The Multicultural Leader: Developing a Catholic Personality

This book is intended as a resource and training tool for multicultural ministry practitioners and other professional Christians working in an urban ministry context. Along with the growing interest in the intentional development of multicultural congregations there is also a significant lack of practical resources to support such ministry. Dan Sheffield brings a missiologist's perspective to this discussion that has been shaped by experience in North America's multi-ethnic reality, by church planting experience in urban South Africa and by ongoing work with pastors in multi-ethnic megacities as diverse as Manila, Mumbai, and Budapest. The Multicultural Leader specifically deals with the role of congregational leadership in embedding the multicultural vision as a way of "seeing." The author draws from social theory, biblical studies, theological reflection, leadership studies, social research and intercultural communication skills to develop a profile of leaders necessary to initiate and sustain the multicultural congregation. The author's conclusion is that leaders in multi-ethnic congregations must move through a personal development process from ethnocentrism to ethno-relativism in order to truly serve as enablers of multicultural congregations. Dan Sheffield is Director of Global and Intercultural Ministries for the Free Methodist Church in Canada. He has served as a church-planting pastor in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa and adjunct lecturer at the Evangelical Seminary of Southern Africa, where he taught spiritual formation and conflict resolution to a multi-ethnic student body.