Good morning,
This is a commercial for the upcoming intercultural workshop that will take place after church next Sunday, following a light lunch. I hope that after you join us in worship next Sunday you will stay for the workshop.
In the next few minutes, I will share with you what intercultural ministry means to me and why I think it is very important to initiate it in our congregation.
My personal story.
Right after my family came to Canada from my home country, Korea, I attended a Korean congregation of the United Church of Canada in Vancouver; my husband was youth minister there. After a year in that congregation, I had a question about something, and asked a presbytery staff person about it. That person told the minister about my question, and it caused trouble. I was openly criticized, and I felt pretty unsafe. I had to seek my own independence from the congregation’s expectation of the role of the minister’s wife. I was on the path to be an ordained minister, so I decided to look for my own new home congregation where I could just be myself, an independent young woman. My husband, Min Goo, was very much supportive of my decision - quite an unusual, courageous decision for a Korean male minister.
First, I tried a congregation which had a female minister who originally came from China. When I visited there, one Sunday morning, I saw that it was an aging congregation with some non-Caucasian members, and a few of them were participating in the worship by reading and collecting the offering. After church, I said to the minister, “Your church seems to be pretty intercultural.” The minister replied, “No, you are mistaken. This is primarily a Caucasian church.” She didn’t offer me a welcome - I was sad that a promising church was so unfriendly.
Then I heard that a minister of a nearby church had opened a forum and invited the four churches nearby to discuss the meaning of intercultural ministry. With no relations to any of the churches, and without knowing what to expect, I went to the forum, and was warmly welcomed by the minister and a few congregants. (Participation from outside of their congregation was zero, except for my presence) After the forum, the minister came to me and said, “I wish I could lure you to come to our church”. She said this, knowing that I had my home congregation in the Korean church. The word ‘lure’ touched me very strongly.
When I knocked on the door of the church, the next Sunday, I came there with a mindset which I later called, “a refugee-like mind.” I desperately needed a place where I could be affirmed as an independent young woman and feel safe to grow to be who I really was, to feel, to think, to make a voice, to make a change. The minister’s and the congregation’s warm welcome 'saved’ my life, at the time, and I still owe a great debt of gratitude for their welcome and support.
For me, intercultural ministry means changing people’s lives with warm and radical welcome. This welcome should be extended to everyone who comes into our midst, without obstacles such as racism, fear or indifference. You can’t tell why new visitors have visited our church, unless they tell us themselves, but everyone has a story. Intercultural ministry is more than sharing diverse, variety of foods. It leads us to engage with sharing stories, and to be touched by them to grow, learn and change. True welcome needs to be learned in order to equip ourselves to welcome the neighbours who visit our church, at any time, and help them feel they can call our church home. Welcome is for everybody. There are no strangers here. Next Sunday, with Adele Halliday, we will learn how to equip ourselves for this welcoming ministry, and how we can help each person who walks through our doors feel truly accepted into our community.
Photo credit: Jeff Gross
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