Intercultural Formation and the Leadership Practicum: Competencies in Doctor of Ministry Education
MARSHA SNULLIGAN HANEY
Abstract
This essay affirms the value of experientially based leadership formation in Doctor of Ministry theological education as a hallmark of developing religious leadership for the African American context. It suggests envisioning leadership practicum goals so students gain intercultural competencies for all ministry contexts. The essay argues it is possible to increase cultural and ethnic literacy, personal formation and development, attitude and values clarification, multiethnic and multicultural social competence, basic ministry skills proficiency, educational equity and excellence, and empowerment for intercultural engagement through focused competency goals. It encourages experiences of cultural disorientation as the context in which students best learn the need to affirm ethnic identity, to be inclusive, to appreciate diversity, and to overcome fear of human diversity. Stated differently, through intentional comprehension of commonalities of human community, DMin students journey more rapidly toward intercultural competence.
Keywords: Doctor of Ministry, Intercultural Competencies, Ministry Context, Leadership Formation
Introduction
The purpose of this essay is to affirm the value of experientially based leadership formation in the Doctor of Ministry (DMin) in Theological Education, which traditionally has been the hallmark of religious leadership in the African American context. The essay suggests that re-envisioning and broadening goals of the leadership practicum as a core practice within the Doctor of Ministry program helps students gain invaluable intercultural competencies as they carry out their ministries, regardless of the context—congregational, denominational, societal, or global. It is possible to increase awareness and understanding of cultural and ethnic literacy, personal formation and development, attitude and values clarification, multiethnic and multicultural social competence, basic ministry skills proficiency, educational equity and excellence, and empowerment for missiological (intercultural) reform. Students learn best about the need to affirm ethnic identity—to be inclusive, to appreciate diversity, to overcome fear of human diversity, such as xenophobia, racism, and hatred toward those with different worldviews and orientations—as they intentionally engage in ministry through experiences of cultural disorientation. Stated differently, DMin graduates comprehend better the journey toward intercultural competence with more clarity as they discover the truth expressed by Maya Angelou, “We are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us.”[1]
The Intercultural-Competence Leadership Practicum: Methodological Components
There are several methodological components of a leadership practicum designed to increase intercultural competence. I suggest that for at least one semester, or three credit hours, DMin students should participate in intentionally guided periods of theological praxis while actively engaging action-based research within a different ethnic or cultural context. Faculty mentors and expert practitioners can assist students as they seek to process meanings and implications of their assumptions, actions, reflections, informed reactions, and decision-making that arise in response to experiencing these cross-cultural or cross-ethnic contexts.
To help develop an attitude of openness and reflective engagement, Fernando A. Ortiz recommends the following specific intercultural practices and mindsets in his essay “Becoming Who We Are: Beyond Racism and Prejudice in Formation and Ministry”:[2]
1. Articulate a vision of the church and society that invites the spiritual inheritance of diverse cultural groups to complement and enrich each other.
2. Promote cultural awareness such that persons and groups become more conscious of their normative values, assumptions, worldview, preferences, behavioral norms, etc. Still, they can also identify how their culture resonates with or resists the gospel message and the faith tradition.
3. Foster cultural affirmation by enabling persons and groups to identify ways that their ethnic or sociocultural religiosity gives fuller voice to latent dimensions of the gospel and faith tradition, as well as ways that their religiosity can assist the larger faith community to have a fuller knowledge and appreciation for the new theological insights, prayer forms, pastoral priorities and expression of discipleship that are consistent with the gospel, but not adequately explored.
4. Cultivate cross-cultural literacy by providing varied and ongoing opportunities for persons to view events, situations, ambitions, and problems from the perspective of other cultural groups and learn how these groups engage the gospel message and the faith traditions to address these realities.
5. Facilitate ongoing intercultural sharing opportunities that enable persons from different cultural communities to participate in each other’s communal life and celebrations, prayer, community service, education of the public, and theological reflection.
6. Acknowledge that some persons may use referents other than ethnicity to name their cultural identity, youth culture, American culture, etc., and invite them to help their conversation partners see the convergent injustices of racism and classicism, ageism, sexism, homophobias, and cultural arrogance.
7. Remember that culture belongs to the group, not simply a person, and ensure that the conversation partners who help construct the vision and the plan of our catechetical efforts constitute a diversified group of well-informed and representative spokespersons of their respective communities.
8. And anticipate the need to work through the stressful feelings of isolation, alienation, fear, or anger inevitably evoked by the challenges of meaningfully engaging with persons unlike ourselves.
