So, what’s the best approach to multiethnic church?  Soup or salad or buffet?

The author of The Next Evangelicalism, Soong-Chan Rah talks about an idea that we all heard when we were growing up…the melting pot.  America it seems is some sort of blend of cultures that gets mixed into some weird some of soup.  But the problem is that you lose a sense of what’s been put into the mix unless you put the ingredients in yourself.

This is where the salad bowl approach came alone.  Everybody gets to put in their own cultures flavors, but the problem here is that once you add the dressing it takes over the flavor, doesn’t it?  Soong-Chan Rah, the author, uses the illustration of ranch dressing.  I’m a big fan of it.  I pour it all over my “American” salad because I wouldn’t eat it otherwise. 

I don’t think there’s a single food illustration that best describes what the multiethnic church should look like…but maybe a buffet might.  I don’t mean Old Country Buffet, of course.  I went to a buffet in Chicago called World Buffet.  It was actually pretty good.  They had foods from all over the world and I had filled my plate multiple times.

The reason why I think this illustration might work is because you get a sense of the other cultures.  And it might encourage you to visit some other restaurants of the foods you did like, which is kind of like immersion. 

What illustration do you think is right?

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Peter Park
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