Church of All Nations

In January of 2004 a group of mostly second generation members of a Korean immigrant church in Minneapolis was blessed by our “mother church” to launch a multicultural community called Church of All Nations.  We were chartered with great expectations by our presbytery and denominational leaders, but no one knew if one hundred mostly young Korean-Americans could actually become a Church of All Nations; many thought the name was a bit premature, if not presumptuous.

Today, we are a healthy, midsized congregation that is roughly 30% Asian, 37% white, 22% black, and 10% Latino, with more than twenty-five nations represented in our membership.  Our pastoral staff includes people from Korea, Kenya, Sudan, Brazil, China, Japan, Cote d’Ivoire and the United States (both Euro- and African-American).  Our session and board of deacons also fully reflect this diversity.

We are one of a handful of congregations in the U.S. with no ethnic majority and sizable groups of the four major racial categories of white, black, Asian and Latino.  But we actually have even more denominational background diversity than ethnic diversity, drawing as many Catholics, Episcopalians and Lutherans as we do Pentecostals, Baptists and Evangelical Free.  Our highly visible commitment to ecumenical unity may be one reason why, out of the twenty-five new members we recently welcomed, the vast majority had no Presbyterian background.  We also draw equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, and we address politics, racism, the economy, war and peace head on.

Our central mission is to live into the ministry of reconciliation, and it is happening in all kinds of wonderful ways here.  For instance, in January of 2006 we moved from our Korean “mother church” into the building of a declining white PCUSA congregation, Shiloh Bethany Church, which had plenty of room.  We rented space for a few months, but then Shiloh Bethany asked if they might merge with us.  At the end of July the congregation that was founded in 1884 was dissolved, and all of its members became members of Church of All Nations.

Incidentally, 1884 is the year that PCUSA missionaries first arrived on the shores of my home country of Korea.  So we came full circle, historically speaking.  One of the key reasons for the union of Shiloh Bethany with the Church of All Nations was the growing recognition of the need to be a new kind of church for an increasingly multicultural population in Columbia Heights and the entire Twin Cities area.  Church of All Nations fit that need very well.  After more than three years together, all of the original Shiloh Bethany members remain members to this day – praise God!

We witness many signs of growth in our midst, but the most important thing is that people are filled with joy, hope and genuine love for each other across all kinds of lines, dismantling barriers erected by church and society, history and culture.  For decades, Shiloh Bethany members had prayed that their sanctuary would be full again, and that the building would be restored to its original condition.  Who knew that God would answer the prayers of this typical, small white church through a young, multicultural church?  Who knew that a new church would own a beautiful, sizable building overlooking a gorgeous lake debt-free within three years of its existence?  Who knew that by committing to the ministry of reconciliation, that two congregations would form a new spiritual fellowship that would shelter and nurture so many of God’s children from around the world?

Many of us who began this journey assumed that we would be dealing with much more conflict as many cultures and worldviews added to the complexity of congregational dynamics.  What we have discovered, to our delight, is the exact opposite.  The very decision to join a church in which one chooses to be a minority seems to draw the kind of people who are willing to “lay down their sword” of power and privilege.  The Korean American founders had to set the example first.  Today, all of us seem to be caught up in a virtuous cycle of lifting up and valuing other individuals and cultures, “considering others better than oneself.”  The culture of public confession, corporate repentance, joyful celebration and vulnerable relationality that we have cultivated here is key to understanding the dynamism and eschatological hope evident in our life together.

We live in the time between the “already” and “not yet.”  Our church sees itself between Pentecost in Acts 2 and the coming kingdom in Revelation 7, when all nations, tribes and tongues will glorify God together in one voice.  We feel called to be an ecumenical church that embodies the major spiritual roots of the early church – to be simultaneously Rational, Sacramental, and Pentecostal.  We are also convinced that only intentional movement away from rigid denominationalism toward visible unity will lead the global church to recover its identity as “one holy catholic and apostolic.”  We are a high-risk, low-anxiety church where anything is possible, including the possibility of failure.  The only poverty we fear is the poverty of imagination.  We feel so blessed with God’s abundance and grace.  With humans, this is impossible. Thanks be to God who makes all things possible!