When we live together:
cross-cultural discipleship @ DTC

By Sam Goh

10 Nov 2025

2025 DTC Graduation - 3 of 236_edited_ed

Listening to students' experiences

Earlier this year, I interviewed six of our leaving students to explore how living at DTC has enabled them to learn cross-cultural discipleship. Their experiences affirmed DTC’s goal to form and disciple the whole person in a small, residential, cross-cultural community.

Becoming more culturally aware

By living together, they encountered different ways of living and thinking, which made them more aware of their cultural lenses and more able to evaluate their culture. One student observed that people in an individualistic culture expressed their personal relationship with God by spending time alone with God. But in this student’s communal culture, one could spend time with God by spending time with other people. Being in Singapore, this student became more appreciative of the gift-giving culture back home where neighbours financially supported weddings and funerals. In contrast, he observed that people in individualistic cultures relied on their own money, though they could be freed from the burden of supporting others.

Learning humility & acceptance

Students realised they needed more humility, to be less dogmatic, and accept and bear with others, as they worked through, say, different standards of neatness or conflicting expectations of the parents to discipline their disruptive child (“Cane the child!” “No, bear with one another in love!”). One student changed from judging others (“You shouldn’t do this”) and insisting on one’s right standard (“I’m here to show you what is the right thing to do”), to expressing curiosity (“Interesting, why do you do like that?”) and appreciating why people felt what they felt and did what they did.

Knowing each other deeply

Facilitating these experiences, they said, was the intimacy of their relationships at DTC. While such intimacy was not a given for every cohort of students, this cohort felt they really knew each other, like family, including their habits, stories, struggles, and hopes. Such intimacy was possible because they lived close to each other and spent time together. They felt it was not difficult to be honest with each other. One student said the true essence of a family in Christ “lies in knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses yet still loving and accepting one another as who we are”. This mutual knowing came with practical love, such as helping people to keep their clothes on the laundry line. Students are also assigned to live with a roommate from a different culture for one year. One student learnt to be more accepting of the roommate as they negotiated the speed of the ceiling fan, and their sensitivity to light and noise.

"Like family, we know almost everything about each other, until sometimes I can recognise people by only hearing the sound of their steps, their laugh, when they cough, or when they sigh…Every time I wanted to go out, people in DTC would ask, “Where are you going?” When I came back, they would ask, “Where did you go?” Just like a family, they like to know everything about each other. Some people say there is no secret in DTC. Everyone seems to know everything. I know that it is because we care for each other. We care too much. We love each other too much."

Elisa Omega Maggang (Ega), from Indonesia, speaking at the Valedictory Service on May 23, 2025

Watching others

Students also observed at close quarters how others lived and imitated their positive traits. One student was struck that faculty members washed dishes with the students because leaders in this student’s country expect to be served and honoured. One student learnt relational skills from other students, such as using affirmative words and asking good questions to start conversations, and being patient with others.

Looking to Apostle Paul

Students drew from Paul’s teaching to navigate cultural differences and practise humility, discernment (e.g., not being dogmatic about culturally-conditioned non-essentials), forbearance and peace-making, which are necessary when ministering across cultures and managing conflict. As representatives of the evangelical Church observed in the Lausanne Covenant (1974):

The Apostle Paul, far from imposing an alien culture on others, adapted himself to their culture (1 Corinthians 9:19-23)…Following the example of the Son of God who ‘emptied himself’ of his glory in order to serve (Philippians 2:5-7), Christ’s evangelists are called to give up their home culture, and adapt to the culture of those among whom they labour; to give up cultural status, power, privileges and prejudices, indeed all but personal authenticity. This is how we can become the servants of others (2 Corinthians 4:5).[1]

[1] John Stott, The Lausanne Covenant (The Lausanne Movement: 2009), 70 –71.

Being re-formed by the gospel

The early church in a new cultural environment was being “formed” by cross-cultural interactions, just as they had to be “re-formed” by the gospel to cross cultures. For example, Peter learnt not to call anything impure that God had made clean, whether food or Gentiles coming to faith (Acts 10–11), and practised it by meeting Cornelius’ household. Yet re-formation took time: Peter was rebuked by Paul for separating himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those from the circumcision group (Gal. 2:11–14).

Negotiating cultural tensions

When negotiating tensions of Christian cultures, the culture of the training institution (DTC), the host culture (Singapore), one’s own culture, and the culture of other community members, whose “biblical values” should take precedence and how should this be determined? The Lausanne Covenant stated that culture must always be tested and judged by Scripture and “gospel” criteria:

Because men and women are God’s creatures, some of their culture is rich in beauty and goodness. Because they are fallen, all of it is tainted with sin and some of it is demonic. The gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another, but evaluates all cultures according to its own criteria of truth and righteousness, and insists on moral absolutes in every culture. (Lausanne, p. 67)

The writers of DTC’s mission statement envisaged formation “under the lordship of Jesus Christ”. A DTC core value is “Christ-centred” cross-cultural community where “we nurture a cross-cultural community which maintains our unity in Christ in the midst of cultural diversity”. DTC’s challenge is to find ways to ensure that its culture and values are Christ-centred and constantly aligned with Scripture and tested and corrected by it.

Pressed together

The students’ experiences show that formation in a residential cross-cultural community has multiple modes, with intensity of space and time, by living together in small numbers in a compact place over one to two years. Such intensity is conducive to nurture close relationships of acceptance and trust so that people are open to learn from, support, and correct one another; and for close observation and imitation of “models”.

Space and time are necessary for God’s work through people (e.g., roommate, friends), events (e.g., meals, mission trip), and circumstances (e.g., conflict). Jesus’ disciples lived with him and one another for three years, and were being formed over meals (e.g., John 21:12–23) and conflicts (e.g., Luke 22:24–30).

"God has brought us together."

God’s intent is to not only improve the students' ability to navigate cultural differences, but also, even primarily, shape their character and thinking. Students rightly discerned with awe and gratitude that “God has brought us here to Singapore and DTC, together from different places”. At DTC, God the Teacher and Mentor is doing his unique, creative formative work in each student by bringing together people from diverse cultures into one small place for a season to shape them through multiple modes of formation involving one another living together.

When we live together: cross-cultural discipleship @ DTC