wow this is a deep topic!  i am from Seattle, grew up at First A.M.E. church ( which stands for African Methodist Episcopal, yes Methodist the frozen chosen)  our church was always very open and diverse even in days of old.  i am almost 49.  i moved to Germany and attended the army chapel-- a whole different type of worship.  we were in colorado springs for 18 years started in a mostly Black baptist church.  (Yes for the record i hate the term african american  i was born at harborview! and i grew up in bellevue) we left there and started a new work Solid Rock Christian Church. our vision was for a multicultural multi generational church. to achieve that we partnered with New Life, Andrew Wommack Ministries, Cindy Jacobs, Peter Van der Westhuizen and YWAM.  suffice it to say i was not really ready to return to a dead homogeneous church.  imagine my surprise when not only was it alive but but all kinds of people doing all kinds things on church.  we have a couple that have turned into all of our parents- they just happen to be white. we have so many different cultures and languages  and all are working together for the same vision--- to get the love and name of Jesus out to the masses.  it was supposed to be telelvised' but you know the media,  sunday afternoon we took the our body and the neighboring church over to the restaurant on 23rd and union and had a prayer vigil.  our church was very much tied to the restaurant as the first owner that was killed a few years ago was a member of our body.

i am saying all that to say, i don't think that it takes a committee or a program to reach different cultures or generations, just love and open hearts will do the work to bring them in  and real life preaching and teaching keeps people returning.  this walk is not easy no matter your culture or ethnic background and that is where we can all connect.

On Feb 6, 2008 11:42 AM, Wayne <celebok@earthlink.net> wrote:

Well, the thing is, none of this was covered in that 700 Club
segment. The main message was simply, this is the way church should
be. My guess is that most people were watching that and
thinking, "Yes, that would be nice," and not having a clue of what
steps they could take to make it happen in their church.

What's interesting is that I was having discussions about this in
online groups, and the general attitude of other people seems to be
that they ultimately can't control who shows up at their church, and
that to figure out how to attract other types of people would be too
complicated and would take their focus off of more important things
like their spiritual growth. I'm thinking Antioch's message would
be more effective if it also included the "how to" part. Basically
saying to them, "It's not as hard as you think. Here's how you do
it." Or perhaps have some kind of multicultural consultant offer to
visit other churches and pinpoint their problem areas that might be
turning off certain people-groups and how they could fix it.

Still, there are people who just simply disagree that this is an
issue at all, and there's not much we can do about that.

--Wayne

--- In pugetsoundchristiansingles@yahoogroups.com, Chica Christ

<chica4christ00@...> wrote:
>
> I agree with you and disagree with you Mr. Wayne. Yes there is a
snowball effect but inside the church you need to have an atmosphere
for each of the different cultures as well. How long have you been
going to Antioch and have seen this??? ;) Worship each week is
different, so it appeases different groups...ages, cultures, etc.
That is a HUGE difference than many of the other churches. Hutch
also talks ALL OF THE TIME about it being a church for all
people...when that is pounded on the congregation from the pulpit, I
imagine that would give some people of different cultures, ages,
etc. some comfort in embracing their differences.
>
> At many of the small churches I went to in Spokane...they didn't
change anything...they kept the worship to be either all Hymns or
all contemporary but yet they wanted it to be a church for all
people. So if you didn't like that kind of worship...you really
didn't connect at that church and probably left or if you stuck
around you got really frustrated and tried to change things...but
change doesn't come easily to churches. Many of these churches WANT
to be open to other cultures and such but what are they really doing
practically to make that happen?
>
>
>

> Celebok <celebok@...> wrote:
> This morning, Antioch Bible Church and Pastor Hutch
were featured on the 700 Club as an example of a multicultural
church. (Click here for the article and video.) The news segment was
basically suggesting that cultural diversity is some kind of new
trend in American churches. A couple of hours after this story
aired, Pastor Hutch sent an e-mail to his Prayer Warrior list,
simply saying, "Praise God, the 700 Club program went very well! Now
let's pray that God will use this to show how church should be done!"
>
> Okay, well, I agree with Hutch that churches should be culturally
diverse and that God wants us to welcome people into the church who
are different from us. But here's the thing. I highly doubt there
are very many church leaders out there going, "Wow, we've been doing
it wrong all this time, I thought we were supposed to be an all
[insert ethnicity here] church!" I don't think the problem is so
much that churches don't want to be multicultural, but rather that
they just don't know how. Harvest Community Church, the
predominantly Asian-American church that I attended in California,
always wrestled with this problem, as I'm sure many predominantly
white churches do. We were always welcoming people of all races, but
the fact remained that anybody who walked into the church who wasn't
Asian immediately felt different. Because of this, a small group of
Asians will just attract more Asians, and you have a snowball
effect. (Actually, I guess that would have to be white people to
> have a snowball; Asians would be more like... hmm, a yellow
snowball? Never mind, that's gross.) So in order for churches like
Harvest to follow Antioch's model of cultural diversity, they'd need
to first figure out how to break the snowball effect. And I have yet
to find anyone who's figured it out.
>
> Antioch never had a snowball problem because it started as a
diverse church and has been ever since. So most of Antioch's
members, as evidenced by those interviewed in that news segment,
probably haven't got a clue, either. They just take it for granted
that they found a church that's diverse, and that's where they get
their multicultural exposure. The only advice that I've heard from
Antioch's pastors about this is, reach out to those who don't look
like you. But if that's all there was to it, wouldn't more people
have figured it out by now? Are most people actually not doing this,
or is there something else going on that's preventing churches from
becoming more diverse? I think a deeper investigation into this
would be needed for any church that wishes to take on Antioch's
model of cultural diversity.
>
> Anybody have any thoughts?
>
> --Wayne
>
>
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