wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Dinner celebrates multiculturalism in PC(USA)

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Note #7799 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Dinner celebrates multiculturalism in PC(USA)
GA03110

Dinner celebrates multiculturalism in PC(USA)

by Jane Hines

DENVER, May 30 - "Our Presbyterian audience is multicultural, and we need to
be that, too," the Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, moderator of the 214th General
Assembly (2002), told participants in the first Assembly-related
Multi-Cultural Dinner Thursday night.

	Pat Brown, also a former GA moderator (1997), noted that she has been
a member of a multicultural congregation for 27 years. Fifteen others in
attendance stood up to be recognized as members or pastors of multicultural
congregations in the Presbyterian Church (USA).  

	A multicultural design team from the church's Office of Evangelism
and Racial/Cultural Diversity has sponsored successful conferences in the
past four years.

	John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council,
welcomed the group and said, "There is no doubt at all that the future of the
church will be multicultural."	

	A film shown during the event made the argument that it is only
through diversity that access to innovation can be secured and new value can
be added to God's creation.

	The principal speaker for the evening was the Rev. Frank Alton, the
pastor of Immanuel Presbyterian Church, a multicultural congregation in
downtown Los Angeles. Alton said multicultural congregations are those that
see "ands" rather than "buts" and "ors."  He invited Presbyterians to
discover multiple dimensions in themselves and to view differences as gifts,
not threats.

	The next PC(USA) multicultural conference, to be co-sponsored by the
Synod of the 
Sun and Grace Presbytery, is scheduled for April 2004 in Irving, TX.

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