Cult Following - An Appropriate Response? (Part 3)

My third and final submission to the discussion that ensued from the article I circulated a while back and the continual thinking I have done on the matter is going to be what I call “the wild card”

 

Too often our debate about our corporate worship experience between those who are for it and those who are against it happens within the context of a predominantly Canadian-thinking culture. I use “Canadian-thinking” with reference to 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and so on, generations of Canadians that are representative of the dominant social culture regardless (somewhat) of the individual ethnic heritage.

 

However as a person that identifies more with immigrants because I myself am one and has become very much aware of the changing demographics of society, I think that our debate has to take into account the fact that with the sustained and continued increase of immigrants in Canada, the debate about who we seek to influence as a church has to take on a completely different tone.

 

Pastor Mark will tell you that a significant portion of the growth of Woodvale has been through people that have recently immigrated to Canada. Woodvale is not just multi-generational; it is a truly multicultural church and even though we have had a historically homogeneous sound and worship experience, we have to, in humility, recognize that the various cultures and ethnic groups in our church have been gracious in their expression of appreciation for what we do to facilitate worship… but if you talk to them and get below the gracious expression of appreciation, you’ll find that for the most part they seek an even more passionate and exuberant worship experience than what we currently offer.

 

You’ll find that they seek a worship encounter that pays tribute to more than one cultural heritage… but most of all, you’ll be surprised to find that the ones that come through our doors that are not even Christian are not freaked out by our worship services as we might think they are. The dancing grandma at the front of the church does not bother them because many come from a culture where dance is part of worship. The babbling in strange languages does not bother them because there are many languages of this world that sound like unintelligible babbling and exposure to many languages makes you less prone to being freaked out when somebody starts doing it seated next to you. Most English speakers do not realize that English sounds absolutely strange (meaningless bable if you will) to somebody that does not speak or understand it. Because I have made it my business to seek this information out, I can say with growing certainty that you will find just as I have found that they are more open to debate, explanation and even a second visit.

 

Consider also, that the student enrolment (in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions) has an ever-increasing population of immigrants or children of immigrants living in a largely immigrant community in the city. Or that the recent explosion of growth in the suburbs is driven partly by the demand for houses by recently immigrated families.

 

Last summer, I got to visit a church called “The Meeting House” that is a growing church in the GTA and recently planted a location in Ottawa. Instead of having their usual speaker Bruxy give the message, they had an interview with a gentleman called Jay Smith who lives and works in London UK and has a specific ministry to Muslims. During the question and answer session, somebody asked him why he chose to have such an aggressive approach (He basically stands on a soap box at the speakers corner and challenges anybody within earshot to a debate… he’s been assaulted several times while doing this, by the way) when reaching out to the Muslim people in his area and his answer was an unbelievable eye opener for me.

 

He said that many Muslims have lost their respect for Christianity because of the pussy-footed approach that Christians have when dealing with culture and other religions. They say that Islam is for MEN and Christianity is for women… meaning that Islam is powerful and Christianity is gutless.

 

He said that many – especially the growing number of radicals – are unresponsive to us because they cannot respect a spineless religion. He said that in trying to reach out to these new immigrant cultures, the church was forgetting that you do not reach out to them the way you would do for a post-Christian European. The tactics would have to dramatically change if you were to even get them to listen to you.

 

He basically picked the words out of my mouth when he said that the church has to be less Canadian and be more Christian. The church should not find its identity first in its ethnic heritage, but rather in Christ so that like Paul, you can become all things to all men – speak with relevant authority to a multiplicity of cultures – so that some may be saved.

 

This spoke deeply to me because one of the fundamental questions I have had lingering in my mind for the modern church in North America is what they are doing to reach out to the growing population of immigrants in their neighborhoods. Most of these people are not afraid to have discussions about spiritual issues because many of them come from cultures that are deeply religious. Most of them are not threatened by passionate expressions of worship because they come from cultures that are comfortable with passion and expression. Most of them do not need the bible to be overly explained because their native languages share a lot in common with the symbolism with which much of scripture was written. This, therefore, means that the ways you would craft your services or gatherings to meet the needs of a primarily Canadian-thinking (defined above) group of people would have to be altered if you said you really cared about making your worship moments accessible to more than just one culture.

