The Biblical Multicultural Church

Are you looking for a biblical church?  What does a “biblical” church look like?  What does a biblical church teach?  How can you know if you are part of a biblical church?  The Great Commission found in Matthew 28:19-20 gives us our first clear directive.  In this passage, Jesus tells all believers to “go and make disciples of all “eqnh” [eth-nay] from which we get the word ethnic.  In the New Testament, the word usually means “nations” and refers to everyone who is not a Jew.  However, the meaning does not stop with race; it includes all people groups who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  The truth of the Great Commission, not immediately realized by the disciples, is that Jesus opened Salvation to all people.  With these words a new era began in which all nations now share in the salvation of the promised Messiah.

Biblical churches make disciples of all races and ethnic groups without distinction.  Some mistakenly believe the Great Commission sends Christians out to evangelize the world.  Correct exegesis commands Christians to go to the ethnic groups and cultures of the world.  In the city, it is easier to disciple ethnic groups and cultures, baptize them, and mentor them to obey all Scripture; this is especially true during their first year in a new city.  Baptism is the outward symbol of one's inward decision to “obey everything the Lord has commanded” and is the foundation for one-on-one mentorship.  The great failure of the urban church is its lack of discipleship and mentorship.  Corporate praise and worship are important, but without comprehending the foundational teachings of our Lord, the construction of one’s faith crumbles as the allegorical house built upon the sand.

Biblical churches make disciples, are multicultural, and mentor believers.  These believers then go out, make other disciples of all people groups, and mentor them.  The church incorporates multiple cultures as part of its ministry, and embraces and celebrates the different cultural groups.  Biblical churches do not relocate, but rather transitions as their communities’ transitions.  Wal-Mart does not build different stores for Blacks, Whites, Hispanic, and Asian, nor would the public support any company that did, and yet separatist churches exist throughout our urban centers and believers continue to support this unbiblical action.

Urban centers around the globe are multi-ethnic, with each homogeneous unit having its own subculture.  Charlotte North Carolina (where I live and minister) is the eighteenth largest city in the United States.  Only forty-six percent of its residents were born in the State of North Carolina.  Charlotte is the sixth largest city in the migration of people in the United States.  Twelve percent of its residents were born outside the United States and there are 660 airline flights daily in this city.  People are on the move and urban churches have to learn to thrive in an environment where needs are great, resources limited, and the people are transient.

Wal-Mart designs its stores and develops its offerings to attract transient ethnicities and cultures to spend money in their stores.  The early Christian church effectively engaged transient ethnicities, made disciples and mentored them, and as the disciples of Jesus moved throughout the world, the gospel spread.  The first century church turned the world upside down.  Paul went to the urban centers because that was where large he could disciples the largest numbers of people from many different cultures.  Jew and Gentile, Asian and African, rich and poor all came together in the early Christian church – this was the biblical model given to us in Acts.  The early church reflected the teachings of Jesus and the Great Commission.

Motive is always important to God.  Many denominations have long adhered to the homogeneous unit principle for evangelism.  They make the argument that multicultural churches are not necessarily better or more spiritual than mono-cultural churches and that multi-ethnic churches often find it harder to reach people for Christ.  The New Testament does not support the homogeneous unit principle and it is not what Paul practiced.  The New Testament Church consisted of believers from several cultural origins.  It consisted of believers of wealth and poverty, and educated and uneducated, young and old joined to worship God.  This is still true today of a biblical church.  The aim of church growth is not how many people we can assemble on Sunday morning.  The aim is to see how many disciples the church can create in partnership with God.

So what do you do if you discover that you are not in a biblical church?  First, commit to serious prayer about your church.  Admit to God that the church is unbiblical in its practice and is not conducting itself like a first century church and confess your part in the church’s unbiblical behavior.  Second, talk with your pastor about your need to be part of a multicultural church that unashamedly makes loves other cultures and seeks to disciple them.  Third, pull together like-minded people and begin making disciples, baptizing them, and mentoring other cultures.  Visit the Wal-Mart closest to your church and notice the people groups and cultures represented in the store; the shoppers should be representative of your church congregation, and if not there is much work to do.  Fourth, if negative tension develops with other members, support your pastor in dealing with it immediately.  Churches cannot move to being a biblical church if ungodliness and disobedience exists and your pastor will need your support in correcting overt disobedience, which can be messy.  Fifth, intentionally diversify the leadership and staff of the church.  It is important for other races and cultures to see “like faces” in the worship service and other church events.  Churches can make this change when vacancies naturally occur or when the church adds additional staff, but urban churches should not remove existing staff to create diversity.  Purposely removing staff to create a diversified staff is always counterproductive.  

