If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you will know our theme is multicultural youth ministry. I believe that most youth groups tend to look like and talk like the youth pastor. To be sure there are exceptions, but the data shows most churches (92.5%) are monocultural churches (DeYmaz, 2007; Gryskiewicz, 2018). However, the early church was extremely multicultural! Derek Cooper (2016) points out that the people groups mentioned in Acts 2:9-11 “correspond to the four points of a compass” (p. 29). The Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and Mesopotamians were from the East of Jerusalem, the people from Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia were from the north. The people from the west included people from Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, Rome, and Cretans. Finally, Luke mentions the Arabs of the south.
While modern readers of the Bible may have difficulty placing where these people were from, Cooper helpfully lists the corresponding modern nations. The early Christians from Acts 2 were from what is now modern day, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Libya, Italy, Crete, Syria, Jordan and the Arab Peninsula (Cooper, 2016, p. 29).
Would it surprise you to know that the early church expanded much more rapidly into Asia and Africa than in Europe? It surprised me! Most of my historical education of Christianity was centered in the west. Historian Philip Jenkins (2009) points out that the church was well established in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Sri Lanka “possibly before Canterbury had a Christian church” (p. 11). By 635 Syrian missionaries had even made their way to the capital city of China (Cooper, 2016). Many of the early church fathers who helped shape the theology of the church, such as Origen, Cyprian, Tertullian, and Augustine were from North Africa.
The early church thought it was essential to reach people from every culture and ethnicity with the gospel. They sent missionaries to go and carry the gospel to people that looked different and spoke different. So here is my challenge to you. Make missions an essential aspect of your youth ministry. As a youth group, adopt some missionaries to pray for on a regular basis. Consider supporting a missionary financially. Take your youth group on a missions trip with a recognized missions agency. Finally, be missionaries. Take the gospel to those in your community who look different and talk different than you.
Useful Links:
Speed the Light – Provides missionary transportation and communications equipment.
Light for the Lost – Provides audio, visual and printed materials for missionary evangelism.
Boys and Girls Missionary Challenge – BGMC equips kids to know, to care, to pray, to give, and to reach the lost.
Wide Open Missions – Short and long term missions opportunities.
Ambassadors in Missions – Short term missions opportunities for youth groups.
Refrences
Cooper, D. (2016). Introduction to world Christian history. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
DeYmaz, M. (2007). Building a healthy multi-ethnic church: Mandate, commitments and practices of a diverse congregation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Gryskiewicz, T. (2018). More than pizza: Youth ministry beyond our culture and ethnicity. Anthony J. Gryskiewicz via CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Jenkins, P. (2009). The lost history of Christianity: The thousand-year golden age of the church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia-and how it died. New York, NY: HarperOne.
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