HEY ALL

I know and have been to churches (mostly in bigger cities)
that have multi cultures that are members of these S.D.A.
churches.

THERE is on in EVANSVILLE IND that has whites Spanish
blacks and a few KOREAN members

dgrimm60

It's one thing to welcome visitors that you'll probably never see again. It's quite another to have people come in and be members and want to try doing something different. It's usually not good or bad, right or wrong, just different. People are fearful of change.

HEY CAROLAA

AS S.D.A. church members we should realize that
this is a world church not just for one race or one
cultural

dgrimm60

True. But easier said than done. We don't like change.

Many of our churches are terribly fearful of anything new or different, and they fight it tooth and nail under the self righteous guise of upholding the standards. But it is really fear, which is not of God. I have seen churches miss out on God's blessings because they were too fearful to receive them.

I think there is still a lot of racial tension even among Christians. I have told this story a lot, so sorry if ya'll have heard it before....

We went to a mostly all black church a few years ago. We really liked the style of worship better than the mostly white church. We went and enjoyed church for several years until it became so painfully obvious that the black members no longer wanted us to worship with them. My children were not allowed to participate in the children's choir--one Sabbath the choir director asked all of the children to come up front, when my kids went they were told to sit back down, because they had not practiced with the others...how can you practice when no one tells you when practice is? Another child informed us we were crackers and they didn't want crackers in the choir. But the final straw was when, they held a special Communion on Friday night, they called all the members except the white members. When we showed up for church expecting Communion we read in the bulletin it had been moved to the previous night and then it went on to Thank all of the special people it took to make that happen on such short notice. I left in tears, and have never gone back to that church.

I don't know what the answer is, but we really need to learn to get along.

I have observed that racial prejudice is not just whites being anti non white, it comes
in many shades and forms.

And I have no idea what the answer is. A few years ago Sammy was volunteer pastor of a small Italian church
in Sydney. The church was slowly dying. In the last 2 years a lot of members from Zimbabwe have come and taken over the church, preserving it from death by attrition and turning it into an active centre. Which is good, but probably not what the few, aging remaining Italian people are used to. But they still seem to attend.

HEY NAN

yes it can be any race or any culture that is
prejudice


dgrimm60

Once a minority group becomes "the majority" in a particular church they gradually being to change the style of worship to that which they prefer rather than what was in place when they were the minority.
It might be a combination of music style and in many instances length of services. Once the "former" congregation has left for "other climes" is is almost impossible to bring them back. Some of them start up new congregations and wait for the process to start all over again.

This has been going on for a long time. And not just at our churches but our schools also. When I went to GNYA, as a senior, I remember white classmates mentioning that there parents were going to take them out the following year because there were to many blacks or hispanics. Not sure anything can be done about this, other than people coming closer to there Lord and Savior. Having had more black and hispanic friends than white, I always thought that as this was happening that it was better for those churches, I even thought "good riddance" who needs people that are so unexcepting of others.

pk