The Manhattan Church of Christ is definitley a church filled with diverse people, combing people from different economic, social, religious, racial and philisophical backgrounds. Sometimes their only connection is Christ, not even where they live (people commuting 1-90 minutes).

The only difficult barrier for them is language. How do you integrate spanish & english? They had seperate services on Sunday (2 for english & 1 for spanish). Then the 3rd Sunday of the month, they had bi-lingual worship. This consisted of songs, scriptures, and the sermon being doing in both languages for all people.

With singing, they sing songs in both spanish & english. They try to do all songs with verses in english & spanish. The praise team and all members, sing the projected language. This is great to teach english speaking folk how exclusive their worship and activities in life can be and how difficult it is when we expect people to communicate things that we say and do so easily.

With the prayers or scripture, they are doing in either Spanish or English, usually rotated with the opposite language not used projected on the screen.

When having a communion devotion or sermon, it is spoken in English and then all Spanish speakers recieve wireless headsets where they have a Spanish servant translating for them, if they do not know English.

I think we should give it our best to combine when we can- but I will say that language is the most difficult barrier.

For me it's not so much a question of what we "should" do as it is a question of what best works and honors God in each setting. Available evidence suggests that in the primitive church there were significant differences among Jewish churches (like in Jerusalem) and primarily gentile churches... and that seemed to be OK. Yet, some believers, such as Paul, seemed perfectly comfortable worshiping in a variety of settings. One culture was no better than another, and Paul's only heartburn seemed to be with those Jewish Christians who insisted on "their way" in certain areas.

I have worshipped meaningfully with brothers and sisters who speak French, yet my preference is to worship in English. I have worshipped meaningfully in settings that were bi-lingual, yet I am more comfortable regularly worshiping in my own language rather than Spanish. Part of what made those kinds of experiences special was the uniqueness of each to those settings. If I lived in Lyon, my French would improve and I would adapt to that culture and worship style... perhaps even enriching their worship style and cultural a little just by what I brought to the table as someone of a different culture. If I lived and worshipped with a church family who conducted their services in a bi-lingual format, I would soon learn not only to appreciate my Spanish speaking brothers, but I would also learn something of worshiping in their heart language as well as their verbal language.

Ideally, we might all meet together... and in some settings that works well... each sensitive to the needs of the other... forming a new worship culture with forms appropriate to that new culture. Realistically, that works some places (sometimes necessity or choice is indeed the mother of invention), but just doesn't work everywhere. Nor, I think, does it have to. There's something rich and full about a group of people of shared culture expressing worship to God in a style that is unique to that culture.

So, I guess this rambling response ends where it started. If our worship style and forms honor God and allow us to express our hearts, then we are functioning as the body of Christ.

I enjoy it when we are separated by language, just because everyone is singing the same thing. But I think it would be cool if once in a while we combined languages and had the service together.

It's all for Christ

This could be one of those cases where you have to do what most edifies the Body, meaning that the answer may have to be different for different congregations.

I also consider in I Corinthians where Paul says to speak in tongues only when a translator is around. Of course, I think this just makes sense.

In a perfect world with perfect technology, where everyone had an ear-bud with a translator on the other end, I'd say we should definitely have worship assemblies together. I think it would be largely edifying to be constantly reminded that God's grace is not just for people like me, but for all people and cultures. Singing songs or reciting prayers in someone else's language would be a powerful way to be reminded of that.

All that aside now, I do wonder if it's maybe putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. Consider, we can't even get all the English-speaking people in one place to worship or One God, because of all the problems we have with each other. Should we really be that concerned about doing multi-cultural worship at this point in time, when we can't even get our own culture right?

Except for Acts 2, most all assemblies (of believers) in the NT were "house to house", most likely within same culture/language. Constantine began what has now become our own form "temple worship" which in the end generated the problem being discussed. Therefore, from a scriptural standpoint, there is no divine answer to this dilema other than meeting from house to house, which limits the complication. Another man-made problem.

I believe part of the beauty of the New Covenant (versus the Old or any other legalistic worship form) is that it allows for any culture, any place, any language, any gender, any race or any combination of those. It's up to the believers as to how they do what they do. So the practices of the Madison Church of Christ will reflect its demographics. If it becomes 50/50 between languages then so be it. More than likely a decision to change cultural or language practices will have an effect on the demographics and those who remain or who are drawn by the practices will determine the future practices and demographics.

It's not a bad thing to gravitate to someplace you can understand and to be with people you can communicate with and relate to. Otherwise the understanding part of worship may be hindered. I like the fact that there can be a variety of styles present in any given town so that different personality types and cultural backgrounds can find a meaningful, relevant place for them to express their worship to God and to fellowship with others of like mind. I don't see it necessarily as a bad thing that a small town of 500 people will have 6-10 different churches. (Or that Nashville will have X?? number of churches!!) Especially if they get together every so often for a community event or worship where each group takes turn planning, according to their preference, and the others experience it. I know of one small town in southeast Oklahoma that did just that. When it was the CofC's turn to plan and host we were asked to bring a WT there to lead the singing. It was a wonderful. Baptists, Methodists, Church of Christ, etc. all under one roof, worshiping the one triune God. Of course it was a cappella. But some of the CofCs did go to the other churches when they hosted.

There is only one church and the church is one. It just has many faces and is able to experience the freedom God grants in language, style and format. I think it's best for a congregation to be a genuine reflection of its membership in its worship language and style. Unfortunately, as Jonathan alluded to earlier, there is a spirit of division alive in many people which keeps them barely able to fellowship with themselves much less "those" people. God alone will determine if the Spirit of Christ is truly present in many professing Christians who seem determined to divide the Body of Christ.

Don't you just love the freedom we have in Christ?

I feel that combined worship assemblies with those of other languages and cultures is good occassionally, but tend to believe that a continuous diet of such will leave the minority culture/language unfulfilled, because they have to get everything via an interpreter.

My experience is with the Deaf and hands down our Deaf members prefer an all sign language service as the norm. We are one of the few CoCs that have a full time Deaf minister and therefore do have separate Deaf assemblies. When we do meet with the hearing congregation, we often get comments from the hearing about how much the interpreter aids their (the hearing) appreciation of the service. That is good, but the hearing are getting everything in their primary language, with some additional visual enhancement. For the Deaf, it is a difficult experience, because interpreters are far from perfect, many things do not interpret well (or not at all, like humor), cultural presumptions/illustrations/etc do not fit the Deaf.

Occassional joint assemblies are a good thing to develop a feeling of mutualness, fellowship, etc, and we do them just for that reason, but the most meaningful worships are almost always ones done in the Deaf's language, i.e. not interperted for them.

I expect some of the same issues will apply to different hearing cultures and spoken languages.