Encouraging students to cross social and cultural boundaries related to their ministry interests and research problems is a valuable way to increase vocational insight of leaders for the church, society, and global community. Using the lens of intercultural studies, DMin students can engage in mission and ministry as congregational and other leaders while examining “faith in light of experience” and “experience in light of faith.”[3] A threefold model of theological praxis (Figure 1) that encourages an intercultural perspective can broaden learning insights and strengthen students’ work as they encounter the worlds of tradition, personal position, cultural beliefs and assumptions, and implications for actions. I identify one flexible methodology aimed at increasing intercultural competence.[4] Faculty who use the methodology should encourage students to examine and engage interculturally in an andragogic procedure. The method includes: (1) Engagement—asking questions; (2) Exploration—investigating a ministry issue, concern closely; (3) Explanations—entering dialogue; (4) Examination—investigating lived examples; and (5) Evaluation—assessing the responses and outcomes. Because encouraging DMin students to develop an attitude of openness and reflection derives from the critical demand for ministry leaders who can respond to twenty-first century social realities, what follows is disussion of the need for intercultural compentence, the contemporary multicultural context, and intercultural formation in a context of cultural disorientation.
The Undeniable Need for Intercultural Competence
The concept of intercultural competency has expanded rapidly and urgently in the twenty-first century. It requires institutions of higher theological education to re-assess critically their policies and procedures related to theological leadership formation in a multiculturally complex and dynamically global world. As a result, one might assume that a significant body of literature devoted to the study of the interculturally competent student has developed, but it does not exist. Though DMin administrators and educators are concerned about graduating interculturally capable and skilled students, there are very few indicators of and resources about students who have demonstrated a theology of intercultural competence upon which to draw. To speak of such a theology or theological perspective is a way of calling attention (1) to the need for critical and holistic theological thinking and active knowledge-based explorations of themes of human diversity and intercultural realities and (2) to the value that an intentionally designed intercultural leadership practicum based on specific outcomes and framed by intercultural attitudes, knowledge, understanding, and skills could add to doctor of ministry educational formation.[5]
Articulated vision and mission statements exist for higher education institutions of all theological persuasions and backgrounds (whether formed and shaped from a denominational or ecumenical foundation). Using religious imagination and metaphors, these institutions indicate, for example, the type of students they seek to graduate through a curriculum that encourages intercultural competence by educating and nurturing “women and men who commit to and practice a liberating and transforming spirituality; academic discipline; religious, gender, and cultural diversity; and justice and peace.”[6] The question that arises for this and other institutions and faculties is this: “Are they achieving their goal of educating graduate-level theological students who can interact effectively as religious leaders with persons from other cultures and in intercultural situations?” I suggest that most faculties of theological educational institutions have much to do to achieve the goal of preparing interculturally competent theological students and graduates who can faithfully and effectively respond to the complex immigrant, multiethnic, multicultural, and global concerns impacting congregations, ministries, and leaders. Addressing this concern grew from recognition that knowledge about theological education methodologies necessary for the future is limited, and from understanding that theological educators can be confident the future will become more diverse—multiethnic, multi-religious, and multicultural. It is imperative to explore how the DMin practicum may provide a framework for understanding and fostering the interculturally competent student as an anticipated outcome of DMin education.
Missiology, a theological discipline developed in the United States during the mid-twentieth-century, has been reformed in the academy as Intercultural Studies and has much to teach us on this subject matter. The reformation of “missiology” is primarily the outcome of encounters with postcolonial critiques, liberation theologies, and gender studies which assert that educational preparation of persons for leadership, especially religious leadership in the twenty-first century, requires pedagogies the develop intercultural competency. If theological education is perceived as meaningful, relevant, and having integrity in today’s complex society, theological institutions must focus on the formation, development, and assessment of interculturally competent DMin graduates—ordained and lay leaders, women and men—who constitute an intentional and anticipated outcome of an advanced professional theological education. What might we learn if more attention were given by DMin faculty and administrators to the concept of the interculturally competent graduate? How might we engage a methodology that encourages a holistic, integrated, and multi-disciplinary examination of intercultural competence within the leadership practicum? How can we ensure that such a practicum offers an alternative trajectory for viewing the role and relationship of religious leadership, God, and self in a dynamic and constantly challenging and shrinking world?
