Nearly two decades ago, the “homogeneous unit principle” of church growth entered the vocabulary of the American church. Its disarmingly simple premise: like attracts like. Therefore, Christians will best reach other people who share their essential racial, social, and economic traits.
Countering that idea are those who emphasize the gospel’s mandate for reconciliation, not simply growth. Therefore, they urge, people must go beyond racial, economic, and social barriers and learn to worship and fellowship with one another as Christians.
The discussion affects all church leaders, because America is growing ever more diverse. Already, according to Time magazine, “More than 100 languages are spoken in the school systems of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Fairfax County, Virginia.” Time predicts that within sixty years, “the descendants of white Europeans … are likely to slip into minority status.”
America is also, to many observers, growing more tense over racial and ethnic issues. How should church leaders respond? Can people from many nations form one church?
LEADERSHIP editors Kevin Miller and Bob Moeller invited four leaders of multi-ethnic churches to talk candidly about ministry in a diverse world.
Russell Rosser and Henry Kwan serve First Baptist Church in Flushing, New York. The church is located not far from Shea Stadium in a neighborhood that matches Time’s description of having more than 100 languages spoken.
Raleigh Washington and Glen Kehrein are co-authors of the award-winning Breaking Down the Walls. They serve The Rock of Our Salvation Evangelical Free Church on the west side of Chicago. The makeup of their church is approximately 70 percent black and 30 percent white, with a growing Asian component as well.
LEADERSHIP: Russ and Henry, you have more than sixty languages spoken in your church. How can you possibly accommodate all of these different groups in one congregation?
RUSSELL ROSSER: We still haven’t reached everyone we’d like to, because 104 languages are spoken in our immediate community. Our primary service is in English, but we also offer services in Spanish, Mandarin, and other languages.
In the English service you’ll find people from a number of races and cultures. We intentionally feature a Heinz-57 variety sitting up front, singing in the choir, or giving their testimony.
HENRY KWAN: It is intentional, but it’s also quite natural.
RALEIGH WASHINGTON: I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you say “It’s natural.” We have to be intentional in everything we do. For example, in our church there are a number of qualified white individuals who could serve as elders. But I don’t think it would be right in our setting, where the congregation’s 70 percent black and 30 percent white, to have 70 percent white elders and 30 percent black elders.
I’ve had to tell some white members that they were passed over in order to maintain a better balance on the board. They accept that because of their commitment to the principle of sacrifice in order to achieve reconciliation.
ROSSER: We’ve gone beyond intentionality to the place where much of what we do just happens naturally. We recently sent a team to Ecuador. It included Koreans, Hispanics, African-Americans, Filipinos, Argentinians, and a number of Chinese. No one said we had to have a quota.
GLEN KEHREIN: That’s because you’ve lived out reconciliation for so many years, it’s become natural. But for most of isolated Christianity, what is natural is isolation. Intentionality says you break the mold the world has squeezed you into. It means going against the stream of cultural values even when you encounter resistance.
KWAN: Many people talk about racism in the context of white folks against black folks. But look at the last five or ten years: We’ve seen many types of people battle one another, such as Koreans against blacks and Chinese against whites. If we don’t learn how to live with one another in the church, where else will our society learn to reconcile?
WASHINGTON: Coach Bill McCartney, founder of Promise Keepers, said it best: “Reconciliation is a war. We have to realize we are in a war and that we’ve got to win that war.” As a retired military man, I understand that lingo. A war requires using all the energy, forces, and resources you can muster.
LEADERSHIP: Are we winning or losing that war?
KEHREIN: If we’re in a war, it’s an undeclared war. I don’t think the majority of leaders in the church would agree we’re in this particular war. The whole lack of racial reconciliation in the church is the greatest inconsistency in our faith in America.
WASHINGTON: I’m afraid many of the generals in this war—preachers, that is—don’t recognize the need to preach on reconciliation as often as they preach on prayer, morality, or righteousness.
LEADERSHIP: How can pastors enter the battle if they are living in an area with essentially a homogeneous population?
KEHREIN: Begin by researching the Scriptures and preaching a series on reconciliation. You’ll discover this really is the heart of God.
