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March 5, 2008

A gathering of all ‘nations and tongues’

Conference will focus on evangelism in a multicultural world

by Evan Silverstein
Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE — The need for the church to revitalize and strengthen its commitment to evangelism in a rapidly growing multicultural world will be the focus of the ninth annual Multicultural Conference of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) in San Antonio, TX.

The official theme of the April 10-13 event is Gather All Nations and Tongues: Good News for All Congregations, inspired by the prophesy of Isaiah 66:18.

“We hope that Isaiah’s prophesy will be a blessing and inspiration for our gathering as we seek to claim, celebrate and live our calling as a multicultural church, preaching the good news to all with emphasis on spiritual growth, peace and justice,” said the Rev. Raafat Girgis, a conference planner and the PC(USA)’s associate for multicultural ministries.

The conference will bring together members and pastors of multicultural churches, representatives of middle governing bodies and others interested in ministries with people from a variety of races and cultures.

It will be an occasion for celebrating multicultural ministry, worshipping in community, acquiring new skills and sharing resources and experiences. The group will network, listen to sermons, addresses and panel discussions and take part in workshops.

Girgis said the conference will be an “inspiring event that helps participants, governing bodies, congregations and seminarians to rediscover and utilize the tools of evangelism with equal emphasis on spiritual renewal, growth and social responsibility.”

This year’s conference is being sponsored by the PC(USA)’s office of Multicultural Ministries in cooperation with Mission Presbytery, the Synod of the Sun, the Presbyterian Multicultural Network, and the Cross Cultural Alliance of Ministries.

Among pre-conference offerings aimed at middle governing executives and church leadership will be multicultural team training, antiracism training and a Cross Cultural adoptee program and interracial couples’ event, which will focus on building networks among multicultural members and interracial couples and making their needs and stories known to the PC(USA).

Multicultural congregations are increasingly vital to the PC(USA). By 2056, sociologists say, the majority of the U.S. population will be non-European and non-white. Already, Asians, Africans and Hispanics make up one-fourth of the population.

The PC(USA) is currently about 92 percent white, but a growing number of churches are attempting to incorporate cultural traditions of more than one ethnic or racial group, Girgis said. He estimates that more than 1,700 congregations (out of some 11,000 in the denomination) are at least moving toward a multicultural identity.

If this trend continues, Girgis believes it’s possible the PC(USA) will meet a goal adopted by the PC(USA)’s General Assembly in 1998: to increase the denomination’s racial-ethnic membership to 20 percent by 2010.

Among the many models: bi-lingual or bi-cultural congregations; congregations with one cultural majority and significant influence from other cultures; and congregations with no single cultural majority. Another is that of “nesting” churches, which provide homes for congregations of different cultures and immigrant fellowships.

Organizers are expecting at least 400 people to attend the multicultural conference at the San Antonio Airport Hilton. In 2006, some 460 turned out when the multicultural conference was last held on its own in Orlando, FL.

The Rev. Martha Grace Reese

The keynote speaker will be author and researcher the Rev. Martha Grace Reese who recently directed a four-year evangelism research project funded by the Lilly Endowment, and has written a book that encourages and guides churches on how to face evangelism head on.  For the recently released Unbinding the Gospel: Real Life Evangelism, Reese interviewed more than 1,000 people in many of the nation’s most successful mainline churches in an effort to find the motivations and practices of the most effective evangelism efforts.

Conference preachers will be the Rev. Rhashell Hunter, the PC(USA)’s director of Racial Ethnic and Women’s Ministries; the Rev. James Kim, pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church in The Colony in suburban Dallas; the Rev. James Hickson Lee, evangelizing pastor of New Covenant Fellowship, a multicultural new church development in Austin, TX; and the Rev. Cyprian Kimathi Guchienda, pastor of All Nations Ministry at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas.

The conference will feature two panel discussions focused on multicultural ministry. One of the panels will be made up of five ministers and one elder, and the other panel will be comprised of staff and elected leaders from the PC(USA)’s Office of the General Assembly (OGA) and the General Assembly Council (GAC).

The panel of ministers and an elder will be elder Ruben P. Armendariz, church development consultant for Mission Presbytery; the Rev. Jin S. Kim, founding pastor of the Church of All Nations, a multicultural PC(USA) congregation in Columbia Heights, MN; and the Rev. Buddy Monahan, member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the Maricopa tribe and chaplain at the Menaul School in Albuquerque, NM.

The Rev. Karen Hernandez-Granzen, left, had a rousing good time during the 2006 multicultural conference as fellow New Jersey pastor the Rev. Wanda Lundy demonstrated a few moves of her own. Photo by Evan Silverstein

Also on that panel will be the Rev. Wanda Lundy, pastor of multicultural First Presbyterian Church in Edgewater, NJ; the Rev. Magdalena I. García, pastor of Ravenswood Presbyterian Church, a multicultural and bilingual congregation in Chicago; and the Rev. Robert Chestnut, retired pastor of East Liberty Presbyterian Church, a multicultural congregation in Pittsburgh.

Serving on the panel of OGA and GAC representatives will be the Rev. Joan S. Gray, moderator of the PC(USA)’s 217th General Assembly; the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick; stated clerk of the PC(USA)’s General Assembly; the Rev. Curtis A. Kearns Jr., GAC executive administrator; and Elder Linda Valentine, the GAC’s executive director.

Among the workshops:

• Gather all Nations and Tongues: Evangelism in a Multicultural Setting will explore growing diversity in communities nationwide and provide tools for multicultural evangelism through a mission and justice lens to enable participants to incorporate diversity into their churches. Leading the workshop will be Girgis, who in addition to being the PC(USA)’s associate for Multicultural Ministries has ministered to churches and taught in undergraduate and graduate schools, counseling in a variety of conferences in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America.
• Multiculturalism: Choice or Destiny will explore some of the primary arguments for and against multiculturalism and the challenges involved in establishing a multicultural church. Its leader will be Ismael Garcia, a professor of Christian ethics at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, TX, who specializes in the intersection of Christian ethics and issues of social justice.
• Multicultural worship will explore a framework for understanding what authentic multicultural worship should be and intentional ways to develop such worship. It will focus on how theology of worship, multicultural sensitivity and sensibility, liturgical integrity and artistic embodiment all must work together to achieve multicultural worship. The Rev. Charles Ryu, program director of Stony Point Center, a national conference center of the PC(USA), will lead the workshop. Ryu has provided leadership in worship, arts and multicultural ministry in various capacities and has served as faculty of the PC(USA) Multicultural Institute at Stony Point.

For general information about the multicultural conference see the Conference Web site. Or contact Janeth Nuñez , Multicultural Ministries administrative assistant, by phone (toll-free) at (888) 728-7228, ext. 5252.