Greg, I will risk violating one of our rules and say how much I appreciated your posts on this current topic of “missional”. I agree with your analysis and most of what you have said. I do agree, as you know, that we shouldn’t be unaware of the culture we are in, but I want to explore a little more this idea of an indigenous evangelism as responding to an indigenous culture.

You are right that Old Louisville isn’t Linden, Texas. Thank you, thank you for championing Old L’ville. A problem with urban spaces like Old L’ville (unlike more homogenous places like Linden or Louisville’s East end), and a problem I have with what I understand “missional” folks to be about is this urge to identify an “indigenous” culture. Old L’ville, for example is really a mosaic of three primary cultures and more secondary cultures. Old L’ville’s three dominant cultures are the urban poor, the young 20-30 something student/bohemian, and the middle/upper middle class “intelligensia”. They are all here and they all coexist, but they tend to be somewhat distinct. I think it’s great, but it makes it hard to say that as a church we will identify THE indigenous culture and minister to it.

This leads to one of my questions about the “missional” folks. The pursuit for the indigenous culture sounds like a quest to identify some native, unique, previously unknown culture (like the noble savage) that if we can study and imitate, then we can make ready for conversion. Well, this could be good at many levels, but it can be bad at many levels. What I see of many “missional” folks is that they have identified the “indigenous” culture of their 20-30 something contemporaries and adopted it. Is indigenous culture defined by a geographical boundary or really the same old homogeneous-unit principle? From my vantage point, the missional quest for an indigenous culture is really grandpa’s homogeneous-unit principle with more facial hair and more expensive coffee. (Disclaimer: I think the more facial hair and good coffee one can muster the better.)

I haven’t given this lots of thought, but my intuition has always been to be well aware of the culture and to do as little as possible to offend the culture, but within the church to develop a culture that is as transcultural as possible through simplicity, timelessness, and thoughtfulness thereby allowing the beauty, truth and power of the gospel to be displayed in all its slendor. In short, it is a Tiffanys approach that I am after I guess. I think in the end that a gift from Tiffanys would be welcome in any culture — how about Linden, Texas?

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