Cool Church, Multi-Ethnic Church
Sometimes big ideas come from the same place as big mistakes: from talking without thinking.Last Sunday I was interviewed at church by Pastor Alex Gee about my book. Since it was a church service, I was able to talk about a sub-point of Blessed Are The Uncool: the parts about being a church together.
Then it slipped out of my mouth:
"A cool church can't possibly be a multi-ethnic church--which is what we're trying to become."I'm not sure that's true. Even though it's sometimes OK to make sweeping statements for the purpose of conversation. But I'd love to hear other people's opinions on this.
Obviously it's possible to create a temporary setting that is both Multi-Ethnic and Cool. But in the long run, healthy cross-cultural living will inevitably involve embarrassments, mistakes, miscommunication, and blow-ups. It's another way of saying a cool family can't be a family that has healthy communication patterns.
But seriously: what do you all think? Can a church be cool and multi-ethnic at once?
posted by locutus est @ Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Author and Speaker
2 Comments:
Being ME is the "cool" thing to do these days, but I suspect that is because people have a very superficial understanding of what multiethnicity is. Submission, service, apologies, reconciliation meetings, repentance are all very "uncool" things to do because they require a vulnerability that is the antithesis of cool.
some very cool churches are very multiethnic, though not every cool church is multiethnic, nor are homogenous churches very cool.. one of the notoriously "cool" multiethnic church is Mosaic in Los Angeles, which doesn't have particular focus on reconciliation and doesn't really address diversity issues per se, but from what I've heard, they're very intentional on creativity, being missional, and building meaningful relationships with cultural creatives and innovators
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