Philadelphia- Set the City on Fire

The Ember Cast's maiden launch landed in the City of Brotherly Love the weekend of January 22nd. We stayed in and around Chinatown, partnering with a local Chinese Christian church. LT, pastor of the Chinese church and our guide around the city, explained to us that Chinatown was originally built to keep the immigrant population from expanding into the surrounding parts of the city. There are literally walls built around Chinatown and buildings placed specifically to keep the immigrant population living and working in a condensed area. At first I was shocked. My thinking tells me that if there is a new culture emerging in a community that isn't going to cause direct harm to anyone, I should help them grow and I can learn something from them. Then again, I am part of the "world culture generation", where other cultures are viewed as interesting instead of as a threat to "the American way of life." In fact, LT's church is the first church to move and expand outside of the boundaries of Chinatown. And, after talking with some of the kids from the Chinese youth group, I found out that most of them live in suburbs outside of the city.
I think this observation points out how different generations of church or christian leaders can view a different culture. Recently, and even currently, there have been churches and other christian organizations that have become territorial and therefor hostile towards outside help. LT was telling us that in his generation, church pastors and leaders tend to work in solitude rather than partner with other organizations, even if the other organizations are christian and trying to get the same goal accomplished. LT said that there was a sense of ownership over the church, which, among other things, caused churches to become isolated from one another and from the rest of the world. In the same way the builders of Philadelphia wanted to keep the American Philadelphia separate and different from the Chinese Philadelphia because they felt this new culture would be a threat, different churches (even ones of the same denomination or lack thereof) will not associate themselves with one another. This solitude can be detrimental to the impact that the church (as in the body of believers in an area) can have on its community because there are churches competing against one another and against other community-based organizations.
LT has branched out from the rest of his generation by connecting his church in the community so that the community can help the church, and the church can help the community. Although this kind of partnership seems like common sense, most leaders in the church world of his generation are not engaging their community in this way. The next generation of leaders in the church will have to be connected to their community. The old model of "do it yourself" has proved to be lacking. I feel that if a church engages in its community in such a way that the relationship it has with local community oriented organizations is almost symbiotic, we can see in a short time how a church can mold its community, both in what is seen (community clean up, rebuilding) and in what is unseen (mindset, moral).

For a more in depth look at the Ember Cast's stay in Philadelphia, visit
http://faithinhighdeff.blogspot.com/