ROSSER: The need for reconciliation is all around, because the demographics of this country are changing rapidly. Soon, different racial groups will not be as isolated from one another as they once were. I recently read an article in The New York Times entitled, “The Latinization of Allentown, Pennsylvania.” Their school district today has undergone a profound change and is now 45 percent Hispanic.
KEHREIN: I attended a wedding not long ago of a family that lives in the middle of the corn fields of Nebraska. I remember standing on this farmer’s front lawn and seeing only one road, no other people, and corn in every direction. The scene couldn’t have been farther from the west side of Chicago. Yet, this particular farmer has developed one of the closest relationships with the people of our community of any volunteer I know.
It began the day he arrived with a work crew some years ago. He had no idea what he was getting into. But during that week, he got connected with people in the neighborhood and began to establish relationships. All his stereotypes began to break down.
When he returned for a second visit, he told me: “The Monday after I came home from my first work trip to Chicago, I met with the same fellas I’ve been having coffee with for twenty-five years. We have a roll, a cup of coffee, and we talk. But this time, I had to get up and leave, because the same jokes, the same conversation, the same prejudices that never bothered me before now got to me.” His daughter is now a staff member at our church.
LEADERSHIP: What are the challenges of preaching to several different ethnic groups at one time?
ROSSER: I had a pastor once stand up and announce the church would be offering aerobic dance classes. It almost blew the roof off the Hispanic congregation, who in general are quite conservative and opposed to dancing. Then someone announced a Halloween party, and the Haitians hit the ceiling. Pastors need to be aware of the specific concerns of each group.
KEHREIN: I would also try hard to avoid cultural slights. Don’t do a Ross Perot and stand up and say, “It’s great to have an opportunity to speak to ‘you’ people. … “
WASHINGTON: I’ve only recently gotten to the point where I’m as comfortable talking about the idiosyncrasies of whites and Asians as I am talking about those of blacks. Not long ago I said, “We black folks are very blatant with our sin. If we shack up, we brag about it on the corner. But now white folks, they dress it up in a three-piece suit and mink coat. They do everything they can to hide it. And Asians, well, they simply say, ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.'” That seemed to connect with our people, but it’s taken a long time to be able to say something like that.
LEADERSHIP: Beyond sensitivity in preaching, what can a pastor do to help a church reach out to diverse people?
KWAN: I would recommend that a white pastor develop a relationship with a non-white individual. A pastor won’t convince his congregation to fellowship with others if he doesn’t have at least one non-white friend.
ROSSER: Personal relationships are the foundation. There’s so much alienation, distrust, division, and separation between races that you have to learn the solutions experientially. You have to experience for yourself what it means to build a relationship with someone of another race.
KWAN: Pastors can also help prepare congregations for minority individuals to visit their church. And when they visit, I would advise against changing the church service just because they’re in attendance. Asians would not feel comfortable if changes were made just for them. Instead, foster a spirit that prepares people to welcome the person once he or she walks through the door.
WASHINGTON: I come from a different model that says a church ought to recognize minorities in the worship service. If I came to your church, I’d like you to bring out a tambourine every once in a while and slow down, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Don’t sing it like you’re going to a fire. That shows you recognize that I’m here and you’re working to include me.
KWAN: I was talking about a church that’s 99 percent white and 1 percent minority. I would want to be welcomed, but I wouldn’t want you to change everything just for me.
LEADERSHIP: How much do you emphasize someone’s unique ethnic heritage, and how much do you emphasize his or her newness in Christ?
WASHINGTON: We do have to be sensitive to the problems facing particular groups. African-Americans have a unique identity in this society. We are the only ones who came here by force and endured 300 years of slavery. We are distinct by the color of our skin. Our history has engendered low self-esteem.
Our answer is to preach Christ, because when I become a believer, I’m a child of God, a joint-heir with Christ, and that makes me somebody.
KEHREIN: We hold what we call fudge-ripple meetings on a quarterly basis. We actually serve fudge-ripple ice cream. Whites meet as a group, and so do blacks, and then we all meet together. I remember when we first started holding these meetings. A few of the white folks said, “Why do we have to have this kind of thing? We’re all Christians. We can work out these problems naturally.”
