Why We do What We do
We spent a weekend together to grow in our relationship to God and one another. The focus of our conversation was on our multiethnic distinctive, and how loving one another and our neighbor has changed as globalization has changed our church.
Earlier this month 57 members of our church family traveled to Bellingham, Washington to spend a weekend together at the Firs Conference Center. Similar to a family vacation, spending intentional and extended time like that does so much to create shared memories and to deepen relationships. One person explained how this weekend confirmed for them that Anthem Church is where they need to be in order to grow spiritually. Another person shared how the creative worship night was a unique experience they enjoyed, and challenged them to connect with God in new ways. My standout conversation was hearing from someone, who experienced severe persecution before moving to the United States and how that difficulty grew their faith in God. I’m so grateful for the time our church family invested in growing closer together and with God this weekend!
We talked about our church’s multiethnic distinctive. As God brings the nations to Bellevue, our church family is reaching out to and forming into an ethnically diverse community. We believe it is not an accident that our neighbor is from Mexico, that our co-worker is from India, and our classmate speaks Mandarin. According to Acts 17:26, God determined the habitations of all people so that the world can encounter God through us. So I (Pastor Phil) explained about God’s calling for us to go into all the world to make disciples of all nations. God has literally brought His mission to our church and with it a responsibility to step out in faith and be a faithful witnessing community to the diverse ethnic groups living around us.
You can listen to our cross-cultural conversation at the retreat. On Friday night I shared about the Biblical basis here, and the theological basis here, here and here for starting a multiethnic church by reaching our multiethnic neighbors. In addition, I explained how our changing world is changing the church here, here, here, and here. For this reason, we believe that what we are doing is necessary for us to actively pursue because what we are doing is sharing in God’s heart for all the nations.
What’s next? As we follow Jesus into new and different relationships this summer, our starting point is to pray for our multiethnic neighbors. In addition, we are praying through significant decisions this summer, asking God to lead us as we make adjustments to our ESL outreach, to our youth outreach, and to how we form cross-cultural community as a church body. For example, some of our ESL students have asked for live translation of the sermon on Sunday, and so we are praying about that decision and looking into resources through our partnership with Pastor Harvey Li and the Mosaix Global Network.
Join us in praying for our church that we would continue to overflow with our love for God to our foreign-born neighbors. We know our church does not exist for ourselves, but for those not yet with us. God has brought the world into our neighborhood with a purpose for us. And our purpose from Jesus in Matthew 28:18-20 is to go to them and make disciplemakers of Jesus until every person in every language group hears the good news and encounters the good life in Jesus.