Yesterday evening I visited Windsor, in the NW of Sydney metro area, for a meeting. To avoid the traffic, I drove early - which allowed me to take in the changes that have happened in the last ten or so years. Back in the good old days, when I was just a little lad, Old Windsor Road was one lane each way. And was surrounded by pleasant green rolling farm paddocks. Now, the new suburbs of Kellyville and Rouse Hill have been built amazingly quickly. The place feels like California (well, it's what I imagine California would look like...): big, multi-lane roads, freeway overpasses, enormous shopping centres, totally inadequate public transport (!)... and everything looks to NEW and FRESH and ATTRACTIVE!
Then I got to Windsor, which is still a cute country town perched on the edge of encroaching suburbia. This reminded me of a passing comment that Peter Hughes made once in a seminar on evangelising Sydney. He said it's useful to think of Sydney as a bunch of separate countries cobbled together. By that he meant the different parts of Sydney look and feel different. They have a different history, a different ethnic mix, a different climate. So they feel different. It's like they have a different culture.
Maybe we need to think more broadly about multicultural ministry. Maybe, if we move from one part of Sydney to another, for home, work or ministry, we need to think of ourselves as cross-cultural ministers. Maybe we need to think more deliberately about engaging the culture of the particular part of Sydney that we're in, with its particular challenges and enticements and barriers to the gospel. Thoughts, anyone...?
1 comment:
My sister used to live in Winston Hills, and I was always amazed at the differences in the people groups at her local shopping centre compared to Merrylands, where I live.
I think you've made a good point. A good example is the series of video clips Mike Jensen put up on his blog last year which to him characterised Sydney. They were all set in the trinity of the inner city/harbour/beaches. How different are the images of Sydney conveyed in such movies as Little Fish or The Combination. We need to ensure that we can reach the latter people groups as well as the former.
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