Posts tagged ‘Experiences’
Learning to appreciate your own culture
It’s taken me a long time to actually appreciate my own culture, more specifically with my Korean culture.
I’m the only one in my family to be born and raised here in the United States. My parents and my sister both came over from Korea during the 1970′s.
Growing up there were lots of expectations for me to learn the language and embrace the culture. But, it almost felt like it was being forced upon me. This only caused me to reject it and embrace only my American culture.
It wasn’t until I was completely removed from the Korean culture that I began to miss it.
This was when I started college.
There was a sea of Caucasian people and Hmong people, but there wasn’t a Korean person in sight. In fact, I tried going to this Chinese restaurant to get a “taste” of Korean culture. And I say that to say this…Koreans love Chinese food. Basically, it reminds me of home.
Sadly, the food was “Americanized” and it didn’t quite have the flavor I was looking for.
Things really began to shift, in my appreciation for Korean culture, when I started dating my wife. For the first time, I had to explain our customs, culture, food, and language.
Our families have learned how to get along, despite some obvious language barriers. My mother had the hardest time when I started dating a Caucasian woman.
She felt that she couldn’t do some of the traditional things she wanted to nor could she communicate with her.
It took awhile, but my mom and my wife have found common ground. In large part, because my wife took the time to learn some of the language and embrace many of the foods of Korean culture. Then, of course, is our son…one of our most precious unifiers.
After all, my parents don’t come to visit us anymore…it’s all about my son, which is great.
The take away…
It’s possible that God may take you away from your home to help you begin to embrace your own culture. It’s possible that God may open your eyes right where you are. It’s possible that God made you with a specific plan in mind and the culture you grew up with is an important part of that.
Lesson: Don’t wait to embrace your own culture. Learn about it, study it, and share it.
Share your story and your life…
Sincerely,
Peter Park
Blogger/Worship Leader/Speaker
peterpark@redemptionboulevard.com
(800) 453-3284
© 2010, Peter Park. All rights reserved.
Introverts and multicultural worship/church
This is me speaking from an introvert’s point of view:
Building relationships for me is hard. I’d rather stay home. And I’d be perfectly fine with that.
At the same time, I’ve noticed that as I’ve gotten older some adults have naturally leaned towards that as well, at least the people that I know.
BUT, since we are the body of Christ, we need to make those relationships intentional and frequent.
Sometimes that excuses that I hear go something like this:
“I feel my part is to be a silent support.”
“I just hate those superficial conversations. I just want more meaningful talks.”
“Evangelism is not my gift.”
The following illustration is what I feel that introverts, myself included, try to do when we build relationships. I think we unintentially bypass culture and what we consider superficial conversations.
Obviously, this is an overly simplified version of how someone would create a deep and meaningful relationship, but I think you get the point.
When we bypass culture we don’t get the complete picture of a person or what’s going on in their life, which is part of the reason why I feel people have trouble being vulnerable in the church.
This picture, on the right, is just an illustration to help you think about what we don’t know about a person. What makes this person happy? What makes this person sad? What do they do for work? Do they work with their hands?
There are a number of people in my family’s life that have no idea what’s going on in our lives at church. Not many people seem to know that my wife has been working two jobs…and it’s been nearly five months.
Wouldn’t know that “superficial” bit of information give you insight into our lives and our financial situation? But more than that, you miss out on what’s going on in our hearts.
Lesson: Culture is not only an outward expression, but it’s really an expression of one’s heart.
Introverts should lean on the fact that they’re great at those one to one friendships. I know when I was at the Proskuneo Multicultural Worship Convergence a few weeks ago I was overwhelmed with all the people that I met. However, I concentrated my followup efforts with the few people I did connect with.
And I continue to followup with them to get to know their heart culture.
Share your story and your life…
Sincerely,
Peter Park
Blogger/Worship Leader/Speaker
peterpark@redemptionboulevard.com
(800) 453-3284
© 2010, Peter Park. All rights reserved.
Don’t abandon your own culture, embrace it.
A good friend of mine, Nikki Lerner, called me today and left a voicemail with an excited tone saying, “Call me, I have a funny story for you.”
Being the curious person that I am I called her back right away. She wanted to tell me that her church was planning on doing this song by Steven Curtis Chapman called The Walk. Now, I haven’t listened to his music in awhile, but apparently this song is kind of country-ish.
Nikki thought it would be a perfect song for one of her guitar players to sing and lead on. Well, he came back saying that the song had, more or less, brought up some complications. Basically, he felt that he sounded too white.
Being an observant person that Nikki is, she pointed out that her guitar player was indeed white. He responded by saying, “But, I’m black on the inside.”
…..You know, as we start to become more intentionally immersed in other people’s cultures we may feel the need to abandon our own culture. Maybe the grass seems greener on the other side. I don’t know.
When I sang at my sister-in-law’s wedding a few years ago she asked me to sing a Rascal Flatts song. (They’re a popular country band with a lead singer who always seems to sing beyond my range.)
Anyways, my sister-in-law Erin didn’t want me to try and sing it in the country style. She wanted me to sing it in my own style.
Why? I’m guess that what was important to her were the lyrics of the song and that I be authentic to who I am. I can’t change who I am. I can’t change where I was born. I’m grateful for how God made me.
To be honest, it took me a long time to embrace how God made me because I didn’t quite understand who God made me. And this is not uncommon. A lot of people I know still don’t know who God made them to be. It’s an intentional process we need to be on.
At the same time, once I understood who I was it made it so much easier to fully appreciate how God made other people….whether they are Chinese, Hmong, Black, White, guitar player, vocalist, preacher, etc.
Lesson: Learn to appreciate how God created you while you learn to appreciate other cultures.
Share your story and your life…
Sincerely,
Peter Park
Blogger/Worship Leader/Speaker
peterpark@redemptionboulevard.com
(800) 453-3284
© 2010, Peter Park. All rights reserved.