Avoid offensive gestures. Along with the initial respect, the guest preacher is often given great latitude in gestures that may be considered rude or disrespectful. In Greece, I learned that the open hand is an obscene sign after I had used it repeatedly to describe five key points in my message. One of the best ways to avoid offensiveness is to observe the actions of others. Note when they bow, pray, remove shoes, cross legs or not, and how they sit. Check your observations with questions. Paul and Barnabas gave the example of inquiry in Lystra.

In your own congregation

Try focus groups. Market research is moving away from the statistical survey into face-to-face customer feedback — the focus group. To bridge the age gap in culture, try meeting with your teens to seek what is helpful in the worship service. When I set up a Filipino focus group in my first church I was shocked to hear that most Filipinos who attended couldn't understand more than 10% of my sermon. I asked the leader of the Filipino fellowship why so many of them listened so intently to my message. She blushed and said, "I think that they think you are handsome." We laughed, and then she gave me the feedback I needed, "You speak so fast and use such big words that most cannot understand at all." The focus group coached me to slow down and use common language.

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Lose 25% of your cultural weight. Some of us are culturally overweight by at least 25%. Our sermons consistently advocate a particular political and social doctrine. Would someone from an opposite political party stumble over my pulpit anecdotes? The son-in-law test is an excellent scale to test our cultural weight. If you have a hard time imagining your daughter or son marrying an attender from a different culture or political group, ask yourself why. What is it in the other culture that unsettles you? Could someone tell by your preaching which cultures may be acceptable or not acceptable?

Recently, we invited gospel singers from the States to our English-speaking international church. They were beaming with excitement as they told of the vibrant Korean church that they had discovered in Seoul. As they spoke, they revealed some of their cultural weight, "I am sure that some day Koreans will be sending missionaries to the United States." Actually, Koreans have been sending missionaries to the United States for about fifty years. There are presently more missionaries from Korea in the U.S. than the other way around.

Stick to your target audience. Many American congregations are happily homogeneous. The few from another culture who may attend our congregation may appreciate it because it is not like their home culture. Most Koreans attending our expatriate-oriented church are more inclined to reach foreigners than other Koreans. They attend our congregation because it is not Korean. If many more Koreans attended, they fear that the church may lose its American orientation.