The United States is one of the most religiously diverse nations in recorded history. In the past an interfaith encounter between Americans might have involved a Methodist living next door to a Congregationalist. Fast-forward to the 21st century and today your neighbor might be a Wiccan, a Pagan, a Mormon, a Muslim, a Hindu, or a Buddhist. Increasingly, Christians are discovering that their family members, loved ones, friends, neighbors, and co-workers are identifying with any number of alternative spiritualities, new religious movements, and world religions.

American culture now represents a patchwork mosaic of various subcultures, a salad bowl, perhaps, rather than a melting pot. Each subculture holds to a variety of views on spirituality, values, attitudes, and behaviors that provide members or participants in a group with a sense of self-identity. In order for the Gospel to be correctly understood by various people groups and subcultures, it must be appropriately communicated, in other words, seeds must be planted with these different cultural viewpoints in mind.

There is a wealth of information available contrasting Christian beliefs with non-Christian religions and spiritualities. But this approach often falls short in building bridges to alternative spiritualities, and helping the seeker understand, the Gospel message.

We believe that the cultural situation of the West in the 21st century requires that the church think in new ways in order to present the Gospel effectively. The church in America has devoted a lot of attention and missions focus to world religions overseas, but little attention has been given to their adherents in America. As just one example, a Chinese Buddhist in Taiwan often receives more recognition as an adherent of a serious religious faith worthy of a missions response than an American Buddhist in California. Yet the new religions in many ways represent the Western missionary outreach of the major world religions such as Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Sikhism, and others (just as groups like the Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses represent new religions arising out of the Christian tradition) . Ministering in this context, the cross-cultural missions ministry of Neighboring Faiths Project to new religions might be considered an extension of the work of denominational foreign and international missions boards. This frontier missions work is rightly understood as having an intimate connection to the larger pursuit of the Great Commission around the world.

In order to effectively communicate the gospel in a changing culture, we will benefit from fresh biblical reflection. The Apostle Paul described his methods of ministry as a desire to “become all things to all men, that I may by all means save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22). Paul recognized that the Gospel must be presented in different ways in order to be understood by different cultures of people. Paul’s method of communicating to the Jews was different from his approach with the Gentiles. Certainly, his goal was to proclaim and defend the Gospel, but also to ensure that the Gospel was understood within differing cultural frameworks.

In keeping with Paul’s cross-cultural ministry philosophy, the Neighboring Faiths Project views new religious movements as religious or spiritual people groups. Put differently, we approach new religions as spiritual cultures rather than “cults.” Understood in this way, this means that they hold to unique ways of understanding reality and spirituality. In order for the gospel to be lived out and presented in culturally relevant ways, Neighboring Faiths Project attempts to incarnate the gospel through its staff missionaries in relational ways in the midst of the new religions. In addition, Neighboring Faiths Project develops and practices cross-cultural missions approaches that present the gospel in ways that are relevant to the differing cultural and spiritual contexts of new religions.

In order to take advantage of ministry opportunities provided by the 21st century, the vision of Neighboring Faiths Project is, “to evangelize new religions and to equip Christians to reach their neighbors for Christ. We plan to accomplish our mission through the following activities:

1) Missions – The primary purpose of Neighboring Faiths Project is to present the gospel of Christ among adherents of various alternative spiritualities. This approach involves the application of cross-cultural missions methodology.

2) Education – The ministry of Neighboring Faiths Project will educate the church on missions to new religions within the context of religious diversity through presentations at missions conferences, small group Bible studies, seminars, short-term missions, and the production of popular educational media.

3) Research – An important aspect of our ministry is continued research, writing, publishing, and the creation of multi-media projects at both academic and popular levels on alternative spirituality. This research activity involves a multi-disciplinary perspective with an emphasis on missions.

The ministry of Neighboring Faiths Project may be summarized by the phrase, “Building bridges to new religions and alternative spiritualities.”