 

It is a tough cookie to swallow, but the truth of the matter is that for many churches like ours that are situated in communities like the one we are in, there is a significant number of songs, worship tools and methods of communication that have to be abandoned in the pursuit of an increasingly multicultural church. These changes have to be systemic and not just a re-dressing of a community that remains at heart fundamentally homogeneous because a culture clash is inevitable and the leaders and facilitators of worship have to be prepared to navigate these treacherous waters. This is the wildcard in the discussion that has come out of the article that I shared because Mr. Holock represents a post-modern, post-Christian Canadian. However both of these are terms that are irrelevant when you try to speak about sociological, cultural and spiritual shifts in countries/continents that are not Europe or North America (US and Canada specifically) and therefore represented by the growing immigrant populations in our churches and communities.

 

 I once sat under the teaching of a gentleman I consider to be a great visionary and a deep thinker about matters concerning the church. He said that Canada is rapidly approaching a tipping point where demographically, we shall have moved from the concept of being a mosaic to actually living it out and this is going to affect politics (because of the immigrant representation and voting power), suburban culture (because of the increasing wealth and growing population of recent immigrants in the suburbs), and cultural and financial trends (because of the shift in dominant representation from a largely Caucasian representation to a multi ethnic first and second generation of Canadians not familiar with previous trends). His charge to us was that we had to stop being a reactionary church and recognize that this tipping point is imminent and therefore make changes within our corporate worship encounters and general church business with this in mind. From the kind of examples he was giving, it was clear that there would have to be a re-writing of pretty much every program in the church (children, youth, young adults, adult and seniors ministries… in evangelism, discipleship, worship and fellowship). But not just the programs, but the DNA (NOT doctrine!!) of the churches.

 

Most churches are forced to change their modus operandi when it is undeniable that contemporary culture has moved on and that their current tools are useless in connecting to it because they were afraid to rock the boat when change SHOULD have been made. Many churches sadly do not survive this (either because they refuse to change or because they change too late) and the shrinking of the evangelical church in Canada is a testament to this unfortunate truth.

 

I am therefore convinced that the discussion about improvements or alterations to our worship service/corporate worship moments cannot happen within the bubble of a culture that is ethnically homogeneous because that bubble is not truly representative of the multiplicity of cultures in which we exist. One culture might be reserved, while another is expressive. One might have deep spiritual roots, while another may have forgotten its spiritual heritage. One culture may embrace moral relativism more freely than another and one culture may have a totally opposite take on social justice than another. In one culture, women may be the heads of society while in another, men dominate the women.

 

Try as we might, the truth of the matter is that we all interact with Christianity, matters of faith, and general spirituality through the paradigm of the culture that we represent. As facilitators of worship at Woodvale, therefore, we have to be wise in our pursuit to create moments that more than just one cultural or ethnic group can feel comfortable in. Part of the reason I am increasingly selective about the advice that I receive about how things should be done at Woodvale is because I have started to see that most times, the so-called “advice” I am receiving is based on a preference that might alienate a significant section of our congregation or visitors. As such, I have started to ask these advice givers about how they think their suggestions might affect the worship experience of more than one cultural group in an attempt to show them that the family to which we belong is no longer homogeneous.

 

So I would like to invite more discussion about how things could improve here, but I would like all responses from this point on to take into account the real and present multicultural situation we find ourselves in – not just as a congregation that represents over 60 nations, but as a church existing in a community that is increasingly representative of the nations of the world. You have to ask yourself whether the things you think should be altered, discarded, improved, or changed shall be relevant in a multicultural Woodvale or not. One last thing… I am looking for discussion that goes beyond tokenism and novelty.

 

Let’s talk!