Our response was, “We didn’t get into these tensions between blacks and whites by accident. There was an intentionality about slavery, Jim Crow laws, and other abuses. So we’re going to have to be equally intentional about getting out of this mess.”
WASHINGTON: We do have Black Awareness Sunday once a year when we go all out. I wear a dashiki [a traditional African garment], as do our white elders. But that’s just one Sunday. The rest of the year we’re talking about our value as believers in Christ.
KEHREIN: It’s interesting what happened after our last Black Awareness Sunday. In the fudge-ripple meeting that followed, a black person stood up and said, “You know, we’ve been having this event for several years. When are we going to have a White Awareness Sunday? We talk as if our struggle for freedom and dignity has never involved whites. But there have always been white people aligned with us—from abolitionism to the Underground Railroad to the civil rights movement.”
I never thought I would live to see something like this. It was a tremendous moment in the life of our church.
LEADERSHIP: How has the homogeneous principle of church growth affected your congregations? Has it helped?
ROSSER: Can heresy do any good?
LEADERSHIP: Go ahead and say what you really think.
(Laughter)
ROSSER: Actually, some aspects of the principle I agree with. There are times when people of one ethnic group can reach out to people in their group more effectively than others can. (Although, I’ve seen people of diverse ethnic groups effectively minister cross-culturally.)
But where the homogeneous growth principle has done harm is in preventing laborers from maturing and seeing what the church ought to be.
WASHINGTON: I have a problem with the idea that I should not reach out to, say, a white person because there might be a white church in my community that could do a better job than I could. That same logic could be used to argue I should never try to reach out to women, children, or the elderly because women, children, and the elderly are better equipped to reach out to each other.
Second Corinthians 5:16 tells us, “We look at people no longer from a worldly point of view.” It’s not the color of a person’s skin, it’s the condition of his or her heart that I’m concerned with. That’s what I’m going after.
KEHREIN: The grave danger of the homogeneous principle is that it can rationalize separation and isolation. And that’s at the heart of the racial problems we have today. The church shouldn’t be in the business of assisting the process of separation for the sake of numerical growth.
LEADERSHIP: If that’s the case, why do many multi-ethnic churches allow for specific congregations to meet by themselves? For example, Russ and Henry, doesn’t your Mandarin Chinese congregation meet separately?
KWAN: That’s an extremely sensitive point. There are some people who can be reached only by worshiping in their own language and ethnic group. But at the same time, we have some Chinese individuals who want to move right into the English congregation. They see it as part of the process of mainstreaming into American society.
So we provide both options and try to give people freedom.
ROSSER: This year we decided to do an Easter drama entitled, “The Choice.” We sent our minister of music to the Chinese congregation to help bring them into that production. It’s one way to build relationships and bring people together.
LEADERSHIP: What have you found is essential to building unity among people of different cultures?
WASHINGTON: You have to be transparent with each other to build trust. We warn against what I call the WWB and BBW principles.
The WWB principle says: White folks know how to talk to White folks about Black folks. The conclusions are almost always negative and stereotypical.
The BBW principle says: Black folks know how to talk to Black folks about White folks, and their conclusions are consistently negative and stereotypical.
The only way to break that cycle is to be vulnerable. If Glen says something that offends me, I might say, “I think you’re coming out of your white racist background.”
He’ll respond, “Brother, don’t pull that trigger on me. It’s not going to work.”
Then we go ahead and deal with the issue. But it takes the grace to endure being misunderstood.
KEHREIN: The problem is, white people come in and want to be accepted right away. We don’t want to pay our dues and recognize all the injustices of the past that we’ve inherited. But when we build genuine relationships and genuinely love people, it cuts through all that stuff.
WASHINGTON: Not too long ago we had a disagreement about our tenth anniversary celebration. We decided it would be a formal/semi-formal affair and folks should dress up for it. When we announced that, some white folks in our church were offended. They felt we were putting a burden on poor blacks in our church by demanding they go out and spend money to meet a dress code for a formal dinner.
