2. Covenant and Community
The way we conceive of God’s covenantal relationship with God’s people is not separated from the way we think of how God’s people conduct their relationships among themselves and with the rest of the creation around them.

3. The Melting Pot

4. The Salad Bowl

5. Existing Models of the Church
Assimilation
Separation

6. Challenges How to deal with difference? An obstacle or an opportunity?
Boundaries? Necessary? Who, how, where to draw them?

7. An Intercultural Covenantal Community
I want to suggest that the church is called by the Spirit to live as a covenantal community that cultivates a decartelizing unity and fosters a just diversity. In this covenantal community differences are received as a gift, not a threat; and boundaries are not rigid, but rather porous and mutually negotiated.

8. An Intercultural Covenantal Community
When individuals and groups in the church learn how to claim and be critical of who they are, when they learn how to offer to and to receive from one another, the church embodies an alternative beyond the models of assimilation and segregation. When the church becomes an intercultural covenantal community, thus moving beyond being a monocultural or multicultural church, it proclaims a message of hope in a world that is polarized and divided.

9. Monocultural, Multicultural, Intercultural
Monocultural: preserving a culture
Multicultural: side-by-side cultures
Intercultural: interaction between cultures

10. Intercultural Covenantal Church
First Principle
The Church is God’s Project
The Centrality of God
The Lordship of Jesus
The Freedom of the Spirit

11. Intercultural Covenantal Church
Second Principle
The Need is Mutual
Content to be human
Risk of giving and vulnerability of receiving

12. Intercultural Covenantal Church
Third Principle
Conversion is Mutual
Changing Worldviews
Fluid Boundaries
It is a process in which we learn and grow

13. Intercultural Covenantal Church
Fourth Principle
Fellowship is Vital
Sharing Stories
From Pain and Shame to Justice and Healing
Food as an essential way of building a covenantal community

14. Intercultural Covenantal Church
Fifth Principle
Healthy Boundaries are Necessary
Attending to the work of the Spirit in/through who we are and in/through who we are becoming
A Just Diversity
Equality in negotiating boundaries

15. Intercultural Covenantal Church
The Church is God’s Project (Worship)
The Need is Mutual
Conversion is Mutual (Mission)
Fellowship is Vital
Healthy Boundaries are Necessary (Communion)