These are my notes from the Round Table Discussion on building cross-cultural friendships. Patty Lane did a great job facilitating the evening, even though she was fighting and awful cold. (Thanks Patty!)

+ To be effective in another culture you have to unlearn what you learned in your 1st culture.
+ Cross-culturally try to avoid using letters and emails, especially if its important, and if you do not know each other well.
+ Be careful: Don’t assume at first that you KNOW what someone is asking you.
+ Be careful: Teasing is received a lot of different ways.
+ Learn how to listen.
+ Learn about these issues:
When a person is worried about loosing face, how do they ask for help?
What happens when someone who is worried about loosing face is offended?
+ Sometimes a request comes through a third party.
+ Authentic relationships cannot be about me trying to make other people just like me. I have to learn how to appreciate others and how to work with them.
+ Learn how to ask questions.
+ Don’t confuse the form or behaviours of your Christian life with the meaning of your Christian life—Jesus Christ. Skip the form and talk about the meaning; that is, talk more about Jesus Christ and knowing Him than you do about going to church and particular behaviours.
+ Building cross-cultural friendships and leadership requires that you identify your own feelings about being different.
+ Keep trying to build cross-cultural friendships. The church is the greatest place on the planet for this because of Christ’s call and power to forgive, to be honest, and to love.
+ In the church we have the opportunity to create our own shared culture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.
+ Talk often together and share your stories.
+ See the strengths—biblical qualities of character, that each culture brings to the table.
+ Let other people’s culture sand away what is not God-honouring in your own culture.
+ We must not allow our own human nature to hide behind “culture” when it is in opposition to Jesus Christ.
+ Create a enough trust, enough safety, to identify the differences between “our way” and God’s way, and present the difference as a point of growth—something to try.