Mary Kate Morse, of George Fox Seminary, is presenting on multicultural church planting. She describes a few of the challenges that arose in her latest church plant, including denominational differences, worship style differences, and leadership preference differences. Her church planting team was composed of Foursquare people, Quakers, and people from other groups, which led to interesting planning discussions.
She said doctrine wasn’t nearly as big a deal as ecclesiology, because people can discuss and work out doctrine, but ecclesiology is a much more deeply held set of beliefs. She described the practice of keeping Christ at the center through a physical, tangible reminder: lighting a candle and sitting in a circle around it. The literal focal point of their attention was a reminder that church is not about us, our differences, or our preferences, but about Christ.
Relationships matter, and need to be strengthened continually to make the church work. She said personal networks, rather than structured outreach, were much more imporant to the church’s growth and evangelism. One aspect of this relational focus is mentoring - every member is paired with a “trail companion” to walk with on their spiritual journey (sorry, I’m hearing that phrase a lot today :)). Another key aspect is hospitality.
Mary Kate ended up being the leader of the church plant, after asking every other team member to take on that role. I’m interested in this because our church works on a consensus model, and does not have a leader as such.
She said that for a church to be considered “multicultural,” it needs to have less than 80% of its members from a single group, so that each group can have a voice in decisions and the direction of the church. Someone asked if a church that starts out all white can become multicultural, and Mary Kate mentioned Ike Graul in Portland, who’s been in my address book forever, though I don’t think we’ve spoken. She said the church will generally come to reflect the team that is planting it.
This reminds me of the centrality of the “Christ candle” during Advent (part of the Advent wreath). It has been interesting to watch in recent years how many people demonstrate an elevated reverence for the Christ candle (of course, it’s really reverence for the Christ it represents). Maybe even our fascination with “unity candles” at weddings is also reflective of this somehow. What do you think?
Chris-
She actually did mention Advent (though not in connection with the candle, as I recall), and the reaction of her modern.evangelical co-laborers had to it - “We’re not catholic!”
Hi Justin,
Was this session recorded do you know? Is there a way I could access it?
Awwhhh!
Why do fundies often seem to forget about all the Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and other Protestants who celebrate Christ in historical, liturgical ways?
Well,um, I suppose those foursquare pentecostals had better be careful who they tell about their sitting in a circle around a lit candle!