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A Chinese New Year celebration at the Chinese Bible Church.
Photo by Frank Pinc |
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| Kids welcome: The St. John Methodist Filipino service on Sundays features plenty of children. |
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Speaking to the heart of very different generations
By TOM HOLMES
Editor's note: "First generation" refers to the children of immigrants, i.e. the first generation born in this country.
What speaks to the hearts of immigrant congregations and their children when it comes to worship? Is the gap between generations bridgeable? Ethnic pastors in this area have come up with various models for ministering to the two generations in their congregations:
1) Remain traditional: Walk into the India Mission Telugu Methodist Church, 1049 S. Euclid, around 11 a.m. on Sunday, and you'll observe many women dressed in colorful saris. Most of the hymns will be sung in Telugu and will be accompanied by keyboard and tabla drums. Some of the liturgy will be read in Telugu, some in English. Curries, rice and nan are served at the meal after the service. Very few in attendance are under the age of 30. Members say they don't use guitars or have children's sermons because they don't have many children. But one can't help wondering if it isn't the other way around.
2) Separate and equal: The Chinese Bible Church approaches ministry very differently. If you enter their building on Sunday, you see a traditional sanctuary with pews, a cross and an altar. The pastor and lay leaders will speak in Cantonese with an interpreter translating what they say into Mandarin. If you don't pay attention to the words, you will experience a very traditional service.
Walk up a couple flights of stairs, however, and you'll enter a room filled with 60 Asian-American teens and 20-somethings seated on chairs and enthusiastically singing Christian praise songs accompanied by guitar, keyboard, bass and drums. The preacher, Raj Christodoss, speaks only English. He reaches from time to time for a Dunkin Donuts cup and takes a drink. A Power Point computer program is used to project the words to the songs onto a screen.
Occasionally, the English-speaking group will join the Chinese-speaking part of the congregation for communion. After worship, the immigrant generation mixes freely with the first generation children and second generation grandchildren.
3) Blended: The Thai Community Church meets at 4:30 p.m. in the building owned by St. Paul Lutheran in Forest Park. Rev. Pongsak has helped create a service that blends elements such as praise songs accompanied by guitar and led by young adults with more traditional hymns and liturgy. Some of the same young adults who lead Christian rock songs at the beginning also participate in the classical Thai dance team led by first generation member Saitong Uramporn.
The vice president of the congregation is Fred Martin, an African-American married to a Thai woman whose ethnic background is Indian. When Martin leads prayer, he reveals his black church heritage while standing in the shadow of a 24-foot-long mural of the life of Jesus which a Thai artist named Sawai Chinawong painted using classical Thai artistic conventions. A white elephant watches over the baby Jesus in the mural's Christmas scene.
Almost every word in worship is translated from Thai into English and vice versa. Their hymnbook has the Thai words to hymns printed on the left and the English words on the right. When the congregation prays the Lord's Prayer and says the Apostles' Creed, they do so in both languages simultaneously.
True to their cultural roots, Thais always have a bountiful meal after worship. Along with chicken satay, sticky rice and mangos, and pad Thai, someone will often bring in a couple pizzas or a chocolate cake to honor someone having a birthday.
Rev. Romir Esguerra of St. John United Methodist Church, 1100 Ontario St., thinks very much like Pongsak when it comes to worship. On the one hand, he says his service looks and feels very much like any other United Methodist church on Sunday mornings. On the other hand, he also includes elements such as the native "Dance of Light." Sometimes at the beginning of the service, dancers will process with votive lights to the altar, accompanied by a CD of native Filipino music.
He also includes praise songs accompanied by guitar during worship, as a way of speaking the heart language of his first generation members. He supplements worship with Bible classes and retreats for youth. But all generations enjoy a Filipino meal after worship just like Thai congregation.
Esguerra says there is no master plan on how to blend the different cultures and generations in his congregation. "We're just adapting along the way," he said. "We don't have a formula that says we're going to use this approach for [one] generation and that approach for [the other] generation. If you come to our worship you will find yourself in a typical American congregation-which we are-and at the same time there's a different feel. There's more spontaneity."
They don't translate English into Tagalog during worship because members speak at least six different dialects, making translation an unwieldy undertaking. They also use only one language for worship because most Filipinos speak English even before arriving in the U.S. That's because of colonization, says Esguerra. "We were controlled by Spain for 400 years and then by the United States for 40. "It's hard to define 'tradition' in the Philippines because tradition there has been wiped out because of colonization." Filipinos, he contends, have a somewhat easier time adjusting to life in America because they already speak English when they arrive.
4) Separate: Although the majority of worshipers at the 1 p.m. service at New Harvest Christian Fellowship are first generation Mexicans, not a word of Spanish is spoken at the service. That's because New Harvest has made a conscious decision to focus on the first generation alone. They don't exclude their parents' generation. It's just that their style of worship is usually not appealing to those who grew up in Mexico.
New Harvest, true to its Pentecostal roots, holds a high-voltage service in which worshipers are free to express emotion. Led by a Christian rock band, which includes two of Pastor Edwin Melendez's sons, worshipers raise their hands and wave them in time to the music while children bang on tambourines. Hardly anyone in the congregation is over 40. The Sunday school, which meets in the basement, has as many children in attendance as there are adults upstairs.
Although New Harvest welcomes all visitors, this ministry to the children of immigrants is very American in terms of culture. Lindsey Ramirez sees herself as a Mexican, but the food after worship reveals how Americanized she has become: "Usually it's more traditional food like chicken, beef and ham," she notes, "but sometimes we will have Mexican food or just plain pizza so it varies."
Lindsey Ramirez, who worships at New Harvest, said, "I don't think the needs [of the two generations] are really different. We just have different ways of worshiping. Like I love to sing and worship that way instead of prayer. I will sing a prayer. I can't just plain pray."
Mark Molina, a Filipino who worships at the Chinese church, agreed.
"My mother is of the Catholic faith and follows the liturgical way of Mass, while I worship God in more contemporary ways. Prayer is important to both of us. Bible reading and study is more important to me, while she prays the rosary."
Nisa Wongthipkongka responded in a more nuanced way. She likes the praise songs that have been added to worship, but it goes beyond that. What she also appreciates is the willingness of the first generation leadership to share power. "They work hard," she said, "at finding ways for young people to serve and be more involved in church, to have ownership rather than keep all the power on a high level. We've had our fair share of misunderstandings and differences in styles, but we've managed to get them to the surface and address them whenever possible to keep growing."
Nisa dances with the classical Thai dance team and is improving her Thai by serving as a translator at worship. She seems to be acquiring a taste for some of the traditions that were not immediately appealing to her. "As I grow older," she concluded, "I realize that worship and a relationship with God cannot all be about emotion. There's also comfort in tradition and perseverance."
"Growing up in America," said Dorothy Yee, "you have different values than those born overseas. As much as we want to be close as a church, we cannot put everyone into the same mold and expect the same results. We need to be flexible when it comes to the growth of any Christian."
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