Was this tacky?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tacky is being invited to a church event, finding fault with the invitee and the event (with no good reason!) and then posting about it here!

It’s perfectly fine for the church to host a potluck for members. But to invite people from outside of church who don’t know anyone else there and tell them to bring a dish raises my eyebrows. We also don’t know what church this is but it sure sounds cheap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of church thinks it’s a good idea to recruit newfound members by compelling them to make a homecooked dish to share with complete strangers? I’m with OP on this one being tacky. The way to do it would be for the church to have this event be catered for with the members attending sharing the costs and have new recruits show up and just mingle with no stress about their food, other people’s food etc. The event is missable and nothing screams Lunar New Year about except for getting an Asian person to show up.

I think "tacky" is the wrong word for it, but I agree with the rest of the take.

"Tacky" would be inviting her to an event and letting her discover at the door that there's an entrance fee.

In this case, the invitation seems somewhere between socially inept and racist.

Agreed. I also don’t think the potluck attendees would appreciate any authentic Asian dishes. They are probably expecting something they’re familiar with like from Panda Express. Some might even complain about the food smelling or looking strange.

[Anonymous]

I am Asian and I moved from ny go to an area with very few Asians. I have been asked to do this type of thing, and I don’t feel bad at all about declining. I’m sure it was well meaning and your coworker was excited to bring a “real” asian and “real” asian food to her church, but no, you don’t have to participate. And I’m guessing you didn’t grow up as the only asian in town like I did (Deep South), because an invite to a church event should have immediately set off some alarm bells if that’s not your cup of tea.

[Anonymous]

Just say "woops sorry, I didn't realize it was a potluck. No time to make a dish this time. Let's catch up another weekend."

[Anonymous]

A guest at a church potluck should never be expected to bring food. Period. Potlucks at my church (UU) always have more food than everyone can eat, but if there is some church pressure to bring in more non-members, the members should just prepare more food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went out to lunch with a former coworker and former coworker asked if my spouse and I liked to socialize with other couples and then brought up Lunar New Year since my ethic background is Asian. Former coworker starts hyping up an ‘event’ by their church that was also going to celebrate Lunar New Year and promised to send details. I really thought this was going to be an actual event you just show up to. Turns out it’s a potluck that requires ‘Asian food’ and former coworker wants to know what dish I’d like to bring. I feel bamboozled since I feel like former coworker should have been upfront about it being potluck-style from the beginning and I’m only being asked because I fit the demographic they want. Spouse suggested that I explain I don’t do potlucks post-Covid but former coworker knows our office conducts potlucks all the time so I can’t use that excuse. I want to be honest and let former coworker know I don’t want to attend and contribute to a potluck where I only know ONE person and I honestly think it’s weird I was asked since I’m not a church goer either. Anyway, had to get this off my chest and wondered if anyone else thinks how former coworker went about this is tacky?

The other thing about that is that if you belong to a group (church or other) that does potlucks you often learn to associate the food with the person, plus they are used to what items get a great response. Here they are asking you to contribute to a pot luck event that, like you said, are all strangers except for the one person. I know that what I bring to a potluck event is something people are going to enjoy and in the worst case are not going to find strange or whatever (the items I bring to events with one group would seem weird if I brought them to something with my relatives, who are all about cookie salads and ground beef casseroles, and I chose my contribution accordingly)

[Anonymous]

Church goer here. Would never expect a guest to our church to contribute a dish at a potluck event.

[Anonymous]

I’d lean into this because I can’t stand pushy church people. Go authentic! Coagulated pigs blood, chicken feet, fermented bean curd, intestines or authentically very spicy Sichuan.

[Anonymous]

Some of these comments make it sound like we are in North Dakota. This is a pretty diverse area and there are a lot of very devout Christians of Asian background at many of our area churches. I don’t know why people are assuming that she’ll be the only Asian there, or that the congregants will be serving “Asian noodle salad” and food from Panda Express.

But that aside, this sounds totally miserable to me, so I’d just say that I’m not comfortable attending an event at someone else’s church, but it would be fun to go out to dinner sometime with our spouses (if that’s true, although maybe you just want to ditch this woman entirely).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not tacky. Proselytizing.
It feels tacky because you feel like you were targeted for shallow reasons. That's essentially how proselytizing works. Or maybe you can call it sneaky missionary work.
You can be classy and politely decline with profuse gratitude for being invited. Believe me, I'm sure your friend has been turned down many times in her efforts to bring in new members to her church so this will not be a surprise to her.

It does become hard to maintain a friendship afterwards though because you think maybe there are ulterior motives behind it all. But I encourage you to continue the friendship because your friend may have felt compelled to do this outreach duty by her church. She shouldn't lose friends because the church is pushy.

I just need to say here that proselytizing is actually tacky.