wfn.org | Multicultural churches offer lessons in discipleship

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

March 19, 2003 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.
    10-71B{149}

NOTE: Two sidebars, UMNS stories #150 and #151, are available.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - Christian disciples are made, not born, and
becoming one is a lifelong process of discipline and spiritual formation.

The Rev. Bryan Stone, professor of evangelism at United Methodist-related
Boston University, discussed the politics of discipleship and growing
multicultural congregations during the March 12-15 meeting of the United
Methodist Board of Discipleship.

"The politics that discipleship embodies does not come naturally," he said.
The shape of this politics is "revealed" in Jesus' life, death, and
resurrection. "To be made into a disciple is to be formed into disciplines
and practices that provide us the resources to resist rival powers and
heretical forms of social imagination, such as the nation-state or the market
that would rule our lives and render us incapable of truly worshipping God." 

Politics also impacts the birth, growth and sustainability of multicultural
congregations, he said. 

Stone said the church is both for and against culture. "Just because a
congregation contains a gathering of diverse cultures, doing a lot of diverse
things and singing diverse songs and eating diverse food, is no guarantee
that what is happening there should be thought of as discipleship."

Baptism, he said, is the central tenet of making disciples. The theology of
baptism was not born in a seminary but in the living context of multicultural
congregational life, as missionaries and church leaders sought to determine
how Christians are "called to pull off interethnic inclusion before a
watching world."   

The politics of baptism shapes several callings, all working toward the
ministry of reconciliation, Stone said. The apostle Paul focused on religious
and ethnic diversity, while today's Christians talk about culture, a word
used as a "catch-all place-holder for just about every imaginable difference
in gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and age." The use of the term
"culture" muddles the distinction of "multicultural" and "multiculturalism,"
he said, making it unclear what is being talked about.

People have been operating for some time with a neutral understanding of
culture as a diverse, but universal feature of human existence, he said. In
reality, the thought of culture as a self-contained way of life is being
challenged, and the lines between cultures are increasingly being blurred so
that the meaning of culture is becoming less absolute and cohesive, he said. 
 

Immigration, ethnic patterns, technology and mobility have affected culture
tremendously in the last 50 years, producing changes in sources of diversity.
"Probably the biggest cultural change for the United States in the last 30
years is the extent of diversity," Stone said.

Multicultural congregations are those that noticed changes in the community
around the church and adapted - instead of dying. "Necessity is not only the
mother of invention; it can be the mother of mission," he said. He added that
some congregations become multicultural by accident.

Multicultural congregations vary, and Stone said they are worth examining and
learning from. One congregation calls itself multicultural but worships in
separate cultural or language groups, coming together monthly for a
multicultural worship service. Another congregation is multicultural because
the members are of different races, ethnicities and cultures. In most cases,
the worship services are traditional euro-American and the multicultural
representation adapts to that style. In other cases, the church attempts to
blend styles to embrace the diversity in the congregation. 

"Issues of reconciliation are more likely to be confronted and dealt with in
these types of congregations," Stone said.

The fastest-growing multicultural congregations are "neo-Pentecostal in
style" and something about that style has been successful in uniting people
from across cultures. Pentecostal and charismatic churches have been the most
multicultural, Stone said.   

He provided 10 of the most important practices he has discovered about
multicultural congregations that take Christian disciple-making seriously
today. These congregations:
7	Practice inclusion.  This goes beyond having a mission statement that
touts inclusiveness but engages in inclusive worship, cross-cultural
understanding - the ability to speak, work, play, and interact across
cultures - and inclusive preaching.
7	Are proactive in practicing inclusion. They have adopted a mindset
where "their very existence is not only to serve the diverse group of people
who make up the congregation, but to be a church (that) exists for those who
are not even there yet."
7	Tolerate ambiguity.  The leaders work in the margins where there are
cultural blunders and misunderstanding, racism, few established rules for how
things are done and little denominational guidance. They employ hope as a
strategy.
7	"Work rhythmically" with unity and diversity in establishing and
constantly renegotiating the identity of the church. Such a congregation
successfully moves back and forth between the particular stories of its
groups and the story of the church as a whole. 
7	Are unambiguous in the way they affirm the centrality of cultural
diversity to their identity and mission. They do more than assimilate
minority or immigrant cultures into the dominant culture. They understand
their mission and work toward interethnic and intercultural reconciliation -
the mission at the heart of the gospel.
7	See education as an event, take seriously the voices from the
margins, and educate in and through a restructure of power dynamics. "In
other words, education is not imagined as transmission but processes of
reconciliation. Education is what happens in the encounter between two groups
who have been included into one social reality. Both groups have to learn new
rhythms."
7	Know that faith formation happens in encounters with the other.
7	Employ and develop leaders who have a distinctive set of
multicultural skills. The leadership is shared and is intergenerational, the
leaders practice hospitality and have the ability to embrace strangers and
are gifted at practices of "gathering" the church.
7	Practice a diversity of giftedness within a common ministry of
reconciliation. The congregations emphasize forgiveness.
7	Eat together. "This practice is one of the most interesting features
of multicultural congregations." The centrality of food is not just about
fellowship but about inclusion and reconciliation.

One of the greatest challenges facing the church today is to find ways of
practicing evangelism and making disciples without playing by the rules of
the "post-Christendom culture," Stone said.

During the meeting, the Board of Discipleship also:
7	Awarded grants for ethnic local church projects and programs focused
on youth and young adults. (See sidebars.)
7	Received an update from the Holy Communion Study Committee about its
continuing work in preparing "This Holy Mystery," an understanding of the
theology and practice of Holy Communion, for the 2004 General Conference for
adoption. The work of the 19-member committee is available at
www.gbod.org/worship. The final version of the study will be considered at
the board's August meeting.  
7	Approved a July 26-29, 2005, Focus Event, a gathering of children's
ministry leaders, at Brentwood (Tenn.) United Methodist Church.
7	Approved a Jan. 28-Feb. 2, 2005, National Camp/Retreat Leaders
Training Event.
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