Bridge Building: Being Sensitive in Cross-Cultural Preaching

Abstract

How does a minister preach cross-culturally? Can they bridge the culturally divide?What can a preacher implement into his sermon-writing process to help him preach cross-culturally? This paper introduces the approach of bridge-building to aid in cross-cultural preaching. The preacher inhabits the world of the biblical text and the world of his audience. The sermon bridges the gap from the biblical text to the world of his audience. This approach to preaching helps the preacher balance both.This paper also presents practical applications to aid in helping the preacher understand an audience in a cross-cultural setting. This approach and the practical applications were then presented to six pastors in various settings and stages of ministry. Then, the pastors compared their experience to this approach. From this research, the bridge-building approach and various other tools were determined to be useful to preachers in their sermon-writing process.