The Current Multicultural Context and the Practice of Ministry
There are many reasons why DMin education should seek to address the need for intercultural competence and incorporate it within its curriculum and other programmatic activities. These resons include:
1. the changing social realities of U.S. and international societies experiencing diverse ethnic, social, gender, economic, and cultural groups increasing in size and social influence;
2. newer understandings of the Bible as a book that was written by and for immigrant communities and their reflection on its contents;
3. increased awareness of the impact that culture and ethnicity has on human growth and development, especially related to how effective teaching and learning, both oral and ocular, occurs;
4. the changing dynamics between the growing Church of the Global South and the declining Church of the Global North, and the need for all congregations and their leaders to respond as partners in God’s mission;
5. an increase in the number of multicultural ministry possibilities in the local community to which religious and ministry leaders must attend; and
6. opportunities for denominational and non-denominational leaders to respond to human rights and environmental justice issues that reflect the glocal, that is, the interconnecting of realities which unite the local to the global in terms of both knowledge to be gained and action to be taken.
However, as crucial as these macro factors are, an equally important and primary reason DMin education should be concerned about intercultural competence is the diversity of humans living and working in a shared space, within the same community. In most urban and suburban strip malls in many major cities, business owners and their employees and customers must work and live together within a small physical space of no more than two acres of land. Daily they cross boundaries of cultural and ethnic differences.
Consider this example. Located in the same strip mall is the new non-traditional congregation, The Redeemer Church, a small upstart ministry that seeks to minister to youth and deter juvenile delinquency. The Redeemer Church and surrounding businesses share the same parking lot and public utility services by commercial real estate contract. In addition, as public citizens, they share common concerns about the safety of their families, homes, schools, and the communities in which they work, live, and worship. Yet, as human beings, they each embody a distinct worldview, philosophical or religious understanding of life and what gives it meaning, and specific cultural orientations. Although The Redeemer Church may be geographically located in what traditionally has been a historic African American neighborhood, the contemporary reality is that the mall’s proprietors now include Shanika, a second-generation African American owner of a beauty shop; Daminaitha and Thomas, immigrants from India who own the local print shop; Godman, an immigrant from Nigeria who owns an auto repair shop; and Yasim, the Islamic owner of a local restaurant specializing in Halal foods. They all must learn what it means to be neighbors in the new publicly acknowledged multiethnic, multicultural, and pluralistic society that has resulted. Like them, The Redeemer Church congregation and its pastoral leadership have discovered that they, too, must learn how to respond to that ancient religious question that has dire social consequences: “Who is my neighbor?”
Given such multiethnic and multicultural contexts in which religious leaders are called to lead, how does the question “Who is my neighbor?” affect the practice of ministry? Or does it? Whether or not they are prepared, today’s religious leaders are expected to engage current religious and societal issues within local multicultural communities. These issues require moral, ecclesiastical, religious, cultural, and global responses. Current DMin students and graduates of terminal degree-conferring theological and spiritual education programs are expected to know how to lead congregations, chaplaincy and hospice programs, social agencies, funeral homes, and other forms of pastoral ministries that includes crossing cultural barriers of differences, with knowledge of how to be inclusive, and with broadened understandings of commitment to the full participation of everyone in local and public life.
Ordinarily, it is expected and often assumed that pastoral leaders can respond appropriately to social and cultural differences and promote inclusion within the congregation’s life. But doing so today requires preparation for engaging the complex diversity religious leaders encounter. Consider these examples and the difference that intentionally prepared leadership might make in each instance:
1. Determining the appropriate means to welcome and attend to church members who are vaccinated and unvaccinated against the coronavirus.
2. Determining whether to prioritize the needs of the church seniors or church youth as reflected in the church budget.
3. Leading an ethnic congregation that is unwilling to do so, in discerning whether it adjusts to gentrification and the influx of “the other.”
4. Ministering to a historically middle-class church that is unable to accept its changing struggling working-class demographics.
5. Ministering to both a Christian nationalist who participated in the January 6, 2021, insurrection and a social justice advocate who must work together denominationally.[7]
6. Ministering to influential male church leaders who refuse to advance women to positions of authority and to change oppressive church practices.
