The Rev. Canon Irvin (Sherm) Gagnon, newly installed Hispanic missioner in the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, spoke frankly about the issues that arise, as he sees them.

A big part of the problem, Canon Gagnon said, is "we have not yet become an American church." How the Episcopal Church worships and sees itself is "in the bowels of Anglophile Anglicanism. We're a very English-bred church and we fear losing that." How does the church get past its own filters, predispositions, proprieties and "invisibility factors" to allow people of other cultures to feel welcome?

How does a congregation make everyone welcome? How do the people of a predominantly Anglo parish church, many of whom come from the suburbs to give themselves and their resources as part of a downtown parish, make members of different groups feel welcome? Even among Anglos, he said, there is a tremendous cultural difference between 20-somethings and 60-somethings.

Are the Spanish language prayer books or the African-American hymnals put away in the sacristy or in a closet when they are not being used? Are cultural artifacts of participating groups in place, a part of the worship space?

"Poverty," he said, "is a whole other challenge." Vietnamese, Hispanic and other immigrants who are mono-lingual often are poor and work two or three jobs to make ends meet. Poor people, especially mono-lingual poor, do not understand the economics of a typical Episcopal church. Parishioners who are regular visitors to a parish soup kitchen, he said, don't have a clue to the meaning of a parish board of directors or the investments a parish makes or manages, and displays of affluence, such as a well-set table for a business luncheon at church, are an "in your face" example of socio-economic differences.

Becoming a truly multi-cultural parish is not easy and not quick, Canon Gagnon said. It means looking at church governance - how it goes about ministry and keeping God first. "It takes a lot of prayerful conversation and it is very costly" he said, to undo patterns followed for decades or centuries. "There is no way to do that fast."

There is a Native American congregation at St. John's Cathedral, Denver, Colo., which has its Sunday service in St. Martin's Chapel. It chooses to worship apart.

Bill Center, spiritual leader, said the congregation is a mix of Lakota, Navajo and some Mexican tribes.

The Native American service, Mr. Center said, is comprised primarily of drums and rituals, such as the "four directions" sacred to Native Americans.

"The 'four directions' say it all," he said.

The people face west, to the thunder people - the way of the hill and sun dance; they pray not to have fire, earthquake, flood or tornado; the color is black.

The people face north, to the buffalo nation - for medicine and healing; the color is white.

The people face east, to the elk nation - the way of sunrise and love; the color is yellow.

The people face south, to the eagle nation - the way of peace and faith; the color is red.

Mr. Center points out the four colors. Illustrating his point through a story of the horse dance, he said the colors represented in each direction serve as a way Native Americans pray for Africans, Caucasians and Asians, as well as for themselves.

The Native American congregation merges with the Anglo congregation for a special service at Pentecost. Native American songs and the "four directions" are an integral part of the service, said David Houston, in the cathedral's communication office, and the service is followed by a Native American powwow. In this way, Mr. Houston said, the Native American congregation is "very much integrated into the community."

The Rev. Arthur Anderson, a Canadian partner to the Executive Council and a Native American, presided at the Native American service while attending the February meeting of the Executive Council in Denver. He asked at the feast following the service why the Native American congregation is not integrated into the rest of the congregation at St. John's. Fr. Anderson was told that the Native Americans liked being alone because it "lets them know they are important."

The Rev. Kay Johnson, rector of Church of the Messiah, ministers to a predominantly Anglo, inner-city parish in Providence, R.I. She said that in her parish of about 150 baptized persons, the cultural differences are mostly about rich and poor and educated and uneducated people.

The people at Messiah, she said, have created an intercultural community by themselves. "There's some magic-mixing going on," she said, "that is deeply moving to me."

With a congregation defined by economic and educational groups, Ms. Johnson's biggest question is how do you preach about money? "I point out that American poverty is different from Third World poverty," she said. In the form of consciousness-raising, she points out that no one in the parish is starving and that there are differences between wants and needs. Ms. Johnson said she "challenges traditional American values," being poor is not bad, being rich is not good - there is nothing wrong with low income. She said she would preach very differently, a "tougher" sermon, in a middle-class parish.

A great deal of coming together occurs at feast-day parish suppers, which are all potluck. The parish also has multi-ethnic meals where people bring a dish of their cultural heritage, be that Liberian, Haitian, Jamaican, Nigerian, French Canadian - or the member from Georgia who brings grits. "We talk more openly about who we are and stumble onto things" that bring more unity, she said.

"What's exciting ... the really effective things, perk up coincidentally," she said. The people at Messiah learn by doing, she said, but often intercultural communication develops because of "accidents of who connects with whom."

"We've become, probably, the most diverse church in the San Francisco area," said the Rev. Stacey Grossman, interim rector at St. Francis', San Francisco.

Located in a middle-class area of the city, on the edge of a wealthy area called St. Francis Woods and close to the Latino mission district, St. Francis' is a mix of ethnic and other cultures: There are Asians from China, Japan and the Philippines, Latin Americans and people from the Caribbean islands, African-Americans, Europeans. There are multi-racial families, gays and straights, married and single people, Ms. Grossman said.

St. Francis' was started in the 1920s as a "community church," she said, on the far edge of San Francisco with a mission to reach out to the neighborhood, and many came from the neighboring St. Francis Woods.

"That's slowly changed over time," Ms. Grossman said, "because the church has looked and seen its mission all around it.

"People gather where they are comfortable," she said, and there really isn't a norm. She speculates that maybe (St. Francis') success is that there is no particular expectation of any particular group: "Right now it serves us just to be who we are."

Where to Get Help

Church Mission Society-USA, a sister organization to the Church Mission Society in Britain, opened the doors of its new ministry recently. The new agency will focus on the development of churches that bridge the divides of race and culture.

The U.S. headquarters is located in New Haven, Conn., under the leadership of the Rev. Geoffrey A. Little, who is also rector of St. James' Church, New Haven. Its board of directors consists of church leaders, both lay and ordained, most of whom are in the Northeast.

"With God's help and greater determination in raising up leaders with skills in intercultural ministry," Fr. Little said, "we can create and sustain mixed churches which will display a winsome Christian unity in a divided world."

CMS-USA sees its mission primarily in urban neighborhoods where church leaders struggle with forming congregations that are truly mixed: ethnically, racially and culturally.

CMS-USA plans to recruit, train and place missionary teams to either plant new churches or work alongside existing churches to create intercultural fellowship in communities of faith. CMS-USA staff is available to provide on-site consultation to churches in mixed communities.

CMS-USA expects to prepare its first teams in the northeastern U.S. Within five years the organization hopes to send teams to serve in other countries.