Glocal Summit Offers Stories About the World in Our Neighborhoods
Colin Watson, a speaker at the recent Glocal Church Summit, works in men’s ministry at Madison Avenue Christian Reformed Church, a multicultural congregation in Paterson, New Jersey.
Among other things, his church offers an after-school program, a discipleship ministry, and help for those recovering from addictions.
Madison Avenue CRC, says Watson, can be seen as one example of the kinds of congregations that the recent summit, held at a church in downtown Los Angeles, highlighted.
“Our church works to be a congregation that celebrates and embraces diversity,” said Watson, who spoke at the three-day Gloacal Church Summit on the issue of diversity.
Held November 17-19, the first summit of this kind for the CRC brought together people from 17 different states, more than 75 cities, three regions in Canada, and representatives from Mexico and Korea.
The word glocal is a hybrid, combining local and global, and refers to doing global ministry in one’s own neighborhood.
“A lot of emphasis was placed at the summit on the church without borders—on serving and reaching out in the context of a community,” says Watson, a retired business executive who is also a consultant to the CRC on diversity issues.
At the summit, stories were told about how churches have looked out to see scores of immigrant groups in their midst — some fleeing oppression, some simply seeking a new life here — and of searching ways to bring ministry to them.
The summit was sponsored by Christian Reformed Home Missions, World Missions, Calvin College, Calvin Theological Seminary, and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.
“The question we addressed was ‘How do we engage with people from around the world from a local perspective?’” says Rev. Moses Chung, director of Home Missions.
“There was very much a deepening understanding of the missional movement. The summit challenged people’s thinking.”
In the traditional model, Chung says, missions tend to be viewed as outreach done by a church for people in other places, often in other countries.
While it is important to engage in this work, it is also crucial to realize that the world has come to us, said Chung.
“Many of the cultures from around the world are represented in our own neighborhoods,” he says.
“God is already at work in our communities, and it is the role of the church to discern and join God there.”
With this focus in mind, attendees were asked to consider re-evaluating their programs for evangelism, says Rev. Charles Kim, one of the organizers of the summit.
“The idea of ‘glocal’ is more than a concept but a reality … a new future (that) is already happening,” he says.
As North America is rapidly changing, Kim adds, churches should “reflect seriously about reaching our neighbors. What we do locally will have global impact.”
The summit included various keynote speakers, breakout sessions, and time for pastors and others to meet and connect.
A highlight of the summit for many was listening to the stories of how churches are responding “glocally.”
Rev. Doug Bouws, hospitality minister at Granite Springs CRC in Granite Springs, Calif., said there was a church from Pennsylvania whose story especially struck him.
“An elder from that church spoke at one session,” he said. “This church was dying/losing members, but had the wisdom and courage to try new things in the community and connect with those in their neighborhood.”
He was also moved by hearing the story of an Iraqi pastor baptizing people in Los Angeles.
“He had to cover the faces of those baptized in order to protect them from family members who might see those pictures and persecute them,” says Bouws.
Rev. Andy Sytsma, pastor at New Life CRC in Spring, Texas, and a Home Missions cluster leader in Houston, was also moved by stories he heard.
“I enjoyed hearing Caleb and Alice Dickson's story about how God was using them in a local church in New Mexico. They were … seeing God move in the church they were serving through Caleb's preaching and Alice's leadership with worship and children's ministries.”
He also appreciated listening to Aslam Masih, a church planter from Pakistan and staff member with the North American Mission Board, talk about “how he reached out to an Iranian non-believer, befriended and mentored him, and how eventually this man came to the Lord and stepped up in ministry to plant a church,” said Sytsma.
In one of the presentations at the summit, Tom McClenehan and Bill Heersink spoke about The Vine, a center they have established in Salt Lake City to train people from various ethnic groups about the basics of Christian ministry.
Salt Lake, they said, has seen an astonishing influx of people groups over the last several years, ranging from Somalis to Burmese and from Columbians to people from Ghana.
Many of these people are Christians and hungry to know more about the faith, says McClenehan in a video shot during the summit.
“We realized there was a need for Christian fellowship in various places and that church planters and others from these countries wanted formal training,” he said. “The Vine is a place where that can take place.”
If he has one prayer, says Heersink in the video, is that the mainline churches in Salt Lake City would be willing to look around and see the variety of people living right next door and with whom they can do ministry.
Daniel Jung, a 2013 graduate from Calvin Theological Seminary, said the Glocal Church Summit provided him with a broader theological framework to better understand the practical aspects of what makes up a "missional" community.
The speakers at the summit , he said, emphasized “that the Spirit of God is already at work in our local neighborhoods, and our job as pastors is not to lead them to Jesus (in the traditional model of evangelism), which breeds a hero mentality, but to be attentive listeners to the Spirit's work from a posture of humility.
“This makes sense to me as I have always understood that we are not called to usher in the Kingdom, but to bear witness to the Kingdom already made tangible by the life and death of Jesus Christ.”
