Planting churches for different people

Back in the mid 70s our youth ministry reached out to Cambodian refugees. After twelve months we discovered no matter how much we reached out, loved and served them, they never really felt a part of us. As soon as a Cambodian church was set up in the area it thrived. Why?

When we were church planting in the 90s no matter how much we reached out, loved and served the single mums who came along they never really felt at home. Then Janine, a former single mum, set up a group within the church for them. It grew and prospered. Single mums started coming to know Christ. Why?

Charles Chaney has done some thinking about shaping your church planting strategy to reach differing groups within an ethnic subculture. I think it also works for social subcultures.

Here are the groups he has identified within a subculture:

Nuclear: those explicitly and self-consciously concerned about subculture identity.
Fellow traveler: those to whom the subculture is a relatively important part of self-conscious identification;
Marginal: those who occasionally think of themselves as belonging to the subculture; and
Assimilated: those who explicitly exclude themselves from their subculture background.

Here’s what it looks like visually. The size of each segment can vary depending on the subculture.

Have a think about how your strategy could vary in order to reach each of these groups.

In the next post I’ll let you know what Chaney suggests you do.

By: Steve | 05/22/06 | 3. Contagious relationships - Church planting movements | Trackback | Comments [RSS 2.0]

2 Responses to “Planting churches for different people” »»

Terry

Comment by Terry | 07/16/06 at 8:58 am

I was intrigued by the idea that some members of a people group/subculture gain their identity more than others from membership in the people group/subculture. I was a little confused at first as to what how the assimulated were designated as such. When I think of assimulation I don’t necessarily think of identity. Assimulation assumes being an outsider has adopted the culture or mores of the surrounding culture. I’m not sure being assimulated into the surrounding culture and maintaining identity from your historical roots are necessarily mutually exclusive. It depends on a lot of factors.