Welcome, to a pastorally orientated blog that I hope will be of service to church leaders developing a vision for cross-cultural churches. Is there anyone you think might value this - please forward it to them.
Nine Steps to building multi-ethnic churches.
You are white and English, so is the overwhelming majority of your congregation, and so is its ethos; but the community you serve in is ethnically diverse, and increasingly so. Such a situation is common, especially as people from ethnic minorities become more and more dispersed geographically, and so the challenge for churches and leaders to transition into becoming ethnically diverse congregations grows in importance.
This blog covers fairly well used ground to pull together steps that church leaders, particularly those new to such contexts, need to work at so that multi-ethnic congregations become the norm.
1. Conviction.
Is seeing the development of a multi-ethnic congregation a worthwhile outcome, once other more basic elements of church life have been attended to, such as a good music group or an effective mid-week fellowship structure? Or is a central goal of church life the aim of expressing that at the heart of the gospel is God’s purpose to draw to himself people of every ethnic group in united worship (Rev 7:9) so a church that gathers people from the various ethnic groups in the area is central to its mission?
Holding together people from very diverse cultural backgrounds and with different expectations of church life is a challenging task. Various combinations of racism and love of tradition can make that task more of a struggle, leading to a temptation to put developing ethnic diversity onto the back burner. It is vital therefore that our theology of church and mission foregrounds the conviction that unity across ethnic differences is a sign of the life of God’s new age ‘so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places’ (Eph 3:10).
The emphasis of theologians, notably N T Wright, that the purpose of the good news is not simply to get people into heaven but to express on earth the life of God’s new age, shifts the emphasis from the church as being a collection of saved individuals to seeking to be a here-and-now expression of God’s final purposes. The calling to fulfil that purpose should create a passionate conviction to see multi-ethnic churches emerge.
2. Prayer.
Ethnic pride is one of the idols that resists the gospel. It has often been observed that ethnic specific churches (English, Korean, Nigerian, Urdu etc etc) tend to reproduce, and possibly even magnify, the negative characteristics of their cultures. So multi-ethnic churches can be a means of grace whereby both negative features of our cultures are resisted and positive features of other cultures absorbed. The idol that is strengthened by cultural isolation is broken as people from different ethnic backgrounds relate lovingly and in the life of the Spirit. As inter-ethnic unity is central to God’s purposes, so spiritual strongholds need to be broken down by prayer.
How God’s ways of working relate to prayer is too elusive an issue to be easily tracked but Christian experience down the centuries show that the connection is real. I remember that when a group of us started praying for God to strengthen our ministry to Asian people, three young Sri Lankan couples made contact with the church at approximately the same time, also with some previous connections to each other. It is possible that had they connected with us at different times they may not have felt that they fitted well with the church but by appearing within a few weeks of each other the church felt to them more like a credible spiritual home.
3. Enjoy it.
In ‘Cultural Intelligence’ David Livermore refers to ‘intrinsic’ satisfaction as something that fuels the first key element of the ‘Drive’ needed in developing the capacity to work across cultural differences – in other words, that living cross-culturally is intrinsically fulfilling. Whilst the theological imperative of multi-ethnic churches set out in §1 is important, nonetheless it needs to be partnered with delight in the variety of peoples and cultures who form multi-ethnic communities. If it is regarded as a duty, or a way of being virtuous, then that is inevitably communicated to people, and will inhibit the growth of a diverse community.
In Rick Warren’s acronym of ‘SHAPE’ for our sense of calling the ‘H’ represents ‘Listening to your Heart’, that is having a passion for a particular sphere of ministry.
4. Teach it.
The vision that animates you in section 1 needs to be communicated to the congregation. This means not only preaching about those passages that expressly speak of God’s purpose to gather together a multi-ethnic people, such as Genesis 12:2, Revelation 7:9, Galatians 3:28, or Colossians 3:11, but it also means being alert to the way the contexts of scripture constantly resonate with features of our multi-cultural contexts. In scripture we find people with a history of slavery, of exile, of being in distant lands. We see the socially disregarded at the communion table in Corinth (1 Cor 11), or the challenge of being welcoming to those with different patterns of religious propriety in Rome (ch 14).
More deeply, we need to be thinking ourselves into the mindset of other cultures and how scripture might be received in those settings (often closer to the biblical worlds and cultures than is so with modern Britain). Books such as Kenneth E Bailey’s ‘Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes’ and E Randolph Richards and Brandon J O’Brien’s ‘Misreading Scripture through Western Eyes’ are vital to sensitise us to how scripture can be read differently (and often more appropriately) through cultures other than our own. To take an issue that I have only recently seen pointed out: in my cultural background my ‘older brother’ was two years older than me, but with not that much more significance than that; in many other cultures, and in the scriptures, older or ‘senior’ brothers have a much greater status, in some ways carrying their father’s authority, and which affects our understanding of many biblical passages.
‘Switch off Cruise Control’ is an insight from ‘Cultural Intelligence’ that I value – that is we need to check against familiar and routine ways of thinking and teaching, and give time to second and closer thoughts so as to see how what we are saying needs to be shaped to connect better with some of the cultures we are preaching into.
5. Do your homework.
Most multi-ethnic communities include a wide variety of ethnic groups, so there is a vast amount of work to be done. The curate who said that his geography degree was of more use than his theological training may have just sought to be controversial, but his point was important. If people have strong roots overseas then we need a basic geographical knowledge about that place – which ethnic groups live there, what are the main cities, what is the current political situation like. Simple factual knowledge can play an important role in establishing personal and pastoral relationships, and one significant responsibility for leaders is the hard work of familiarising ourselves with a wide variety of cultures and political backgrounds and ministering appropriately. The ‘hard work’ should also, of course, be joyful as we listen to music, watch films or read novels or poetry.
