Make a date with multicultural events

I wonder … about community calendars in a cross-cultural setting.

“We won’t be at church on Sunday, sorry Rev. We have a White Sunday celebration with the Samoans across town.”

Darn. I had missed it – again. I had missed recognising another cultural festival for the families in our congregation.

I wonder what would our community or worship calendar look like if it were led by the multicultural kids in our congregations? I grew up in multicultural settings (Samoan, Tongan, Fijian and Maori), but each quarter we still missed chances and our annual calendar frequently missed Diwali, White Sunday or the week of prayer at New Year.

Our aspiration might look like this: “The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) marks its multicultural and intercultural identity through specific national dates, worship resources, and cultural events integrated into the annual Assembly Calendar of Dates.”

But the reality looks like this:

“Key multicultural and intercultural dates

• Intercultural Neighbouring Sunday (INS): Celebrated annually in July (typically mid-July, such as July 19), this is the premier national focal point where congregations celebrate linguistic and cultural diversity within the body of Christ.
• Uniting Church Day of Mourning: Held on the Sunday prior to Australia Day (January) to reflect on colonisation, justice and First Peoples.
• Anniversaries of multicultural declarations: Commemorating milestones like the historic 1985 declaration “The Uniting Church is a multicultural Church”.

We would be better off asking the families in our congregation, “What dates do you celebrate at home? What do you stop and think about, light a candle for, decorate the table or walls for, dress up especially for?” Then we should be specific about the cultural groups: What happens in Tongan communities is not the same across all Pacific Islands; “Asian” is a non-specific term – if you mean Indonesian, Malaysian, Chinese or Korean then say so (depending on your context). Finally, like Easter, the dates of some of these festivals change every year depending on lunar (moon) cycles.

So if we asked that question, “What do you celebrate at home?”, our worship and community calendar might include …

• Week of Prayer (Uike Lotu) Tonga. First Sunday of January to the next Friday;
• Lunar New Year (Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Japanese, Chinese) February 6 in 2027;
• Ramadan (Egyptian, Malaysian, Palestinian) February 8 in 2027 (tentative);
• Pesach (Passover) Jewish. April 21-29 in 2027;
• NAIDOC Week. July 4-11 in 2027;
• White Sunday (Lotu Tamaiti) Samoan. October 10;
• Diwali (Festival of Lights) Indian (Hindu), Fiji Indian. October 29;
• Christmas eve (for German and Dutch people, this is the high point of the Christmas celebration). December 24;
• Christmas Day. December 25.

(Note: This is a sample list from my community. You should add the ones that you think are missing for your postcode and community).

We may not celebrate Ramadan or Pesach, but people who shop at our local supermarket will … and some of our children or grandchildren’s classmates certainly will. We can acknowledge or even celebrate these important days with them.

Together we can learn different ways of prayer and community with our Tongan or Samoan families. Our children and grandchildren can learn with our Hindu or Jewish neighbours that there is more than one calendar that points to festival days. Being multicultural means being curious, and might even include sitting down with food and unfamiliar words around a table.

I wonder … what festivals do the children and families in your church and community celebrate? And how can we join them?