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A Multicultural Model
Common Prayer
Westside Christian Church (Long Beach, California) welcomes Christians and seekers, new believers and longtime members, English-speakers and Spanish-speakers, and people of Samoan and Tagalog heritage.
The church obviously values intentional outreach to specific groups, but also wanted internal and intercultural growth within the church family. For a solution, Westside looked to the multicultural church in Acts and used this model of “holding everything in common” to develop its unusual Sunday morning programming.
“Once we began to understand the many cultures in our church—not just ethnic cultures but age groups, people in recovery, and urban culture—we understood when to integrate the groups and when to separate them,” says senior minister Jay Mahan. “We realized it didn’t make sense to meet together for the entire worship experience, so we ‘hold in common’ the things we can and meet in smaller services for the rest.”
Today the entire church meets for “CommUnity” at 10 am each Sunday to take Communion, give offerings, hear announcements, and share prayer requests. After a short break, teaching and music services follow at 10:45. A different group hosts CommUnity each week, offering the Communion meditation in their own language and providing food for the fellowship time between the two services.
“It might seem strange for a new person because we don’t make a big announcement about the language of the day,” Mahan says. “We do explain it in the bulletin, but we intentionally want the service to be very natural. With this approach, no one understands every word. But it’s a beautiful sacrifice to make for the sake of being together. We say if you stick around a month you’ll understand half of what goes on—and so will everyone else.”
Since the simultaneous-but-separate 10:45 services are offered in several languages, the approach also allows every member to feel confident inviting friends to services with music and preaching.
“Of course, anyone can attend the earlier service to participate in the ‘ordinances,’” Mahan says. “But we’re no longer trying to do everything in every service, and as a result we’re enjoying the benefits of being a true multicultural family. Regardless of our language, we can all drink the juice together.”
www.westsidelb.org
Table Service
Although Harbor of Hope Chris-tian Church (North Chelmsford, Mas-sachusetts) already serves Communion at “stations” throughout its worship area most Sundays, the church recently experimented with a new way to create even more interaction and connection during the Lord’s Supper.
“We spent several months wrestling through our vision as a church,” says lead pastor Jed Mullenix. “What emerged was ‘live fully, love deeply, and give freely,’ and we looked for an experiential way to introduce each component.”
On “Live” Sunday, church members enjoyed a huge picnic; on “Give” Sunday they donated and delivered items to people in need. And on “Love” Sunday they transformed the Sunday morning experience into a banquet with great food, a short message, and Communion.
“People talked and ate around tables, I shared a few thoughts, and we took Communion together like the early church did,” Mullenix says. “It was a simple concept, but it really helped us think about Communion in a fresh way. A little piece of matzoth and shot of grape juice don’t do justice to the culture of the first Communion; sharing a meal around a table helped us appreciate sharing the meal as a family.”
www.harborofhope.org
Jennifer Taylor, one of CHRISTIAN STANDARD's contributing editors, lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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