Book Review
EMQ » January–March 2019 » Volume 55 Issue 1
Cultural Insights for Christian Leaders: New Directions for Organizations Serving God’s Mission
By Douglas McConnell
Baker, 2018
Grand Rapids, MI
200 pages
ISBN: 978-0801099656
USD $22.99
“Leaders seldom focus on cultural and organizational rituals when considering the effectiveness of an organization in achieving its mission” (p. 101). This is a key point of Cultural Insights, a book that draws upon cognitive psychology, the social sciences, and organizational studies to help leaders of Christian organizations, especially organizations working cross-culturally, fulfill their mission. Douglas McConnell seeks to answer the question, “What are we learning about culture that will help shape, catalyze, and propel our organizations missionally?” (p. xiv).
Eight chapters help readers to analyze local rituals, practices, symbols, and systems within organizations; each includes case studies of leaders from around the world reflecting missiologically on “the dynamic interaction of culture and organizational leadership” (p. xiv). For example, a culture’s psychological concept of the self and others have implications for member care and working on teams. Similarly, the culturally defined concept of “family” and beliefs about how one should help the needy influence the degree to which an organization may help needy individuals outside of its scope of mission. McConnell also addresses the question of building a healthy organizational culture by exploring how people transmit culture through symbols, shared stories, and products.
Good cross-cultural leadership also involves understanding people’s thoughts, their practices, the operating “worlds” of their society, organization and religion, and the different assumptions among them. Friendship and trust are essential for healthy intercultural organizations. Without them, things going wrong generate “charges of colonialism, militarism, economic advantage, materialism, racism …” (pp. 119-120). With courage, leaders must learn to affirm and promote the organization while also being honest and transparent concerning its problems. These responsibilities are “not mutually exclusive, but neither are they always neatly compatible” (p. 129).
McConnell assumes that in the discernment process, the most important question is “What are we called to do?” Similarly, he assumes that if proposed initiatives require more resources than what an organization has, “the missional answer … is no” (p. 22). However, Asians may not share these assumptions because the question of who leads may be more important than the what question. Similarly, if budgetary constraints limit the scope of new initiatives, where is there room for faith?
Notwithstanding such assumptions, Cultural Insights will help leaders of intercultural organizations to develop the “interpenetration of cultures as a core value and practice…. It is not simply a matter of adding another set of tasks, but rather a perspective we live out in the daily routines and evaluations we make in fulfilling our organizational mission” (p. 180).
Reviewed by John Cheong, an associate director for a mission center that catalyzes, researches and resources mission initiatives in Asia and beyond.