Be patient, change takes time.  However, working together believers can move the Church to a more biblical foundation.  I hope you will be a part of this great movement!

Dying for Change

The deaths of churches are becoming so normal that few people are surprised anymore when another urban church closes its doors. It is easy to spot the signs of a dying church. Dying churches stop having adult converts. Dying churches focus more on telling others how to live than in being church. As the congregation dwindles, buildings deteriorate, as the small group can no longer afford properly to clean and preserve the building. All of these are visible signs of a dying church, but are merely an outward sign of a much deeper internal issue. The truth is that many churches are dying for change.

Carnality resists it, but God demands change. Obsolesce is unnatural, so contrary to the nature of God and that of humanity. God created us to progress, to grow, and to transform; and yet, our carnality resists God's design with a fierce determination to make us obsolete. Perhaps this is why I have always enjoyed the more whimsical translation of First Corinthians 15:51 first triggered in me by a sign hanging in a church nursery. I think it's placement by a person who knew the challenges of carry for babies and who had a sense of humor. The verse states, “We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.”

Why is it that urban churches resist change? Change means the church is a living organism; churches are either changing or dying, and even death is a process of change. God created humankind to change, to be renewed, and to become more like Him, so there is no wonder that our old nature resists change. The new person believers become in Christ seeks and requires a change. God tells us that we are to experience the renewing of our minds on our way to becoming “new” creatures; this involves a change. The church must reflect the change God performs within each believer.  At best, dying churches reflects a disobedient membership and at worst a spiritually dead membership.

Sometimes the more humane thing to do with a terminally ill animal is to “put it out of its misery.”  Therefore, if you are among the disobedient or dead within a dying congregation, you may be searching for some ways to go ahead and put the church out of its misery.  For those churches that do not like change and resists regeneration, it seems proper to give some ideas on how to become obsolete quicker so the wayward church can die faster.  Understand that it is hard work to kill a church.  To kill a church you have to resist the love and power of God and then partnership with Satan to destroy a part of the bride of Christ.

First, the dying church must firmly resist God’s living breathing power within its members.  No matter how much God wants the membership to become like Him, you must resist.  This will require you not to accept Scripture as authoritative.  It will require you to withdraw from fellowship from other churches within the faith community; after all, Satan does not want you to work with other churches and denominations to reach our cities for Christ. 

Second, the dying church must develop a mental resistance to adaptation needed for change. Fight against all new ideas. If you have never done it that way before, be determined not to do it. Members must resist learning new songs of praise and adoration, new musical instrumentation, and new worship formats.  Furthermore, the church must stop being a church of prayer.  The urban church cannot resist change if it is strong in the Word of God and open-minded in the worship of God. 

Third, the dying church must develop an unwillingness to grow and develop. Learn to look backwards, relive the glory years, and talk about the “good ole days.”  Carnality longs for the comfortable and the familiar.  The church is to be a change agent.  Jesus wants His bride to be creative, beautiful, and alive.  Have you ever watched a young bride?  She may be scared at the thought of leaving all the comforts of her parents and beginning a new life with her husband, but she is also excited about the possibility of this new life on which she is embarking.  The church should have this same attitude.

Fourth, the dying church must resist being incarnational.  God chose to put on human flesh and live among humanity; God chose to interact with humanity.  Dying churches become isolationists that are uninvolved in society.  Dying churches give no thought to winning the community to Jesus or ministering to their community.  Dying churches are too wrapped up in their own survival to grow.  Dying churches are rude and crass in dealing with the less fortunate and do not represent the love and forgiveness of Jesus, for when a church is in survival mood the disenfranchised are seen as a drain on the church’s limited revenue.

Are you a part of an urban church that is dying for the lack of change? Any one of these four steps will move your church toward obsolesce and the more steps you follow the quicker you can obtain death.

If you and a true believer in a personal relationship with Jesus and believe that you are in a dying church, you must act quickly.  First, repent and recommit yourself to Jesus Christ and make certain you are in a personal relationship with Him.  Ask Jesus to show you everything in your life that hinders Him from maturing you and growing the church, and then ask Jesus to change you.  Second, embrace God's living breathing power and encourage others to do it too.  Make sure your spend time daily in personal worship, Bible study, and prayer.  Third, be open to trying new methods in worship, Bible study, and church events.  Fourth, look forward to and develop a willingness to grow, personally and congregationally.  Make certain you embrace quality.  You do not have to have an order of service, but if you do, it must show quality.  Fifth, be incarnational; make a decision to live among the people you are trying to reach.  God came to earth and lived among humanity.  We have to be willing to live among people who need Jesus.

