Pretty techinical, but there's a good point to it!

During the minister’s retreat that I attended last week I had the occasion to hear Dr. Beth Grant , who is the chairperson for the Network for Women in Ministry. Her subject matter was “Developing community in an I-self culture.”

I-self culture is a somewhat clinical definition for a culture which emphasizes an individual over the group. Scripture clearly indicates in passages such as Ephesians 4: 15 -16, and Hebrews 10:25 that in Christian community, we experience growth and maturity. Yet in our culture, we’re trained from birth for independence, both acting and thinking as individuals. For Americans, healthy development equals autonomy; the classic example of this is a two year old child who can say “I will do this by myself!” We reward this type of behavior, and in school, our education system assumes independence and all the associated competition as a goal. With the possible exception of sports, our education prepares us for solo achievement, however isolated we become as a result.

However, in the rest of the world, people are raised in a community. There are examples of multiple mothering (“It takes a village to raise a child”) where decisions are made as a group. It fosters a We-self culture. Interdependence is the goal, and that is what is rewarded. The New Testament communities were definitely We-self cultures. Think of the verses that refer to people as a group, such as “You are a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” Much of the epistles are focused on this type of group mentality (think of the Body of Christ metaphors) and promote interdependence.

In this model, the I-self identity has formed a hard shell. Particularly after teen-age years, who we believe we are has hardened into a definite concept. I am good at music, bad at math, like sports, hate Brussels sprouts. I am a writer, a daughter, a teacher, etc. But in We-self cultures, the identity is not hardened. Symbolized here by the dashed line, this identity allows for sharing, stretching, and change without violating a person’s sense of identity.

Once we become adults, we are often forced by our job situations to be part of a team. Even in the church, we work as a team in our church to do evangelism or team-teach Sunday school classes. It’s difficult for us to focus on achievement as a group, rather than as an individual. Sometimes we feel competitive rather than thinking as a “team,” where if one of us succeeds, we all succeed. A group of I-self people, gathered into one room and forced to become a “team” will spend their time apologizing, asserting themselves, and defending their opinions, while subconsciously evaluating how everything “applies to me.” In a We-self community, the relationship of the community is more important than the conflict. You can’t walk away from the group, because you are so intertwined to the others.

The implication this has for cross-cultural ministry is huge. Muslims and Hindus, for example, form We-self communities; everything and everyone is intertwined. When a person decides to accept Christ, he is a traitor to the whole community. He loses everyone close to him, his job, perhaps even his home due to the community "shunning" him. He also loses his identity, which was tied into all the others in his family or group. One of the main reasons that converted Muslims backslide into Islam is because they have no way to build a new We-self community. The American church (full of I-self people) doesn’t know how to accept them into a group We-self identity. Until we are able to be a We-self culture in the church, forming a replacement family or a rebuilding identity, we will not make great strides in reaching these target groups.