Hehehehe, that's definitely a good point about churches
with "Chinese" or "Korean" or "Japanese" in the name! I'd almost
forgotten about those! :-)

--Wayne


--- In pugetsoundchristiansingles@yahoogroups.com, Chica Christ
<chica4christ00@...> wrote:
>
> Interesting, yeah. I think about that in a way myself...though it's
not necessarily the ethnic cultural aspect...I can't imagine going
back to one of my previous churches or any other church for that
fact. I think it would drive me crazy after going to Antioch. Just as
a side and somewhat obvious side note....those "Asian" churches
probably shouldn't have the word "Asian" or "African American",
or "Korean" or any of those words in their name if they want to be
mult-cultural. ;) I agree with you that worship isn't the only aspect
to get past but I think it's a big part of it. I hope and think that
maybe that video about Antioch will at least get some churches
thinking of the way that they are doing church. At least get them
thinking and analyzing what they do.
>
>
> Wayne <celebok@...> wrote:
> Well, the arguments I got about the lack of interest in
changing
> came after I posted my original message, so I was basically going
> into it blind when I started this topic. I honestly didn't expect
> to see any resistance to the idea of going multicultural, other
than
> people not knowing how to do it. So it's been interesting to learn
> about other churches' reasons for not embracing it. I can totally
> see your point that many churches, especially older,
> more "traditional" ones, wouldn't be willing to change their
> styles. It's something they grew up with, and to change it just
> wouldn't feel like... church. My guess is that if you were to ask
> those people, they'd SAY they're open to other cultures joining
> their church, but they'd pretty much expect anyone who comes in to
> embrace their existing worship style. So that would be their most
> obvious problem area.
>
> I'm still not entirely convinced that a static worship style is the
> only barrier, though. Even if a church starts adopting varying
> worship styles, I think they'd still have the snowball problem to
> get past. When I look at the predominantly Asian-American church I
> went to in California, as well as this one Asian-American church in
> Bellevue that I've visited a few times, and I look at their worship
> style and preaching style and everything else about the service...
I
> can see absolutely NO reason for it to remain 95% Asian... other
> than the fact that it already IS. They welcome anyone who's not
> Asian and treat them just like they're one of them, but it's like,
> why would you go to that church, when there are plenty of other
> churches in the area that are similar to that one in all other
> aspects, but without the screwy ethnic ratio? So that type of
> church would have to take drastic measures in order to become
> multicultural, and I think they're mostly just not convinced that
> such action is warranted or necessary.
>
> It's weird, though, after attending Antioch for five years, it's
> like a shock to me whenever I walk into a predominantly Asian
> church. I'm like, my gosh, they're still stuck in this barbaric
> unicultural state? Then I have to remind myself, the Asian
> Christian community didn't change; I simply left it!
>
> --Wayne
>
> --- In pugetsoundchristiansingles@yahoogroups.com, Chica Christ
> <chica4christ00@> wrote:
> >
> > I'm tracking ya. That wasn't how I read your original email. :) I
> agree with you but maybe it'll start raising the question and
people
> can start thinking about how they can do it...look more at Antioch
> as a model or ask Antioch those questions. Many churches I believe
> don't want to be "multi-cultural"...I think they focus so much on
> what they consider "sacred" or whatnot ways of worshipping that
they
> are afraid to go against that. My old church felt that the less
> hymns we did and the more contemporary songs we did, the further
> away we were getting from the original design for churches. If that
> makes sense. They also felt that way when the Pastor took out the
> pews and added chairs and made it a multi-purpose room. That
through
> some of the "blue hairs" in to a tail spin. So some churches need
to
> wake up and realize that making changes is not taking away from
what
> God wants us to do, that it is what God wants us to do...of
> course..good changes...not like drinking cool-aid! ;)
> >
> >
> > Wayne <celebok@> 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
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
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