I recently attended a 3 day preaching workshop at a church in the west suburbs of Chicago. It was a gathering of pastors and ministry workers from all different denominations and churches. Some of the men were from the Chicago area, and some had travelled quite a ways to get there. The main sessions were excellent! The breakout sessions were very helpful and engaging. Overall, I had a great experience at the training and learned some valuable tools that I can implement in my own preaching and teaching. However, something bothered me each day I was there and as I drove away from the training on that Friday.
Here is what bothered me. This was a meeting of multiple church leaders from various denominations. This was a conference located just outside of a large metropolitan area (a metropolitan area that is racially and culturally diverse). However, the conference attendees were 95% white and all of the main session speakers were white. The worship was VERY white.
If this conference was in an area that is predominately white, then fine. If this conference was for a certain denomination that is predominately white, then fine. This was not the case though.
Right now the world is becoming increasingly urban, and cities are becoming increasingly multi-cultural. The Church is growing rapidly in South America and Africa. In the US, although it is reported that the church is dying, ethnic congregations are growing (check out the book The Next Evangelicalism if you don't believe me). Given these current realities, I don't think we should ever settle for homogeneous gatherings - especially interdenominational gatherings in metropolitan areas. It is an incomplete picture of the body. We miss out on opportunities to learn form one another and to celebrate our cultural differences and our unity in Christ.
As John Piper states, "Christ died for a diverse bride." Just look at Revelation 5 and Revelation 7 at the beautiful scene of Christ's multi-ethnic bride worshiping together in heaven. If this is God's heart, should it not be ours?!
As the Church in this generation we must care about this! As the Church in this generation we must God to allign our hearts with His "All-Nations" perspective and "All-Nations" compassion.
I don't write this post to bash the conference I attended. If fact, in a loving way, I wrote a smaller version of the above post on my evaluation. I just want Christ's bride to make Him look good. This is an area where I pray that the Church in this generation will rise to the occasion. Let's be learners, and let's be lovers of all nations.
6 comments:
I hear ya, Dave, and I know and appreciate your heart on this subject, but white isn't the only homogenous church group. There are certainly churches, though few in number, that are very diverse, but the majority are not... some are primarily Hispanic, some Caucasian, some African American, some Asian, etc. I may be way off with that observation, but I don't think so, and it seems unfair to only call out the primarily white sub-urban churches. What do you think?
Greg,
I am with you man. I wasn't necessarily trying to put the white church on blast. It was just that it was within a white context, that I was reminded of "something missing" most recently. I was just trying to poitn out, that in this case the context didn't HAVE to be all white, and in my opinion shouldn't have been.
I think ultimately that churches reflect neighborhoods. Our neighborhoods are very segregated, therefore so are our churches.
What I was pointing to was to times where we gather outside of the local church context. If it is a gathering that crosses denominational lines, and that is intended to build up the church, than we (and when I say we, I mean ALL Christians regardless of hue) must be intentional in picking the location, the speakers, the worship styles represented, etc.
I certainly wasn't trying to bash white worship either. This particular representation of it was very "glee clubish" and not my thing:) Every cultural expression of worship is beautiful in God's sight (as long as it is lyrically Biblical).
I do think though that churches should look like their neighborhoods/community. So if the community/neighborhood is multi-cultural than I think the local body must strive to reflect that. This starts at the top (what does the leadership look like and why).
I certainly don't have all of this figured out, but I want to passionately pursue it!!
I think the point is that at in evangelicalism, white men have the power, the voice, the perspective, the platform. God is doing amazing things in other ethnic groups but their voice and perspective is not heard or even acknowledged.
Yes, it is true that most churches are racially isolated, but it is up to those who have the power bring the others to the table. They can shout their concerns and reasons they are uncomfortable in all sorts of ways but until we are willing listen and change the face and approach and content even of these conferences and even our churches, we are ignorantly telling a part of the body "I don't need you."
Amen Joel! Well said.
And yes, I was speaking more to evangelicalism as a whole. Specifically, I was focusing on conferences/gatherings in which diverse persectives and backgrounds are necessary and valuable. Kingdom lenses
To add to Greg's comment as well, yes there are different racial churches out there, however historically it was the white church starting with the Methodist that wouldn't allow blacks to worship equally, so the blacks broke off and started the AME, same for the Baptist branching off into Southern Baptist etc. The point it was the white churhes that said blacks weren't welcome and that has started a 150+ year tradition of segregated worship. Not saying that black churches are eager for whites to come in, or Asians etc., BUT with the white evangelicals holding the power, etc, the impetus should be on the white church to intentionally seek to integrate which means they must be willing to give up some power at the table, have black, hispanics in positions of power, incorporate new worship styles, musicians, etc. And be open to political dialogue, since I personally found that a major obstacle to integration in worship is the socio-economic and underlying political differences
i think you are all socialists!
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