Timothy Tennat writes on being a Glocal Preacher, saying “There are several things which every pastor needs to know to effectively live and minister in this new global context.” He groups these under three headings:
- First, we must recognize the globalization of the Christian faith
- Second, to be a ‘glocal’ preacher, we must recognize that our own communities have drastically changed
- Third, in order to be a ‘glocal’ preacher we must recognize that we are now in a post-denominational world
“In an increasingly secularized world, shaped by the forces of globalization, we must recognize that our “micro-identities” must be seen in the context of our larger “macro-identity” as members of a global Christian movement. As a ‘local’ Christian we may be a member of a particular movement, but as a ‘global’ Christian, we belong to a world-wide community of those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord. We have to learn how to live with these creative tensions and allow the Holy Spirit to help us find ways to express our particularity as members of a distinct community of Christians within the larger context of our universality as members of the Body of Christ.”
Curious Christian 
I agree with the comments in this article.
However, I get around to a lot of churches and what I see is that whilst we’ve certainly become a lot more multicultural ethnically, a great many of those churches have a sameness (deliberate word) of Neo-Pentecostal or pseudo-charismatic/Hillsong-esq `feel’ about them religious-culturally.
I also don’t see much of what I would call authentic “local-ness” about them. The average increased families’ access to and usager the motor car/s and a religious-consumeristic “shopping for the most attractive consumeristically-speaking church has changed all that. People in Australia don’t necessarily see the local church in the same urban suburb as the one they will link up with to do grassroots faith community with. They tend to look for what they can “get out of it” more than what they can give to their closest local community neighbourhood.
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As Western Christians over the past 15 or so years greater and more frequent access to global travel, a global internet with all the countless blogging opportunities and exposures to variant Christian cultures has certainly made us more global in outlook and involvement. For instance, 10 years ago I hadn’t even been overseas – it was way out of reach for me – but now I’ve gone on numerous “missions” and “conference/seminar” trips mixing it with people from all over the globe, doing outreach stuff in places I once could only fantasize about going to in my wildest imaginations.
But I suspect that “being grassroots local” and “locally relevant” has for many Christians become irrelevant. And the technology of blogging, while it has been fabulous tool to get us talking worldwide to eachother, has also created a generation of Christian blog-snobs as well who only want to talk to Christian people who talk like them, but who ignore anyone else
who doesn’t talk sophistically enough in “sameness” of language or theological-speak or be mirror images of their own biases and prejudices.
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