Archive for the 'culture' category
April 11, 2008 5:00 am | Written by Phil
In the city not everyone’s relational network is defined by proximity. Many people don’t know or speak to their next door neighbors. They make friendships through common interests, and their friends may reside in multiple neighborhoods all across the city. For example, our Muslim friends relate mostly to other Muslim families but their friends don’t all live in Hollywood. Another example: On our block live many Salvadorans, Guatemalans and Mexicans. Just because three groups speak Spanish and live next door to each other does not mean they know each other or want to (yet). Salvadorans, Mexicans, and Guatemalans are distinct groups with different histories, customs, cultures, foods. Even their Spanish language is not the same. They don’t always understand each other or get along.
What does this mean? On one hand, it means we have an opportunity to witness Christ bringing groups together! On the other hand, it also means that we have an opportunity to see multiple churches started from the same neighborhood. Understanding how and where people make friends is key.
We could lead every family in an 8-unit apartment building to Christ, and they could start 8 different churches because they each maintain their own webs of relationships that are distinct and do not intersect much, if at all, with the others. Each web is a future church. We don’t have to reach everyone in those webs. We just need to find that one person in each web who will quickly become a disciple-maker and train him or her to share the Word of God with those in his or her own web. They will share in their own cultures better than we ever will.
…But please, please also pray that we will see our neighbors of differing cultures coming together in unity under Christ! This is a desire of our hearts.
Categories: culture
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April 9, 2008 5:00 am | Written by Phil
We are learning to cross several cultures in a single day. This is very challenging!
In the morning I greet my Chinese-born neighbor in Spanish, the only common language between us. In the afternoon I must remember to eat lunch with only my right hand in the home of my Muslim neighbor. Countries represented in our section of LA include immigrants and refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Peru, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic, Armenia, Russia, Samoa, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Thailand, Laos, China, Korea, and more. Some neighbors were born here, many were not. Under one roof may be 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants. Each group has their own culture and history, or their own version of it. Many residents maintain relationships in their home countries and visit there from time to time. To reach people in LA is to potentially gain access to unreached pockets around the world.
Navigating cultures is hard but it’s also fun! You get to try new foods, experience new music and clothing, learn how other people value time and money, as well as discover similarities you have with peoples seemingly so different from you. My mind often is spinning, but I love it!
There’s no one-size fits all approach to sharing the Word of God cross culturally in LA. When building relationships and sharing hope, the starting points for each group (indeed each person) is different. But the goal is always the same: to share the love, message and simple way of Jesus Christ with all.
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March 18, 2008 10:27 am | Written by Phil
Katie and her sons and Meri and I and our sons are getting ready to head out the door to eat lunch in the home of a Muslim family we’ve been getting to know.
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November 26, 2007 9:11 am | Written by Phil
Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I am thankful for what God is doing in people’s hearts in East Hollywood. Here is a review of my encounters with God’s missing ones over the long weekend in East Hollywood…
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November 17, 2007 5:00 am | Written by Phil
The more we live out Jesus’ mission here, the more we find ourselves thinking and behaving like foreign missionaries on U.S. soil.
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October 30, 2007 8:56 am | Written by Phil
On Saturday we went with Hector and Roxy and all our kids to Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), a surprisingly joyful, family-oriented celebration. In Los Angeles this primarily Mexican cultural event takes place annually in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery! This event comes highly recommended by many Mexican families in the area, and this year we decided to attend since Hector and Roxy so badly wanted to take us. Curious, we checked it out.
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October 28, 2007 5:00 am | Written by Meredith
Here is the second of a mini-series on growing people through small groups in East Hollywood. (To read part one click here.) These reflections hopefully provide you a window into what it is like to join God in “growing faith where life happens” among the different cultures of LA’s working poor immigrants.
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Categories: Christian culture, culture
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