I think there is beauty in diversity. My life would be a lot less rich if I hadn't learned to like all the different music styles. I would advocate for some intentional cross congregational work. Invite the black pastor from the neighboring congregation to speak at your church. Invite the black choir to sing. Send your children to their Bible schools sometimes. I had the privilege, even as a child, or singing in white choirs and groups, in neighboring black churches. Of course, we stayed and listened to their choirs sing and their preachers. (Sadly, I don't recall that we ever in our congregation invited in their choirs.) My life would be poorer if I hadn't had those experiences.Neto wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 4:51 pm Whose music style should be used in an ethnically mixed congregation? If a mixture, then everyone may well be either bored or bothered part of the time. It might be manageable if there are only two cultural groups, but what about those who are only a few members, out of a hundred, that represent other minority cultures?
Whose preaching style will be used?
Whose dress & conduct standards will be followed (if any)?
Whose language would be used? (It is interesting that the Scripture doesn't say what language was used in the Jerusalem congregation, where we know both Aramaic and Greek speaking Jewish people belonged.)
As an example:
While we were in Brazil, we worshiped with three different cultural groups, none of which represented our own cultural or faith background.
Brazilian (language: Portuguese): a Pentecostal congregation made up of "river people" (some of the poorest of the poor, some of them illiterate squatters, none of whom owned a vehicle). Occasional sermons by visiting American Pentecostals, which were sometimes "teaching" everyone how to dance. (I had Brazilian friends in this congregation, like one of the mission center groundskeepers who always made a point to ask how the translation work was going, and was always friendly to the Indians when they were out with us. He regarded his work cutting grass and such as a part of the work of giving the Scripture to the isolated peoples of his country.)
Village (Language: Banawa): Services at night, at first out-doors, around a "singing pole" stuck in the ground in the middle of the airstrip. Music: a sort of chanting style, prayer, and a Scripture reading (when they requested it)
Mission Center (Language: English, although we had members, besides North Americans, on our mission center who were British, German, Dutch, Swiss, Argentine, & Brazilian): A mixture of Evangelical & Mainline Protestant mission members, sometimes Episcopalian
I also grew up in a mixed congregation, although it was a majority of "Russian Mennonite" Plautdietsch people (like myself). There were also Americans who had come in from the outside, American Indians, some who had married in, and others where both parents were Indian. There was also one "white"-Black inter-ethnic couple. But these people mostly adapted to the Mennonite ways, although potlucks increasingly included foods from a number of different ethnicities.
Some of the richest times of fellowship I have had, though were in a multicultural church setting. Where the music styles varied based on who led worship. Where the preachings styles shifted based on who preached. Where, for a number of years, the language switched depending on which service you went to.
