Thread by @jsparkblog

I have to tell you this weird wild story from about ten years ago when the Korean American church I served at merged with a white church. Ended with racial hostility & a shocking Sunday praise song & a bad split. It began when the Korean church needed a new building. ⬇️

A big white church across town was about to close its doors permanently. But our Korean church decided to buy the building & then invited any white church members to please stay & join our English speaking service. Many of the white members stayed. Much rejoicing. But …

The Korean pastor who led the English speaking service tried aggressively to create a multicultural congregation. Not a bad motive, but he assimilated hard & catered to the white folks. Burned a lot of bridges with the Korean folks. We first sat together, then opposite sides.

In a meeting with Korean & white leaders, we talked budget. Korean leaders noticed thousands of dollars of unused church materials hoarded so they suggested, “Maybe that’s why the church went bankrupt before?” White leaders were furious. They implied Koreans were cheap.

Food became an issue. At Korean church we serve food after service (pre-pandemic). White folks were excited about it! But they didn’t like to stay after service to wash dishes. White members ended up not eating the Korean food because “I’m getting real food later.” 😬

The Korean English-speaking pastor kept making it worse. In a sermon he said: “Poverty is a curse.” Maybe he meant to say, “It’s sad we have poverty in the world.” That’s how white folks took it. But Koreans were upset as so many had been & were poor. To me, it was tone-deaf.

One Sunday a few months in, tensions were high. Praise team was fighting. White praise team members seemed to hate the inclusion of Korean words or prayers. So—one of the white singers sang “God Bless America” while the slides showed American flags & eagles. For like 10 minutes.

Honestly quite a few of the Korean folks like the song “God Bless America.” But they knew exactly why it was being sung. It was a clear battle call from the white folks: “You bought our building but you’re on our territory. You’re only a guest here. You’ll never be American.”

A few months after the “God Bless America” debacle, I resigned. It was not primarily because of the infighting. But by this point I was tired of being a pastor who never did pastoral work; I was managing church politics. I never went back to pastoral ministry again.

A year later the Korean/English pastor was fired. He took every white person with him & started his own church. He is still successful, in terms of ministry. I have nothing against him. But I do see him as a victim of assimilation. And the Korean members who left never returned.

Did the Korean church members do everything right? Of course not. But blasting “God Bless America” at church as a power move is pretty gross to me. Telling us we were cheap & refusing to eat our food, I realize now more than ever, should have been called out simply as racist.

To be fair, I know many white members really tried hard. But the narrative to them changed from “Korean church bought the building & invited everyone to stay” and somehow to “Korean church took over the white church.” We were happy to have them; they seemed to soon despise us.

The Korean church did try everything to embrace the white members. The Korean pastor bent backwards to accommodate. But it wasn’t enough. The white members wanted their version of church. They wanted us to be their old church. They wanted to Make Church Great Again.

Why am I telling this story? Back then, I saw multicultural ministry as the final goal. I still see it as a worthy goal. But it’s shaped by the current of white-western ideals. Really, multicultural church is just the assimilated pastor asking, “How can we be white famous?”

White church folks say they want to be multicultural. I believe it. But we tried it their way & got broken. We found it safer to stay monoethnic. We’d love to be multicultural—but every resistant strain of white supremacy & ego keeps it from being possible. So it remains a dream.