy relationships is difficult enough as it is. Add in the imbalance of power that naturally occurs in cross cultural relationships and the task can seem insurmountable.
But it's not.
With prayer, humility and a bit of hard work, we can find a better way.
Here are a few ways you can disrupt this relational power dynamic.
- Invest in learning their language. In doing so, you put yourself in the place of the learner. You, in essence, hand over some of the power by taking up the role of learner.
- Invite an immigrant pastor to teach in your church. Provide translation from their language to English.
- Invite yourself over to your immigrant friend's house for a meal. Honor them by allowing them to serve you. Be uncomfortable wandering into their territory and wondering what the proper protocol is when being received as a guest: should you bring a gift; do you take your shoes off or leave them on; what do we do when we have something on our plate that we do not recognize? These are all challenges and points of discomfort that your immigrant friends face daily.
- Go with an immigrant pastor to minister in their home country. Go as a learner and support their work.
- Listen to their story and hear their vision for what they see God doing in their church, in your city and to the ends of the earth.
- Read a few helpful books and perhaps have your congregations read a few helpful books.
- Global Humility by Andy McCullough
- Foreign to Familiar by Sarah Lanier
- Western Christians in Global Mission by Paul Borthwick
The task before us is not an easy one. Building healthy relationships is difficult enough as it is. Add in the imbalance of power that naturally occurs in cross cultural relationships and the task can seem insurmountable.
But it's not.
With prayer, humility and a bit of hard work, we can find a better way.
Thanks for reading!
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