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This post is written by Dr. Syd Hielema, who serves as co-director of the Canadian Multicultural Congregations learning cohort.
Imagine sitting in a crowded room with 50 people and listening to folks from 16 different Christian Reformed churches each tell their congregational story for 20 minutes – for a total of more than 6 hours in one day!
As if that wasn’t bad enough, freezing rain was falling outside, and any attempt to escape that room required taking one’s life into one’s hands while walking across wet ice.
But….
I can tell you that all 50 people who were in that room were deeply moved by what they shared and heard, and could have listened for much longer than six hours.
Why?
An on-going Pentecost
The gathering was the launch retreat of a 10 month learning cohort for Canadian CRC congregations that have become increasingly multicultural during the past decade. Each one was given 20 minutes to share their own 10 year story with the group, and each story felt like it could have come straight from the book of Acts. Each story described the on-going character of Pentecost.
Here are some of the patterns that emerged:
As Hebron CRC in Whitby noted, “Recently we experimented with using a translation app in our staff meeting so that we could better communicate with our Mandarin-speaking pastor. While the app certainly wasn't perfect, it was wonderful to see the joy on Pastor George's face as he followed our conversations on his phone. He participated more than ever before in our meeting, laughing at jokes and contributing comments. It was a real breakthrough!”
I wish all CRCs could experience the literal and spiritual colours, both in dress and in person, of all the different nationalities represented during worship in our multicultural congregation.
Recently, we have started to include scripture reading, or call to worship in other languages ( Swahili, Burmese or French). One of our Congolese new Canadians has been blessing us with her beautiful solos in Swahili.
Recently we celebrated Nowruz (Persian New Year) along with our Persian members and we decided we want to acknowledge special holidays from other cultural traditions as well. So on April 28 we will be celebrating Koningsdag (King's Day) along with our Dutch background members.
I believe that by 2035, the majority of Christian Reformed congregations in North America will be multicultural, foretastes of the great Rev. 7.9 vision. Already a second cohort of such congregations is being gathered, and we’re very grateful that the CRCNA’s Thriving Practices project provides funding for this endeavor.
And one final note: the project is led by people from four different CRC ministries: Rev. Lesli VanMilligen (Thrive), Gary Timmerman (Resonate), Pablo Kim Sun (Canadian Justice Ministries) and myself (Connections).
PS. Several project participants shared their experiences in this short video. Enjoy!
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