People of God from this world form the next world

Recently I felt lost examining footprints in the desert of church philosophy. But perhaps I forgot about our own strength in the Vietnamese Church tradition.

Pastor Brad Hightower in Artesia lamented about the crisis among the American church where "the church is in a crisis because the limited role church plays in the life of the believer in North America." This crisis was big enough to set off the Emergent Church movement where people long to "do church" differently, namely by "do life together" more.

I believe that this modern crisis was brought about because modern progress. Generally, our society spins faster and faster. People are constantly on the move, especially for the metropolitans. A few decades ago we can count on the fact that people will stick around in the same community so that we can "do life" together. But today global economy made it harder to maintain relationship, let alone some deeper relationship. People moved to study, moved to get a better job. Constant movements produce shallower root in the community, especially in the community of faith.

In that fast pace and constant movement of the most progressive country in the world, the Vietnamese church was planted here 30 years ago from its background of a third world backward small country. And because of that tradition, our churches really known for its community aspect (and perhaps the same way with other immigrant churches). We are church-of-the-ghetto (using the original meaning of "ghetto" as describing Jewish quarters in Europe a couple hundred years ago).

Church for us become even closer than family.

I and my younger brother live in the same city. I live on the east end and he live on the west end, separated by ten freeway exits. We haven't seen each others since our cousin's wedding six months ago. He serve at a church different than mine; and at this point we would be closer to other people in church rather than our own brother.

If the church were to be a community that "do life together", it will requires more time than just the weekend service. It also requires us to cut out some other social activities to make time for "life together". The hyperactive life style of SoCal subculture and the pursuit of multiple extra-curricular activities for the sake of University preference would be harmful to healthy relationship with the community.

Interestingly the American churches was once like our communal ethnic churches (Keith Drury wrote that the traditional church community was actually like that). What happened? They got spinned by the culture around them out of balance, to the point that some American churches are focusing on "The Weekend Experience" for the people, and many other American churches are relying on Small Groups to build a version of community for the people.

The other day An and I was discussed about the concept of community. The plain concept of community involved geographical proximity: people live around a place, have the same school, like the same food, and celebrate the same festival. The concept of community in the American Christian circle has more commuting aspect rather than geographical proximity, they gathered together by common purpose rather than common place. And the ethnic churches like ours would be a blend of the two. We would be able to understand the common purpose aspects as well as the common proximity aspects.

In time our churches will probably lose its unique communal aspects as we get assimilate more and more with the spinning culture around us. Some would lament the loss of "the true community atmosphere". But many others wouldn't careless because they could not lose what they did not have (just like the average consumers could not know that the chicken they consumed at the local supermarket would not taste comparable to a traditional "ga di bo" farm raised/roam-around chickens). But on the other hand, new aspects of community will begin to emerge (like church website forums and xanga and blogs).

No matter what are the forms, the principles from Scripture would be the same: community is about the people gathered by God in this eon to prepare for the next eon; from this world to form the next world.