Archive for October, 2011
A must read book for multicultural worship ministry
I remember when I started in multicultural worship ministry in 2005 I was searching all over the place to find books to encourage me in my journey. I’ve been blessed by United by Faith, Let the Nations be Glad, Foreign to Familiar, and many others.
(All of my recommendations can be found on Amazon.com.)
However, the book that has had the most impact in my life, especially as I get more involved with multicultural worship ministry is the BIBLE.
God’s Word has insight into what multicultural worship is about. God’s Word is full of stories and people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, gender, and social status. God’s Word is what will make the biggest impact in the multicultural worship movement.
I’m not saying you can’t read those other books because we need encouragement and wisdom from other believers. However, I have seen God make the biggest impact on our worship team when we’ve studied the Word together.
In the past year I’ve tried to go through two different books with the team. Both times I felt like it left us with more questions than answers. Not that this is a bad thing, but again, I saw the team grow the most when we went through the Bible together.
Remember, the reason why we’re pursuing a multicultural church and worshiping together with people of all nations is because it’s at the heart of God, which is found in His Word and in prayer. We just need to awaken to that truth by allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us as we journey together.
Blog post by Peter Kihyun Park
© 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.
Need for Deaf Translators
© 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.
How’s your heart doing?
One of the most important questions I’ve learned from my friend Josh David, from Proskuneo Ministries, is…
How your heart doing?
It’s a much better question to ask than, “How’s it going?” I find that when I ask this question people launch into what activities are filling up their schedules. This ranges from how work went to what their family did over the weekend to some movie they saw.
Nothing’s wrong with hearing about those things, but I feel like someone’s activities doesn’t necessarily reveal someone’s heart. Do you know what I mean?
A person could be working all day at a job that they don’t enjoy, but what they’re really passionate about is painting. Maybe another person you know puts on a happy face at church, but their father just passed away.
When my son was in the NICU
Over the summer my newborn son was rushed to the hospital and stayed in NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) for 15 days. It was an extremely stressful time to say the least.
Funny thing is I still had worship rehearsal and I still went to church that Sunday. I think a lot of people were surprised to see me there, especially since I sent an email the day we went to the hospital explaining what happened.
But in this crisis moment people were asking me how this event was affecting each one of us: myself, my wife, and my other son.
This was encouraging because when tragedy and emergencies occur it doesn’t just affect just the one person. It really does affect everyone in the family and close friends.
What does this have to do with the multicultural church?
If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it a thousand times…RELATIONSHIPS ARE IMPORTANT IN THE MULTICULTURAL CHURCH.
One of the ways we build those all important relationships are to find out what’s going on in people’s heart. It requires us to ask in humility. It requires us to take extra time to listen.
But if we’re going to build strong bonds with one another, move forward together, and do CHURCH together….then we’re going to have to ask this all important question:
How’s your heart doing?
Blog post by Peter Kihyun Park
© 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.