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What if the Church could be 10 years ahead of the game? It’s a common theory that the Church tends to lag 10-years behind the times, but in part 2 of his interview with ThinkFwd host, Spencer Burke, Soong-Chan says that Christianity is moving even faster towards multi-culturalism than the American society (which is also rapidly becoming multi-cultural). How, then, can we be proactive in dealing with these changes? We can bury our heads in the sand and do things the same old way, until society changes and forces us to deal with many cultures. Or, we can ask, how can we be part of the change—even servant leaders in this change toward multi-culturalism?
What might it look like for White American Christians to embrace the move toward multiple cultures in the Church? Soong-Chan offers some ideas:
- Read authors from other cultures, or outside our typical cultural theologies
- Develop cross-cultural relationships—inviting people who are “not like you” into our home, our lives
- Become involved in cross-cultural ministry—learn from a church that has a completely different cultural reference than our own
- Step into a place where someone from a different culture has spiritual authority over you
We can all benefit and grow from experiences with people outside of our own culture. Much growth begins with relationships. Soong-Chan says that first generation or primary cultural experience is very relational. Second generation culture tends to be more technical and highly efficient, where things like social media and the Internet levels the playing field in terms of information access. And now people like Soong-Chan, who was born in Korea but has lived in American for 35 years, are combining the two. This combination of primary relational experience and technological social media experience results in a new cultural reference that extends to the Church.
Our schools and our workplaces already have the widest range imaginable of ethnicities and cultures. Soong-Chan says his 6 and 8-year olds children are already experiencing many cultures in their classes and it will be “normal” to have friends from many cultures. How sad would it be for their churches to remain mono-ethnic? And what an incredible opportunity for the Church to take the lead and embrace multiple cultures, learning from each other?
Click HERE to view Part 1 of the conversation
Personal Reflections:
- In my own life, have I ever given over authority to a spiritual leader who is from a culture different than mine and what did I learn?
- What one step can I take to move toward experiencing a culture or ethnicity different than mine? (see Soong-Chan’s ideas above).
Small Group or Staff Questions:
- If diversity in the church is occurring faster than society, how can we continue to build on this trend?
- Each generation of a cultural group can have different experiences (relational, technology, etc.). How have you seen or experienced this in your ministry?
Resources
- Soong-Chan Rah’s official website
- Free Chapter Download of The Next Evangelicalism - Individualism: The Heartbeat of Western, White Cultural Captivity (333)
- Soong-Chan Rah’s Social Networks:
- Soong Chan Rah on the web:
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July 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 am
Very interesting discussion. Our simple church is partnering with a Jorai-Vietnamese church to help some of the Jorai refugees in this area. We have gone to some of their Sunday services. Frankly I was disappointed. Their service was typical of any other evangelical service in the area except for the language. They translated our songs…they used our order of worship. I was hoping to experience something unique and was disappointed that they had adopted the western evangelical way of doing things.
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:18 am
[...] Watch Part 2 of this interview by clicking here [...]
July 30th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
JOhn,
A good observation. I would encourage two things:
(1) Look for churches that are doing contextualized worship: African American churches, some Native American communities, etc. I returned today from a worship service that was conducted in the style of the Hindu temple.
(2) I would also encourage looking to learn from non-Western church outside of the context of the Sunday Service or the worship service. In my chapter on the immigrant church, I point out that much of immigrant church life is beyond the worship service but the relational aspects of the church that extend beyond the worship service setting.
August 5th, 2011 at 10:48 am
[...] Watch Part 2 of this interview by clicking here [...]
December 17th, 2011 at 3:47 am
I just added your website to my blog roll, I pray you’ll think about doing the same.