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Apr 4, 2008

Multi-Ethnic or Mega?

Choosing Multi-Ethnic Over Mega: Is having an ethnically diverse church a biblical mandate?

From Out of Ur:

DeYmaz is careful not to criticize homogeneous churches in his book, but he does warn, “I believe the homogeneous church will increasingly struggle in the twenty-first century with credibility, that is, in proclaiming a message of God’s love for all people from an environment in which a love for all people cannot otherwise be observed”

[link]

Now what/how about multi-lingual?

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Filed by edmund at 2.18 pm under Faith |

4 Comments

  1. Samuel

    If the biblical theme of unity is to be taken seriously, then we have to re-think our ecclesiology. What would Paul think if he saw labels such as “Chinese Church” (along ethnic line) or “Mandarin Chinese Church” (along language/ethnic lines)?

    Apr 23rd, 2008

  2. edmund

    I wrote to Scot McKnight the other day, trying to seek for research done in terms of Multi-ethnicity in the early church. I will just post part of what I wrote:

    “As I am reading Out of Ur recent article ‘Choosing Multi-Ethnic Over Mega’, it prompted me to think about the early church not simply Multi-ethnic, but Multi-lingual, with the obvious example in Acts 6. I am presently serving in such a church where we have 3 different language-congregations worshiping under one roof: English, Cantonese and Mandarin. We have Chinese, Sri Lankans and Caucasians who speak different languages and dialects.

    Unlike many churches in similar situation where they will eventually split into separated church (speaking just one language in each one), we do have a vision to remain as one church despite of our language difference. What I want to ask is if you know any research or study done in, not just the multi-ethnicity, but the multi-linguality (if there is such a word) of the early church. How different are they, how do they worship together using different languages… etc.”

    Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of anything research done in that direction… sigh!

    Apr 23rd, 2008

  3. Anson

    Wow thanks. You just gave me a topic to write for my paper =)

    Btw, I remember the April 2005 issue of Christianity Today has a feature story on this topic. There are two articles. Only the second one is available on their website.

    All Churches Should Be Multiracial – The biblical case. An excerpt from United by Faith, by Curtiss Paul DeYoung, Michael O. Emerson, George Yancey, and Karen Chai Kim.

    Harder than Anyone Can Imagine – Four working pastors – Latino, Asian, black, and white – respond to the bracing thesis of United by Faith.
    http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/april/12.37.html

    Apr 24th, 2008

  4. edmund

    Anson, but what are they really saying though? I also notice a lot of the so-called Multi-ethnic, Multicultural church talk these days; a lot of Gal 2-3 talks on Ecclessiology, but are they saying, “Okay, we have Latino, Asian, Black & White in our church. So we are multiracial (hence Biblical), but please all speak English….” You know what I mean?

    That’s what I mean by Multi-linguality — is the early church a local group of people where you can speak Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic within the same group? When Paul is saying “neither Jews or Greeks” is he talking about Christ breaking the ethnicity barrier of human? But what about language? Of course, I tend to think that’s also torn down as well, I was just looking for research done in these areas.

    Apr 24th, 2008

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