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Note #6456 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

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2nd multicultural parley will stress inclusivity

Organizers hope to draw 300 to April conference

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - Many cultures, one church.
That's the theme of the second annual Presbyterian Church (USA)
Multicultural Church Conference in Houston next month. Participants in the
four-day event, which starts on April 26, will explore multicultural
ministries and stress the importance of being a church for people of all
ethnic and racial backgrounds.

"We certainly see the Biblical picture of the people of God as being diverse
and multicultural," said the Rev. Peter Vial, a Louisville pastor and
conference planner. "The keynoters will be focusing on the Biblical picture
of the whole family of God being people from all races and colors. ... They
will be expanding on that."

PC(USA) evangelism officials believe the denomination now has about 350
multicultural churches - congregations that incorporate the cultural
traditions of more than one ethnic or racial group in their "lifestyles."
There are several hundred other churches in the denomination that are
attuned to one ethnic or racial culture.
All PC(USA) congregations "are sensing a call to become more culturally
inclusive," church leaders say, and that's the idea behind the conference
theme: "Being the Whole Family of God: Living into the Multicultural Church"
(Matt. 23:37).

It's about "living into the whole family," said Vial, a co-pastor of
Beechmont Presbyterian Church, a small multicultural congregation in
Louisville whose other co-pastor is a native of Venezuela. "That gathering
sense is what we were going after. Moving toward the realization that the
whole 'brood' belongs under the wings of God's love. God loves all people.
The family of God should look very multicultural."

Vial said the conference is "aimed at being a resourcing event and a
supporting event" for multicultural congregations that "see themselves as
becoming multicultural in their makeup (and in their) mission design."

The multicultural conference is sponsored by the Office of Evangelism and
Racial and Cultural Diversity in the Evangelism and Church Development
Program Area of the PC(USA)'s National Ministries Division. More than 160
Presbyterians turned out last year in St. Louis, MO, for the first such
conference; organizers hope to draw at least 300 to this year's gathering.

Conference workshops will focus on such aspects of multicultural ministry as
creating effective multicultural worship; leadership development in
multicultural congregations; how changing demographics affect multicultural
ministries; and the unique challenges faced by multicultural new-church
developments.

"It's a good spread of workshops," said Vial. "Something for everybody."

The conference will also include networking opportunities, small-group
sharing, multicultural worship and Bible study.

The keynote speaker, the Rev. Tony Aja, said true multicultural
congregations are those in which the "quantitative and the qualitative
dimensions of the different cultures represented" inform every aspect of
church life, from worship and education to mission and ministry.

"That's the message I hope to convey in my keynote speech in Houston," said
Aja, the denomination's former associate for immigrant groups in the United
States. "Also, the PC(USA) is still not multicultural at the systemic level;
we still cater mostly to the majority white, English-speaking membership in
resources, educational materials, leadership and decision-making."

Aja is now associate director for People in Mutual Mission in the
denomination's Worldwide Ministries Division. Pat Brown, a former General
Assembly moderator from the Presbytery of Cincinnati, will also deliver a
keynote address.

For more information, contact Salome Cavalcante or JoRene Willis by phone at
1-888-728-7228, ext. 5426 or 5246, or by e-mail at scavalca@ctr.pcusa.org or
jwillis@ctr.pcusa.org

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