At Crossway Multinational Church, we believe it is good and enjoyable to have people in our church who live life based on different cultures. One way that people have described different types of cultures is Expressive, Analytical, and Reflective. Expressive cultures tend to be louder, to speak a lot, to have many activities happening at home, and to express more emotion. Analytical cultures tend to be pragmatic, orderly, structured, and very logical. Reflective cultures tend to be quieter, to emphasize thinking and reflecting more than speaking and expressing, to watch other people more out of concern for them, and to work to save face.
Whichever one or more of these categories best describe you, we want to welcome you and help you feel at home, even as we want to do for people who are more comfortable in the other categories. We don’t want to make you have to act like other people. So if you are an expressive person, we want to help you find good ways to express yourself. At the same time, if you are a reflective person, we don’t want to force you to express yourself. We’ll all have to adjust some to welcome and honor the others, even as we hope that people will do for us.
These variations will show up in many ways, including in our worship services, in our leadership, and in our daily interactions. When interacting with others and their behavior or reactions seem strange to you, consider whether or not they are more expressive, or more analytical, or more reflective than you are. Seek to understand them and welcome them for who they are, even as you want to be understood and welcomed for who you are.