Climbing The Summit 14,000 Feet!

This quote is taken right from Dave Gibbon’s website http://davegibbons.tv/ as he defines what “Third Culture” is: “Third culture is about the fusion of multiple cultures, the art of adaptation, dialogue rather than dictation, diplomacy over strong arm tactics, and the embrace of discomfort as part of the journey to real community. Third culture is the mindset and will to love, learn and serve in any culture even in the midst of pain and discomfort. In short, 3rd Culture is PAINFUL ADAPTATION." Dave Gibbons is the founding pastor of Newsong, a multi-site international third-culture church. His book, The Monkey and the Fish, would give you a more in-depth look at this fascinating topic.

Dave says that the two Greatest Commandments: Love God and Love Neighbor tend to impact most churches. Most of us would think our neighbor is someone who is like us (racially, economically, socially, educationally, etc.). In the homogenous principle, likes attract. However this principle has created churches that tend to be comsumeristic. Dave would advocate that we need to start churches that are abnormal, with the above being the norm. You would have to admit most churches you and I attend would have the same types of people in them, and now gray and balding.


The reason this will be a painful process is that we will have to start to love people that are unforgivable people, people whom we may even hate. I do believe Jesus is ahead of us here when He told us, “Love Your Enemies”! Who do we hate, dislike, or not want to be around? As thoughts enter your mind about who would make you feel uncomfortable, whose face appears?


The Third Culture Leader will start to develop the following characteristics. We will have to start to focus on the fringe, on the misfits and not focus on the masses. The people we would consider on the fringe, the margins in history, have traditionally led movements. Vision starts on the fringes and moves the people and leaders to that vision. We need to, as God’s people, start to love the margins in our society. Jesus here again was a man that lived on the margins.


Can we pinpoint what holds us back from living on the fringe? Maybe it scares us because there are a different set of metrics there? “Failure is success to God; it is the thing that the world connects with us on.” Our weaknesses and failures are gifts from God. It is what the world resonates with. They understand suffering. Our weaknesses will tend to guide us more than our strengths. We will soon realize that the best discipleship is life on life, not some program or more programs. Amen.


Third culture leaders will also learn to understand that obedience is more important than passion to Jesus. If we want to change the world, Dave asks us to consider four principles that third culture leaders must develop:

• We need to strive for deeper collaboration. Spend more time working together with other bodies of Christ and take advantage of our strengths.
• Experience more communal living within the churches we attend - hang out together more often and have open door policies in the homes of believers.
• A house of prayer, that is what the church has to become. The church doesn’t believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. We don’t pray because we don’t believe in the power.
• Adapt to a lifestyle of radical sacrifice - die to our own values of material possessions. Maybe we could try moving to another culture or visiting another culture to put our western wealth in perspective.

This was a hard pass to climb up to. Dave really makes you think outside the box and challenges all conventional thinking in terms of how we are doing church today. A blog hardly does justice to the many ideas and principles he talks about, so I would highly recommend further study on this topic.


Good luck on your exploration of 3rd Culture!