Separation & Oneness

I was worshiping at my old church in Sydney this past Sunday. It happened to be a special family service celebrating the 4th anniversary of the Korean congregation. The Korean congregation was started by a Korean pastor who linked up with the church and hold their service after the English service each Sunday.

Among the many things in the service was a segment showing videos of various church members congratulating the anniversary of the Korean congregation. One of the messages was that the church, both the English and Korean congregation, would become one in Christ. This made me think about how this unity could be achieved if the 2 congregations meet at different times and therefore hardly see each other.

I can fully understand that the older generation would want to worship God in their native language, and rightly so. But that separation or segregation which exists in our churches today goes beyond the context of language barrier and cultural difference. It extends to ministries, age group and worship style etc., all encourage coming out rather than coming together. I recalled someone pointing out the many ministries in our churches today are but unnecessary because they separate people rather than bringing people together. I think there’s some truth in it. Although I won’t go so far as to say that ministries aren’t needed. They do serve their purpose in building up the body of Christ. But in order to maintain balance and bring unity, the church needs to put in place ways to actively and intentionally draw and bring people together.

Back to the Korean congregation, I thought the younger generation all speak English fluently, and would be good if their youth and young adults could work cross congregation. And I was glad to find out later that they do work together. Looks like their youth groups are combined which is one way to cross the great divide.