Many Tongues, One Faith

Four times a year, church members speak the same language. Sort of.

Most Sundays at Wilshire United Methodist finds the congregation worshiping, studying the Bible and practicing hymns separately in four languages: Korean, Spanish, English and Tagalog.

But next month for Pentecost, as it does three other times annually, the congregation’s groups will unite in one service.

The events are delicate juggling acts, involving multilingual tag teams, that typify the ethnic complexity of Los Angeles--and push multiculturalism to an unusual level.

At those times, each pastor trades off leading portions of the services in his language, and worshipers who speak other languages follow along, reading translations. Overhead projectors beam subtitles onto a screen.

Everyone sings the same hymns, but each in their own language, creating a sort of harmonic cacophony.

“I thought it would be chaotic, but it was one of the most beautiful and moving services I’ve ever seen,” the Rev. Keith Andrew Hwang said of a recent Christmas Eve observance. Hwang directs ethnic ministries for the United Methodist Church district that includes the historic 1,000-seat church, five miles west of downtown on Wilshire Boulevard.

“As long as that atmosphere of caring and respect and mutual accountability is prevailing, having different languages in one setting should not present a problem,” he said. “Smiling is a universal language. Caring acts can be done in any language.”

Wilshire Methodist is the only congregation among the nearly 400 that Hwang oversees in Southern California and the Pacific island region that serves so many language groups. Indeed, church officials and others say that two or three languages are not uncommon, but that a four-language church is decidedly rare among any religious denomination in any city.

As a result, Wilshire Methodist is a place so quintessentially Los Angeles that it seems implausible.

We may know, intellectually, that ours is the most ethnically complex city in the world. Yet it is rare to actually see that phrase--so tidy, so self-congratulatory--brought to life in one place.

Worshipers with vastly different cultures, foods and sensibilities coexist at the church, sometimes standing side by side, more often seeking spiritual growth apart--near one another but physically separate.

“The stir-together-in-a-bowl thing doesn’t work,” said Lori S. Jones, who coordinates weddings. “We’ve tried valiantly.”

On a recent Sunday, a Korean fund-raising brunch took place on the lawn just steps from a chapel where Spanish speakers trickled in, welcomed by murmurs of “Buenos dias.”

At the same time, on the other side of the church grounds, Tagalog services for Filipino Americans ended in the 80-year-old main sanctuary, and English-speaking members--mostly of African descent--began to arrive for their worship service.

Wilshire Methodist’s congregations are literally bumping into one another, and seem decidedly friendly. Yet they scarcely interact.

But the effort to connect continues daily, weekly.

Years of coordination and debate--and more than a bit of tension--have been educational, members say. Today, the church deftly manages bulletins, hymnals, prayer books, language classes, Web sites, Bible studies, women’s groups, men’s groups, choirs and finances--to name a few--in multiple languages.

Church officials continually work to ensure that each group has what it needs to flourish, but none is allowed to monopolize meeting space or otherwise elbow out smaller groups.

“Several groups want to dominate,” Dulce Gunning, a treasurer, said.

The Rev. Earl Thompson, who heads the church’s English-language segment, chuckled when he said, “The fact that we haven’t killed each other yet is good. Then we would be like [typical] L.A.”

Each week for the last four years, Gunning and the five pastors--the Korean group has two--have met to coordinate activities and compromise on limited space.

The church has five budgets, one for each congregation and one held jointly for such shared expenses as cleaning bills, utilities and administrative help.

As of this year, the Korean congregation is covering 55% of the common budget because that group makes up more than half the church’s overall membership, which hovers around 1,000, said the Rev. Chang Soon Lee, the senior pastor who started the Korean ministry 22 years ago. The Spanish-language group began in 1985, and the Filipino group in 1989.

“I view it as the evolution of a 20-year accident,” Thompson said, referring to the convergence of the various ethnic groups.

There are 150 to 200 members each in the English-language and Tagalog congregations, and about 50 at services for Spanish speakers, Lee said.

At various points in recent years, the church has tried to merge into one English-language congregation, but inevitably movements have emerged to separate, members said. Such pushes come because most church members are first-generation immigrants who are reluctant to assimilate, to lose the culture and sounds of home.

“We love to hear our own language,” said Leony Orlanes, a four-year member who attends Tagalog services with her mother, children and sister. “Also for the kids. Mine are less than 5 years old, and we don’t want them to forget our language. We miss the Philippines a lot, so this helps us remember.”

For decades, Wilshire Methodist, whose building was erected in 1924, “was typically lily white and highfalutin,” said Maggie Cooper, who has been a member since 1954 and coordinates the church’s Bible study.

Although members insist that the church always welcomed diversity, many white members left--as the Korean congregation grew in the late 1970s--”because of the ethnic mixture,” Cooper said.

As the other immigrant-based ministries began, it became clear that none of the congregations alone would be large or wealthy enough to support the church on its own. They needed one another to survive.

“We take everyone we can get,” Gunning said.

Pastors from throughout the country often visit Wilshire Methodist to see how its balancing act works.

“It is a model church for our area and . . . could be a model for the nation,” Hwang said. “That kind of ministry will happen more often in the future because of the changes in ethnic makeup in our area. Churches will be and should be leading the way in modeling how people from different cultures can come together.”

Many at the church talk about young people as their best hope for a more integrated church--perhaps already foreshadowed by the large number of ethnically mixed couples there.

The goal, perhaps over the next 20 years of inter-ethnic worship: “One hope, one faith, one baptism,” said the Rev. Romillo N. Padilla, who ministers to Filipino Americans.

“One church.”