Intercultural Formation for Ministry Amidst Cultural Disorientation
Daily we hear adverse reports of instances that illustrate why it is crucial to provide an education that enables ministry and religious leaders to respond appropriately, intellectually, emotionally, and socially to cultural and social diversity issues. The increased recognition of cultural and social diversity derives from critiques of colonialism, race discrimination, subordination related to gender and sexual identity and more. The heightened visibility and voices of diverse groups has resulted in conflict, violence, resurgence of racism and discrimination, and more. The presence of cultural and ethnic conflict and violence, racism, prejudice and discrimination, language differences, and differing worldviews and communication styles are often areas of great concern to students, not only because they are pastors, ministers, and Christian educators but also because they are concerned citizens living with others in a diverse, multicultural society. Many persons experience the diverse, multicultural society as disorientation because of feelings of displacement from normal positions and relationships. At the same time, the resulting rise in social conflict and violence suggests a state of disorientation across the society. Preparing ministry leaders to respond to these realities is one important task of the DMin contextual education practicum. Developing a practicum focused on intercultural competency will directly address these concerns.
Determining how DMin education can understand its role and responsibility in educating the interculturally competent student as an anticipated outcome of theological education is not an easy task. What intercultural attitudes, knowledge, and skills do theological leaders need to engage persons and organizations of other cultures effectively? As we consider this question of intercultural competence from the perspective of higher education, the research of Darla K. Deardorff is most helpful.[8] Deardorff currently is executive director of the Association of International Education Administrators, a professional organization based at Duke University. She also is an adjunct research scholar in the Duke Program in Education. Deardorff has published widely on topics in international education, global leadership, and intercultural learning/assessment.
Intercultural competence is a term used to describe the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately with people of other cultures. It is a lifelong, complex, broad learning goal and must be broken down into more discrete, measurable learning objectives representing specific knowledge, attitude, or skill areas. Deardorff’s research does not explicitly address intercultural competence in theological institutions. Yet, her focus on graduate student outcomes related to analytical study of globalization and internationalization has been constructive, particularly in identifying underdeveloped areas of thinking. If amplified, her work could contribute to a more holistic understanding of teaching intercultural competence within theological education. Specifically, Deardorff identifies four areas through which DMin education may address shortcomings in teaching about the practice of ministry and integration of intercultural competence: (1) lack of specificity in defining the concept of intercultural competence and specific components of it, (2) lack of a designated method for documenting intercultural competence, (3) lack of clarity as to what it means to be interculturally competent and how to collect the data on this, and (4) lack of knowledge related to how to access meaningful outcomes.
Despite these deficits, Deardorff’s research moves us forward by raising the concern for clearly articulated statements of significant external and internal outcomes. The desired external outcome is adequate and appropriate communication, including practical and proper behavior in an intercultural situation. The stated desired internal outcome is an informed shift in frame of reference that includes traits such as adaptability, flexibility, an ethno-relative view, and empathy. Whether these generic expressions of results, as identified by Deardorff, are applicable and sufficient for theological education is debatable.
The vision of competency resulting from the intercultural formation of the DMin praticum is that of DMin graduates—pastors, ministers, and community and justice advocates—who can assess and exhibit intercultural competence and broaden the theoretical work of Deardorff and others. That is, in addition to demonstrating intercultural competency, students and graduates may learn to articulate processes for incorporating missiological practices such as intercultural empathy, hospitality, African-centered spirituality principles based on Ubuntu,[9] and more. Until religious institutions can wrestle with and define the concept of intercultural competence theologically, authentic learning and teaching will be impeded.
Re-Envisioning the Core Leadership Practicum Requirement
As African American theological institutions prepare leaders to engage actively and effectively in cross-cultural and intercultural ministries, they must be able to identify and expand their understanding of those critical factors (including experience, sacred scripture, tradition, culture, and social change) that promote the Christian faith as an intelligent inquiry into God-consciousness. Promoting Christian faith as intelligent inquiry is crucial if theological education is to be perceived as valuable and necessary by those in the pews and pulpits and those on the side streets and on Wall Street. Doing so makes it possible to view Christianity as a heritage capable of embracing purposeful, creative, holistic, and healing human interactions. Because the contemporary struggle for human dignity and human rights within the United States is profoundly personal and communal, theological education must take the first step in this suggested engagement, assisting local churches in drawing upon their spiritual, social, and theological resources in ways that ignite their sense of vision, purpose, and mission. Local churches need shepherding (mentoring) to overcome ignorance, hesitancies, and the fear of change, and to provide them with a Christian moral compass as they grow in their discovery of who they are and how powerful they can become, with no need to demonize either their own communities or communities of others who are different.