At the same time, we need alertness to sensing how far a person sees themselves as essentially part of this country and its culture. If ignorance of some people’s ethnic heritage can be alienating, conversely so too is assuming that they don’t truly belong here. The question ‘Where are you from?’ may come across as either positively showing genuine interest or offensively suggesting alienation. We need sensitivity.
6. Look for allies.
Especially if your congregation is overwhelmingly white English, or you have very little connection with some ethnic groups, then it is important to network and draw in occasional outside help. This may mean inviting visiting African preachers, or finding someone who can encourage and advise in your ministry. The veteran Tamil pastor, Brother Ebenezer, was a crucial support to me in developing ministry to a growing Tamil community.
Occasional help from leaders of various ethnic backgrounds can both awaken church members to the reality and vitality of faith amongst minority groups, and encourage members of those groups to believe their contributions are welcome as they see someone from their background ministering. In all possible ways we should be familiarising our congregations with ethnic diversity, and the gifts that it brings.
7. Develop Leaders.
Bringing in people with appropriate experience can be important, especially in the early days of a ministry, but increasingly it needs to be replaced in importance with developing leaders from the congregation. This is a major aspect of multi-ethnic ministry, too significant and complex to be covered in detail here. Andy Jolley’s Grove Booklet (L 21) on ‘Growing Leaders from Diverse Cultures: Leadership in a Multicultural Church’ is a very helpful contribution on the topic. My Blog # also covers the issue. In particular we need to be aware of one the one hand too narrowly expecting leaders to come out of a very similar cultural and sociological mould to ourselves; and on the other hand of making choices that are either emptily tokenistic or lead to people who are unsuitable for the responsibilities of leadership. Growing immersion in the cultures with which we are ministering is an important base for making well-founded initiatives.
8. Alertness to racism.
As people relate cross-culturally both unfounded prejudices should be chipped away and greater respect and warmth develop. But it is unlikely all will be sweetness and light. Generally overtly racist remarks will be a thing of the past, but the ‘micro-aggressions’ of thoughtless or offhand comments can cause real pain, and consequent pulling apart. More seriously there can be unconscious assumptions of who should have power and how it is exercised that need to be dismantled, especially given that in churches power can be exercised through informal circles of influence rather than through formal church structures.
How racism can be countered deserves fuller treatment in a separate blog. It needs to be more specific than simply saying ‘racism is sinful’ or that ‘we have a problem with institutional racism’. Rather it needs attending to how we can unpick long established and deeply internalised assumptions of white superiority, and the ways in which cultural differences can slide over into careless or offensive remarks. The video which I referred to two weeks ago ‘Dear White Church . . (Listening to People of Colour)’ gives helpful warnings about what to avoid.
Central to countering racism is developing both personal and congregational self-awareness and self-examination as to how we behave, most especially listening to the stories and grievances of minority ethnic members.
9. Improvise.
Every church is an ongoing relationship between the congregation, the leaders and the local community. Each of these, and especially the local community, can be enormously varied. So ultimately there are no blueprints, so that ‘how to’ manuals (like this blog) are of only limited utility. It is the responsibility of church leaders thoughtfully, prayerfully, responsively to work out how a congregation can best reflect God’s love and best communicate the truths that underly faith in their particular situations. Therefore it is vital to feel free to improvise – to work out, with the particular resources we have got, how we can best make God’s love known in this community.
But as a general principle I think churches should be finding some way to express that they are concerned for the local community. Parents and Toddlers groups are an often used expression, or language classes, or provision for young people, such as running a lunch club for a local school. Whilst there is a danger of being overburdened with activities, or of distracting church members from simply being good parents, neighbours or colleagues, it is important to try to have some expression that expresses care for the wider community. Where most people in the locality are of another world faith background the need to establish some form of common ground becomes more important, even whilst the church may have fewer lay resources to express the concern.
Given the conviction that becoming a multi-ethnic congregation, not just in composition but in its leadership and in its ethos, and with faithful prayer to that end, churches will find ways to becoming multi-ethnic, and set out on a journey which is fulfilling, often surprising and delightful and hope-building.
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Glenn Loury, the provocative conservative black professor of economics at Brown University now has a regular blog, accessible at <glennloury+the-glenn-show@substack.com., largely transcribing the discussion on his weekly Youtube ‘The Glenn Show’.
His most recent blog includes reflections on his visit to Europe and the danger of us normativising the American experience of race. He then goes on to discuss what he calls ‘The Unified Theory of Non-Whiteness’, dismantling the assumption that ‘people of colour’ (in Britain UKME/GMH) share a common identity over against hegemonic whiteness, which carries the false assumption that black American responses of victimhood speak for a vast multi-ethnic constituency rather than a slice of black America, noting among other things that two-thirds of black students at top universities in the USA are actually the children of African or Caribbean immigrants. My blog shares his emphases on the important twin themes of ‘superdiversity’ and of positive minority ethnic agency.
What does it feel like attending a white majority church? - a video by Hope Church, Luton
‘Many people are highlighting the importance of creating multi-cultural churches. However, we are often unaware of the challenge and cost for those who are different from us joining us. Hope Church therefore created a short video where ethnic minorities share their experiences of joining a predominantly white church. The 7 minute video gives insights of how we can help minorities feel at home within our churches, helping us become more multi-cultural. ‘
I found this to be an excellent resource. It is honest, down to earth, and gives space to a variety of experiences and responses,