Anglo-Hispanic Christianity?

Sometimes my brain goes too fast.  It happened to me this morning as Rachel Oblon was leading devotions at Parkcrest staff meeting.  She was talking about Acts 11.  I hardly could pay attention at what she was telling, for my mind was doing "ultra fast exegesis".

⁵Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, ²⁶and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.

Barnabas was a Jew born in Cyprus, Tarsus was a city in today's Turkey, Saul (Hebrew name) later called Paulus (Latin name), was brought to Antioch (city named after a Greek general).  The church there was not Jewish, neither was it totally Gentile.  It was there that the name CHRISTIAN was first used.

Can you notice the cross-cultural approach, Cyprian, Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Latin all in two verses?

We are doing ministry in L.A. cross culturally.  We believe the church needs to cross cultural barriers.  A couple of months ago I realized that Iglesia Ágape is indeed a multicultural church.  We have within our community of faith Anglo-white people, a black African, a Chinese single mom, European-Argentineans, Mexicans from Spanish and Indian background, Ecuadorian-Qechuans, Central and South Americans, and Caribbean-Portorricans.  It is amazing to notice the different Spanish accents of all these people, different cultural customs, and variety of foods.  Add to the picture African British English and Chinese politeness.  So, don't call us a mono ethnic church for using Spanish as a primary language.  In fact, we have translation into English too, and we are seriously thinking on starting a second service in English. We are a multi-ethnic community of faith.

I don't know many Anglo churches with this "crossculturality."  The equivalent, in English, would be a church with members from England, Scotland, Ireland, African English speakers, Canadians, Jamaicans, Belizeans, Australians, Hawaiians, Falkland Islanders, etc.

The Antiochian church was a cross-cultural one.  In fact, the name Christian is a mixture of Greek and Latin: Christos (being the translation of the Hebrew  word “Messiah” into Greek) and IANVS (a Latin suffix).

This morning, at the staff meeting, I was thinking about this and looked at the senior pastor Mike Goldsworthy, and I couldn't think of a most English last name as his.  I imagine myself, a Hispanic-Latino becoming a fanatic of this leader and what if I decide to call myself a Goldworthista (English noun with a Spanish suffix). Or, on the other hand, what if he would become a Fernando's fan, then call himself a Fernandist or a Fernandian (Spanish name with an English ending).

Oh, I am amazed at the power of the Kingdom’s Gospel that irrupted to change all our paradigms!

I wonder if we are ready, here on the left coast, to become Christianos, or Cristians for the sake of the kingdom.

Iglesia Agape

Agape Church was planted in 2005.  After meeting in Plaza Mexico and Montebello Hotel, we moved in 2007 to Parkcrest Christian Church, Lakewood Campus.  We met at the Activity Center until September 2008, when we moved to the Worship Center.  

We have an attendance of 130 now.  We praise the Lord for the progress of Agape.  We have our own Worship team who is being led by Sean Grace, a very talented young man.  He has empowered our youth in this important ministry.

At the beggining of the year I gave the church our vision of ministry.  The book "Simple Church" helped a lot to simplify our vision.  Agape exists so people can Love God, Love Others,

 and Serve the World.  We love God in our Sunday worship service, (God's house living-room). We love others in our eight small groups (Grupos Levaduras- Yeast groups, which is God's house dinning-room).  And we serve the world in our outreach ministries: Marriage Encounter, missionary trips to Rosarito, food bank, etc. (God's house kitchen).

We are facing a challenging year: by September we will need to find our own worship facilities in order to become and independent church, and by January 2010 we, the Sotos, will no longer be a part of CMF International.  After working with them for 12 years, the time have come to transition from missionary to local pastor.  It will be a great step for Agape Church as well as for us.  We are trusting the Lord, and we count on your prayers.