A great benefit of African American theological education is its tendency to value experientially based leadership and learning. As Michael Royster writes, “Religious leadership within the African American context reflects a diverse and complex set of experiences, ideologies, and theological understandings as a group in the diaspora. The experientially based leadership formation derives from the struggles for liberation, equality, and reconciling the African heritage with a Euro-based legacy into a distinctly African American institution referred to as the ‘black church.’”[10] By re-envisioning the DMin leadership practicum as an experientially based study of the practice of ministry within a multicultural or different cultural context, the practicum can provide evidence of the importance of multicultural/multiethnic studies as significant for theological education as well as leadership training for multicultural and multiethnic situations. Moreover, using a setting determined by students offers an opportunity for their deeper recognition of the dynamic and unique re-envisioning and redesigning of the core leadership requirement to encourage achieving the critical and desired outcome of increased intercultural understanding and skill development. DMin students in theological institutions that emphasize intercultural competence will be assisted significantly by the DMin practicum as they (1) gain empowering notions of selfhood within multicultural and multiethnic contexts that enable them to engage current ministerial and societal issues within an intercultural framework that explores their moral, pastoral, missiological, and global responsibility and (2) learn to broaden as well as deepen their commitment to the full participation of everyone in local and public life.
For one institution, peviously, the DMin practicum was described as a two-semester course designed to place the student in a new learning context where the student could develop, execute, and evaluate an aspect of ministry. The learning outcome proved challenging to measure because practicum supervision was not evenly available and supervisory evaluations were disjointed. The course has been reframed as an intensive one-semester course emphasizing intercultural dialogue of leaders about leadership issues related to the student’s research. The method now is described as intentionally designed intercultural dialogue with three diverse leaders of the research interest.
The student and DMin staff designed the intentional intercultural or interfaith dialogues to develop critical, reflective, and investigative skills related to the practice of ministry and the final course project. A digital video is the final summative course outcome, one created by the student to show genuine new intercultural learning resulting from the intercultural leadership dialogue practicum. Two significant outcomes were addressed by re-imaging how methodologically the DMin practicum can be re-envisioned as a core leadership course requirement. The first outcome is centered on determining how to teach the student to become an interculturally competent professional who already functions as a religious leader in various leadership contexts. The second centers on ways to increase the value of the dissertation project by utilizing and assessing intercultural knowledge related to an essential practice of ministry as defined by the matriculating students.
While it is beyond the scope of this article to present a complete analysis of the possible impact that redesigning the leadership practicum might have on the DMin educational process, the above Figure 2 seeks to highlight the following:
1. Internal Learning Outcome: The DMin student would develop an informed worldview capable of embracing people of other cultures and enabling the student to participate with people of different ethnicities and cultures to effect social change in meaningful ways.
2. Exernal Learning Outcome: The DMin student would develop the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in word, deed, and lifestyle (holistically) within an intercultural situation in ministry and public life.
3. Intercultural Attitudes: The leadership practicum would begin with awareness training, teaching students how to be attentive to experiencing the reality of the here and now as they encounter differing people. The following values are emphasized: respect, human dignity, and the valuing of others. In addition, openness to human differences, withholding judgment, compassion, being a risk-taker, and assuming the posture of an andragogic (adult) learner are anticipated. Moreover, valuing curiosity and discovery would be promoted as critical attitudes.
4. Intercultural Knowledge: The student would acquire knowledge related to (a) the self, including cultural self-awareness and definitions of human diversity, social location, worldview, and history; (b) others, with an emphasis on understanding another’s worldview and how it functions to describe a person’s life and the importance of cultural and religious identities; (c) culture, including how cultures co-exist and conflict; (d) sociolinguistic awareness and plurality; and (e) the need to utilize and affirm multiple intelligences to shape a more informed leadership style.
5. Intercultural Understanding: Because intercultural knowledge involves more than simply knowledge of other cultures and because learning does not constitute competency, attention must be given to the student’s development of self-understanding in successfully interacting with persons of diverse backgrounds. Proper comprehension of intercultural teaching and learning comes through active engagement of mission and ministry practices because, in general, persons learn better through experience. As students engage in intercultural experiences and didactics related to listening and speaking, giving and receiving, praying and being prayed for, laughing and crying, suffering, and healing, they become more proficient in developing intercultural skills.[11]
6. Intercultural Skills: The ability to engage in human exegesis, human archeology, spiritual geology, and story-linking are skills that can help move students beyond models of paternalism, colonialism, and imperialism. This movement is developed over time as students learn to value their own beliefs as well as the beliefs of others. For instance, equipping oneself with the means to combat disinformation and misinformation in times of social chaos and confusion is an essential leadership skill in some urban communities. The religious leader with intercultural skills can construct a culture of peace “with justice” that ensures affirmation of culturally diverse communities through due regard and respect for the communities’ diversity.[12]
Conclusion
Like all U.S. higher education institutions, DMin programs face many intellectual, social, and cultural challenges as they prepare women and men for making relevant professional contributions in a changing world. As ministry leaders, contemporary DMin students often face hermeneutical dilemmas related to intercultural competence due to the current cultural disorientation within theological education, the church, and society. Despite this reality of disorientation, theological institutions of higher education are mandated to educate and prepare DMin graduates with intercultural skills that enable them to function effectively as leaders within a multiethnic and multicultural society.
