Friends International Guildford is hosting a day for church leaders and congregants to explore what it means to grow a cross-cultural community from the initial welcome, to worship, to serving teams, to leadership.

There will be 4 sessions in the day with a speakers from Elam Ministries (Iran/Middle East focus), Southampton Lighthouse International Church (multi-cultural church and South Asia focus), Winners Place Church (African focus), and the Friends International Guildford team.

Refreshments will be provided during breaks but please bring your own lunch or use the hour break to purchase some. Open Grounds, the cafe at Guildford Baptist Church will be open for orders as well until 1:30pm.

Please aim to park at Millbrook Car Park (or one of the other car parks in Guildford) as parking at Millmead Centre is limited.

Topics for the day:

Culture and the gospel
What does it mean for a church to be multi-cultural?
Creating welcoming communities for Asian, African, and Middle East diaspora

Help us make the day as relevant as possible:

Please feel free to answer this three question survey to help us prepare the day to be as relevant to your context as possible:

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Speakers:

Friends International Guildford:

Lilli and Phil will be hosting the day and leading the initial seminar discussing the biblical and theological foundations for cross-cultural contextualisation. Both are International Christian Chaplains at the University of Surrey.

Lilli is a trained primary school teacher but has been working in student ministry for over a decade, firstly with Agape and then for the last 5 years with Friends International in Guildford. From Germany, Lilli has plenty of personal experience of navigating cultural differences and is passionate about seeing truly cross-cultural communities in church.

Phil is a trained secondary school teacher and moved from teaching into student ministry with Friends International in 2018. Having grown up in Papua New Guinea as a missionary kid and adapt to UK culture he has an affinity with those moving into the UK from other cultures. He is passionate about helping churches see the importance of hospitality in sharing both faith and friendship across cultural boundaries.

Asafh:

Asafh is a Brazilian missionary raised in the missions field, having lived and served in 7 different countries in the last 10 years. He is passionate about the need of Discipleship not only to develop a strong church but also to develop a healthy cross-cultural community within the church. Based in Godalming, Surrey, working with Elam Ministries, Asafh is responsible for supporting and assisting local European churches in their ministry with the Persian-speaking community.

Asha:

Asha became a Christian as a teenager in Southampton Lighthouse International Church through the warm sense of community and openness that transcended cultures. She has a heart to share what she has experienced through the work of the church, with a focus on reaching South Asian diaspora.

Ruth:

Ruth is the Pentecostal Chaplain at the University of Surrey and a pastor of a local church that meets on the university campus. From Nigeria herself, Ruth's ministry reaches a significant proportion of African students. She will be sharing from her experience how churches might welcome and integrate African diaspora.

Guildford Churches Cross Cultural Training Day