That brought up all the differences in dress. I had to explain to the white folks that you can go into the poorest black home, and you will find some glad rags in the closet. Most black folks can’t wait to dress up and show them off.
Then the blacks complained, “Why do whites come to church with cowboy boots and jeans and open shirts and act like they have no money?” I had to explain that white folks would rather spend their money on, say, a trip to Disney World than on clothes.
LEADERSHIP: How do you discipline people who are deliberately sabotaging things and disrupting unity?
KEHREIN: I’d like to speak to that issue before (looking at Raleigh) my benevolent dictator does. (Laughter)
In a cross-cultural setting, it’s particularly important that the Matthew 18 principle of confronting issues be put into practice. When we hear about issues, we follow a scriptural process and address them.
WASHINGTON: A few years ago we sent out a ministry team to the Midwest in two vans. One leader was a young white volunteer named Jennifer. In Jennifer’s van there also happened to be a young black believer named Denise. Denise has a forceful personality. To make a long story short, Denise submarined the entire trip. I mean, she torpedoed it.
When they returned home, I learned that Jennifer was deeply hurt by what Denise had done. I called them both into my office. After listening to both sides, it was obvious that Jennifer had made some mistakes but was at most 10 percent at fault. Denise was mainly responsible for the fiasco. They tried to reconcile their differences but could not.
So later I told Jennifer, “We who are strong must bear with the weaknesses of those who are not so strong. Denise is a young believer. You are more mature. So you must go and ask Denise for forgiveness.”
Jennifer broke down and wept. But eventually she did go and ask Denise for forgiveness. About three months later, Denise was convicted by how she had behaved on the trip. She went back to her white counterpart and said, “You know, Jennifer, you took responsibility for the problem on the trip. But really, it was my fault.” To the praise and glory of God, they reconciled.
But there were two casualties from that episode. Two white friends of Jennifer watched at a distance what had happened. Their conclusion was, “The black pastor is showing favoritism to Denise because she’s black.” But rather than come to the table with their grievance, they just left the church. I discovered their feelings only after they were gone.
KWAN: In our Chinese culture, imposing church discipline is difficult. Once you start the process, the people in question usually just disappear. They don’t care whether you expose their name or not, they just leave. But church discipline must be carried out regardless of the cultural response.
LEADERSHIP: What has been your biggest challenge in pastoring a congregation of different ethnic groups and races?
KWAN: There are more than a thousand Chinese congregations in the United States, but only a few Chinese pastors minister in a multi-cultural congregation. Frankly, I feel alone at times. I’m constantly having to explain to other Chinese brothers and sisters why I’m doing what I’m doing. But the opportunity to work and learn from leaders and pastors of other races and backgrounds is so enriching it makes it all worthwhile.
WASHINGTON: The challenge for me is to persevere. Even though we win some battles and see some hearts changed, as soon as new people come along, I have to fight the same old battles once again.
But the joy is in seeing different races come together to the praise and glory of God. As a black pastor, there is real joy in having whites who will love me, support me, and call me “Pastor.” I appreciate it so much when they cover my back and defend my vulnerabilities. That makes every hour of this struggle worthwhile.
ROSSER: I want to see reconciliation and revival touch the urban sprawl of the Northeast. There are so many churches that have plateaued and are dying. Yet, the church ought to be the most integrated community on the face of the earth. I want to see those churches renewed and become multi-cultural super-powers for God.
KEHREIN: My greatest challenge is building trust. Just because someone of another race comes to Christ doesn’t mean they will automatically trust you. They bring their baggage with them. So building trust is a daily process.
Honestly, it hurts not to be trusted. It hurts to have your motives questioned time after time, to hear a new person say, “There can be only one reason why this white guy is here—to make money.” Or, “He must love to rule over other people.”
But the reward is when those same people eventually come to believe in you. It’s ten times the blessing that the hurt was.
For me the real test will be, Who comes to my funeral? Will it be just a few old friends and family members? Or will it include people from the neighborhood who now believe, “This guy really was who he said he was.”
Copyright © 1995 Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP Journal
