Congratulations to Gente Unida Ministries as they celebrated their 3rd Anniversary this past Sunday.  I understand that their service was super and was jam packed with well over 350 people in attendance.  GUM normally meets at the WCC Ministry Center at 1:30 PM on Sunday’s.  However for the last two years they have held this anniversary service off site so that they can have a morning service complete with a Posole lunch.

Way to go Pastor Amado and Joy, and Pastor Jonaton and newly engaged fiance Cynthia…  God’s doing a great thing at GUM and certainly has so much more in store.

After Westbrook’s 3rd service this past Sunday I jumped in a car and raced to catch a flight to New York City (Thanks Dassie.) My reason for going was to attend a Management team meeting for a brand new Orchard Group church plant to the Indian community in and around Yonkers. (more about this plant in future posts) Upon my arrival at La Guardia, I took a cab into Harlem and caught a train to New Rochelle to attend a Sunday PM service of a newly established Brazilian church. Talk about planes, trains and automobiles!

I got to the church shortly after the service started. You must know that due to my passion, this was one amazing 24 hour journey. Seeing God’s work in different languages~ awesome! I love NYC. I’m excited about God’s work here, but the thing that stuck out to me the most on this trip was the cemeteries… Leaving Chicago and landing in NYC~ what jumped out at me from high above the cities were the cemeteries. I’m not sure I’ve ever noticed them.

What’s all this about? What’s the moral? I had some time to think about it and my best stab is this: Despite our language or location the fact is… people will die. Are they ready to go? Are we?

I know it’s a bunch of months away, but be sure to get this date on your calendar- April 21-24, 2008.  This is the date for the Exponential 09 (National New Church Conference).  Once again this year I am coordinating the Multi-Ethnic Track.  And once again this year we have a great line up of speakers.  This has become a “don’t miss” conference.

Several times over the last couple of years Westbrook has held an International Feast. It’s really not a new idea… It’s just our version of the old fashioned potluck. Just with an international spin. We encourage people to bring dishes from their cultural heritage for a sort of Taste of Westbrook. We tell our folks whether you are Italian, Korean, Indonesian, Greek, Polish, Hispanic, Indian, Filipino, European or any combination thereof, plan on bringing 2-3 or your favorite cultural dishes to share. We want to make sure we have plenty of food, so please don’t be skimpy. If your specialty is Lasagna, bring it. If it’s Enchilada’s, bring them. If you make the best Ponsit in the area, then you know what to bring. If it’s a tuna casserole, then by all means. It really is a cool way to celebrate the diversity our body and at the same time enjoy some awesome food. As we pursue cross cultural competency, we believe it even involves learning to appreciate other foods. You ought to try it!

Westbrook is a healthy Multi-Ethnic church.  I believe this is true in part because of our hard work, faithful commitment but more than anything else~  God’s blessing and anointing.  What a blessing rich diversity is.  But it’s more challenging in other places.  Follow this link for an interesting  article on developing a Multi-Ethnic church.