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WELCOME MAY 2010
Dear Friends, Recently we celebrated
Pacific Island Asian American Ministries (PAAM) Sunday. Once again it was a time for us to celebrate together our heritage
and the history that has caused us to be who we are today. We share some of this history with many other Pacific Rim related
cultural groups that are a part of our PAAM organization. Over the years we have begun to appreciate that we at HIC are no
longer the mono-culture Japanese church we began as. Now we also have in our midst Hawaiians, Filipinos, Hispanics, African
Americans, and a few Anglos. Further more we often have guests and visitors from still other cultures such as China and Guam.
The reality is that we are clearly a Multi-cultural church. Yet in truth this may be easier to say than to do. While for many
churches having so many different groups under one roof is the perhaps the first most difficult hurdle, since we have clearly
accomplished this we are now onto other hurdles.
How
can we take the time as a group to learn more about and appreciate the history, art, politics, beauty, and even differing
spiritual histories of each other’s cultures so that we all might find our lives
enriched and our spirituality deepened? While we do a great job of sharing cooking for one another and sharing recipes appreciating
another’s culture requires one to go deeper. Just as once PAAM addressed our entire denomination about becoming more
open to and sensitive to the tremendous gifts the PAAM churches had to offer, so now must we look to one another to find the
hidden treasures in our midst. We here at HIC have a unique opportunity to be a model for the larger church of what a “multi-cultural”
church can be.
The early church had many difficulties due to the fact that in the midst of living out their spirituality ion the
new “Way”, that Jesus had taught, they also found themselves overwhelmed by people of different cultures. While
many (but not all) practiced the same faith (Judaism) they came from different lands and spoke different languages.
As “The Way” of Jesus spread through the land the early church was shaped
by these differences. Yet as others saw the diversity it helped them know that there was room in this new movement for them
as well. Some kept the traditional dietary standards while others did not. Worship practices reflected some of the home culture
as well. Again and again we see the church growing and changing as it moves through the land.
On May 23 we will celebrate Pentecost together, what many understand as the “birthday”
of the church. On this day the magnitude of the multicultural nature of the church became clear as we read in the book of
Acts 2:1-21. Let us take the opportunity on that day and into the future to not only lift up the living God we share in common,
but also to celebrate the richness of our diversity and how each of us can find deeper and richer spiritual lives as we learn
from one another.
Blessings,
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