Cross-cultural Ministry

If you are working at crossing ethnic lines, or if you are frustrated with stereotypes, Eric Bryant’s new book, Peppermint-Filled Piñatas: Breaking Through Tolerance and Embracing Love,
is a book I highly recommend. And especially if you work with youth — this book is even better. Bryant ministers at Mosaic in East LA (with Erwin McManus).

Eric Bryant, who once tried to be a stand up comic and didn’t make it, is a comedic writer… this book is filled with funny and witty stories and lines. But Peppermint-Filled Pinatas — his attempt to be cheap once for a birthday party — is anchored in ministries. Ministries that are at their very heart a missional work to cross ethnic and cultural boundary lines in order to draw people to God.

Here are his major ideas: people matter the most and that means:

1. Getting off the couch to make friends
2. Partying as a way of expanding our influence
3. Finding a common cause to create community

Love is the new apologetic and that means:

4. Proving that God is real through civil behaviors
5. Seeing past stereotypes
6. Reaching across the ideological divide
7. Engaging others in a post-sexual revolution world
8. Building relationships with the religious

This is a very good book. It is not accusatory, so don’t worry that he’ll make you feel guilty. Nor is it agenda-driven — it’s a pastor’s advice on how to carry on a ministry in a world that is becoming increasingly diverse, and how to enjoy yourself doing it.