Intercultural Leadership for Generational Impact
Session 6
DIGNITY & JUSTICE
Session length : 30 minutes 53 seconds
Diginity & Justice
This intercultural leadership session focuses on the root causes of injustice, how justice is advanced in various cultures, and the best ways to mitigate injustices in a cross-cultural relationship.
Learning Objectives
You will learn what leaders can do to bring healing to what was broken through injustice.
You’ll learn about ways to cross the gap into a non-Christian culture and establish a foundation to work from together.
You will understand the importance of a self-awareness in leadership and how to recognize your own cultural biases.
Key Takeaways
- The two dimensions of justice: The word for “justice” in the Old Testament comes from the same root Hebrew word as “righteous.” Justice is the righteous, or right, ordering of the world – both our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with one another. To love people rightly flows from a right relationship with God.
- Responding to the root causes of injustice: At its root in Genesis, injustice is the abuse of God-given power and authority that is not linked to the character of God that we were supposed to possess. With injustice, we become broken images and abusive rather than life-giving. Two vehicles given to us by God to restore what has been broken are human government with its rules and laws, and confession of our sins to find restoration and repentance. People are a healed, restored image of God.
- Working for justice collaboratively: Every culture, whether Christian or non-Christian, has that sense of right and wrong, of just and unjust, and that little bit of common ground is the place to build a foundation of trust and collaboration. Despite different belief systems, a partnership can still be formed around a shared goal. In some cultures, it is understood that people who are older or impoverished deserve a degree of dignity and respect, and that's a place to build a connection from
- Learning the undercurrents of culture: When entering into a different culture, we must take our time to genuinely study, learn about, listen to, and engage the nuances of that setting. Using Jesus as an example, His public ministry was about three years of his earthly nature, but there were about 30 years of earthly life leading up to that public ministry. In those 30 years, Jesus was studying the human condition, learning about the dynamics of it, and forming the message He wanted to share.
- Advancing justice cross-culturally: A lot of cross-cultural challenges would be mitigated if more of us were just genuinely curious about ourselves and the biases and assumptions that we carry from our own cultural contexts. Also, we need a genuine curiosity about the communities we engage with; we need to listen and ask questions more than we dictate
- Justice
- Injustice
- Relationships
- Sustainable Transformation
- Matthew 5-7
- Isaiah 58
- Genesis 1-3
- Acts
- Bibically, what are the root causes of injustice?
- What is the importance of partnering around a shared goal?
- Why is it important to take the time to study, learn about, listen to, and engage the nuances of a partner’s culture?
Speaker
Skye Jethani is an award-winning author, speaker, and pastor and serves as the co-host of the popular “Holy Post” podcast, a weekly show that blends cultural and theological insights with comical conversation. His books include “With: Re-imagining the Way You Relate to God,” “What If Jesus Was Serious?: A Visual Guide to the Teachings of Jesus We Love to Ignore,” “What If Jesus Was Serious About Prayer?: A Visual Guide to the Spiritual Practice Most of Us Get Wrong,” “What If Jesus Was Serious About the Church?: A Visual Guide to Becoming the Community Jesus Intended,” “What’s Wrong With Religion?: "9 Things No One Told You About Faith,” and “Futureville: Discover Your Purpose for Today by Re-imagining Tomorrow.”