It has been the intent of the essay to indicate how, through re-envisioning and broadening the goals of the leadership practicum as a core practice within the DMin program, students might gain invaluable intercultural competencies for their ministries at various levels: congregational, denominational, societal, and global. A twenty-first century global and universal view of the world requires that Christian leaders are educated to live in it faithfully. In many aspects of Christian mission and ministry, the global has become local, and the local is intricately related to the global. It is no wonder that a growing number of Doctor of Ministry dissertation projects illustrate that the pursuit of action-based knowledge is contextual, multiethnic, multi-faceted, and multicultural. Complex issues related to cross-cultural ministerial appointments, the growing impact of Christian immigrant communities, and the increase in opportunities for active public and religious participation in local, national, and worldwide missions matter to local congregations.[13] The growing number of DMin leaders and their congregations with memberships and ministries represented throughout the African Diaspora and the global community, as well as the number of non-traditional ministries that are addressing multicultural realities and diverse social contexts of ministry, are constant reminders that a mono-culturally based education is no longer adequate to address complex issues that DMin students encounter in the practice of ministry today.
NOTES
Maya Angelou has shared these words referencing Terence, an enslaved person whom Terentius Lucanus, a Roman Senator, brought to Rome, took under his wing, and educated. Amazed at his abilities, he soon freed him out of respect. Terence eventually became a celebrated playwright around 170 BCE. He famously wrote: “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto,” or “I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.” ↑
Fernando A. Ortiz, “Becoming Who We Are: Beyond Racism and Prejudice in Formation and Ministry” in ed. Fernando A. Ortiz and Gerald J. McGlone, To Be One in Christ (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2015). ↑
This is a mantra of the former director of the Interdenominational Theologial Center’s Ministry and Context Office, the late Michael I.N. Dash. ↑
The methodology also is presented in a companion article as specifically applicable to the development of interfaith or interreligious perspectives on issues encountered in the practice of ministry. ↑
An argument on the need for a theology of intercultural competence is made in the essay “A Theology of Intercultural Competence: Toward the Reign of God” by Marsha Snulligan Haney in Fernando A. Ortiz and Gerard J. McGlone, S.J., To Be One in Christ: Intercultural Formation and Ministry (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2015). ↑
This reference is to the 2016 mission statement of the Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, Georgia. ↑
In White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020), Robert P. Jones provides an analysis of the historical relationship of Christianity and white supremacy that is long overdue. ↑
See “Internationalization: In Search of Intercultural Competence” by Darla K. Deardorff in International Educator, Spring 2004: 13-15. Also helpful are the SAGE Handbook of Intercultural Competence (Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2009) and the Intercultural Competence Model presented by Deardorff in the Journal of Studies in International Education, Fall 2006: 10, 241-266. ↑
Ubuntu is a Nguni Bantu term from the Southern African region, popularized by President Nelson Mandela which means literally human-ness, and is roughly translating to human kindness. ↑
Michael D. Royster “The African American Context” in ed. Michael D. Royster and Sharon Henderson Callahan, Volume One: Formal and Informal Religious Leadership in the USA, (Thousand Oaks, SAGE, 2013). ↑
Sherron Kay George discusses these dyads in Called as Partners in Christ’s Service: The Practice of God’s Mission (Louisville, KY: Geneva Press, 2004). ↑
Refer to the Multicultural and Multi-ethnic Societies-Discussion Paper Series-No. 1, Henri Giordan, UNESCO, http://www.unesco.org/most/giordeng.htm. ↑
B. Hunter Farrell and Balajiedlang Khyllep, Freeing Congregational Mission: A Practical Vision for Companionship, Cultural Humility and Co-Development to be published by InterVarsity Press-Academic in 2022 is an important reading related to the need for integrity in mission and ministry.
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Farrell, B. Hunter and Balajiedlang Khyllep, Freeing Congregational Mission: A Practical Vision for Companionship, Cultural Humility and Co-Development to be published by InterVarsity Press-Academic in 2022 is an important reading related to the need for integrity in mission and ministry.
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