When you invite everybody into your congregation, you start dealing with drug addiction, racism and other problems. It becomes fertile ground for chaos. Chaos, conflict and risk-taking were words heard often at the symposium, as some participants searched for moral support and answers to burning questions, he said. Participants and leaders shared a host of ideas about how to develop new and transformed multicultural churches, and how to cultivate creative worship, cooperative leadership, Christian education and evangelism in such settings. In Our Parish and produced by Global Ministries, served as a resource guide for the event, while its co-authors shared their various insights and experiences.
People seem genuinely perplexed at the viability of a multicultural church.
He pointed to the burgeoning numbers and unprecedented diversity of immigrants arriving in the United States since 1980 and the bitter backlash of anti-immigrant sentiment reportedly sweeping the country. Indeed, with 140 nationalities, Fairfax County, Virginia, has become the nation s most diverse community. He denounced the pursuit of cultural diversity in churches merely for the sake of political correctness, fashion or ideology. Before the church can ask our culture to believe the gospel, we must show that we believe it by how we live and worship God together. Like Rhodes, the other authors of The World Is in Our Parish have also established or served multicultural United Methodist churches.