A couple days ago on the Christian Today webpage, there was a fairly interesting article that made me think quite a bit. The author of the article is using the success of the rock band P.O.D., as a marker to show the changing face of America and thus, changing face of the American church.
Recently, in the Christian world, there seems to be a great deal of intrigue into the idea of getting rid of the idea of ethnically specific churches and replacing them with diverse multiethnic churches. Urbana 2000 can ultimately be summarized by this growing trend of the plea to diversify the church of Jesus Christ. "Isn't it interesting that the most segregated day of the week in America is Sunday?" But, I've always been somewhat wary of Christian articles and speeches that promote the idea of the multiethnic church. And so, when I began reading this article, all the lights were flashing and the sirens were going off. I don't consider myself to be ethnically exclusive... or dare I say, racist. It's true that most of my friends are of Asian descent. It's true that I've gone to an ethnically Japanese church all of my life. So, maybe I should explain myself.
I would love to see a truly multiethnic church... and when I say church, I don't mean just one building or group but as a general given among Jesus believers. I suppose my "thing" is that I feel that all those feel good articles and speeches for the "desegregation" of the church are naive. Coming here to Japan has only further solidified my general pessimism for this movement. Why? Different cultures have different ways of leading and influencing people. The Anglo-American style of leadership would easily be considered as being pushy and bossy by Japanese standards, while the Japanese style of leadership would probably be considered as being weak and passive by Anglo-American standards. And I think most Christians would say that Christian leadership is neither characterized by pushiness, bossiness, weakness, or passivicity. The thing is that when used in its home culture, those very leadership standards are not perceived in the same way. The perspective is the only thing that's different. They work in each others' respective cultural circles, but outside of them, who knows?
This article from Christianity Today was interesting to me because it reminded me of how ethnically heterogeneous America is becoming. Not in the sense that other races are pushing out the whites, but that fewer and fewer people can claim a single ethnic heritage. However, I think that the article falls short as do many other conversations on the topic in that it doesn't challenge believers to become more aware of other cultures and their values before jumping into this thing called "the multiethnic church." I'd love to see it come to fruition. But before it can happen, we must consider such difficulties that are bound to occur. The biggest difficulty I believe isn't trying to convince hard-headed ethnically exclusive believers in the church to buy into the idea, but to get the existing church to be open to ideas and ways to do ministry that are not within the bounds of their own culture. To clarify: The churches of America must examine themselves to see if it is being controlled by Jesus or their surrounding culture. Only then can we seriously consider getting into the endeavor.