Urban churches do not have to die.  If the pastor and church leadership remain open to God's transformation, the church can live and thrive!

The Separationist Church

Globalization has challenged prejudice in the church beyond any other event in history.  Churches and denominations have found old structures of mission and evangelism being challenged to the point of forced change.  In the past it was very common for churches to talk about and financially support overseas missions and feel good about it, but now those same people groups live in all urban centers.  Now individual believers and churches are faced with considerable cultural groups living within walking distance of their churches and as a result are experiencing strong internal spiritual conflicts.  These churches cannot admit their “ethnic prejudices” because it conflicts with their belief in the authoritativeness of Scripture.   This spiritual conflict has led to a “new norm” in segregation that seems to be acceptable to the majority of churches and denominations even though it is contrary to Scripture and the early Christina church model found in the New Testament.  This new norm is being “justified” with terms like “culture” or “class” and supported by sociological and psychological arguments often built around ethnomusicology and homiletical styles. 

American churches are accepting the belief that God desires the church to be equal but separate.  It seems that nearly every large urban church now has an autonomous ethnic church meeting within its walls.  The idea is to help an ethnic church plant become established, grow, and then move out on its own.  These churches do not blend into the larger urban church, but are totally independent and separate with the two groups worshipping together once or twice each year.  The greatest interaction of the two congregations occurs in the parking lot as the two distinctly separate groups pass to and from their segregated services.  This type of arrangement usually provides the larger urban church a sense of satisfaction and pride, as they can provide this assistance with little or no personal investment.  This arrangement gives the appearance of the “host” church being more multi-cultural than it is in reality.

In a similar fashion, churches sometime extend their ministry by created ethnic house churches.  The mother church may budget for the cost of the teacher, evangelist, or pastor to lead the small ethnic group.  Usually beginning as Bible Studies, these house churches consists of people who are different from the mother church, but who are still of a single culture and class.  In time several of like house churches may band together to form a self-sustaining congregation. 

Most urban areas have mega-churches with multi site ethnic congregations within their buildings.  Sometimes these churches grow strong enough to move out as a self-sustaining church, but others remain small for years.  It is common to walk through a mega-church facility on a Sunday morning and hear songs and sermons coming from different areas of the facility in different languages.

Motive is always important to God and I have no doubt that God sees the true motives of the Separationist.  Southern Baptist Churches have long adhered to the homogeneous unit principle for evangelism.  Like so many other denominations, Churches practicing the homogeneous unit principle often make the argument that multi-cultural churches are not necessarily better or more spiritual than mono-cultural churches, and that multi-ethnic churches often find it is harder to reach people for Christ, but this seems to me to be little more than an excuse to practice separation views.  The teaching of the New Testament does not support the homogeneous unit principle.  Paul did not start separate churches for the Jewish believer and the Gentile believer.  Just the opposite, the New Testament Church was filled with believers of various cultural origins and class.  Wealth and poverty, educated and uneducated, young and old from every culture joined to worship God.  The biblical principle of church growth is not aimed at how many people we can assemble, but rather by disciples created.  Smart marketing can pull thousands of people in a sporting event and a rock concert, but few if any disciples of Christ ever emerge from one of them.

A local pastor once asked me, “What event made you want to reach and minister to people of different ethnicity?”  As I thought about his question, I could not think of a single event.  I had grown up in the South with active Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the community where we lived and several KKK leaders within the church I attended.  As a young youth worker, I received a letter from the Grand Cyclops of the KKK thanking me for working with the “white” youth of the community.  This was the background of my youth, but the love of God indwelling his children melts away hate and prejudice.  He will have no part in such sinful behaviors and the church will never be able to whitewash their tombs of worship enough to win His approval.  It sickens our Lord.

Jesus was ethnically and culturally a Jew, would he really be welcome in your church?  Jesus was a street person, usually dirty and sweaty, and sometimes smelly.  He slept on the ground with no place to lay his head.  Jesus did not speak English; and in our country, he would be considered a foreigner, an alien, and a non citizen.  So ask yourself, “Would Jesus be welcome in my church?”

So what do you do if you sense prejudice and hatred in the mission arm of your church?  First, you talk it over with Jesus in prayer.  Second, you lovingly confront the evil.  Begin by enlarge the multi-ethnicity and multi-culture of your friends.  Remember that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the powers of darkness.  unbiblical at its core.  Third, using Scripture, be prepared to show those you lovingly confront the error of their way.  I suggest you begin with your pastor.  Some pastors are cowardly on the subject, in part because they think they stand alone.  You can show you pastor he is not alone.  Fourth, ask you pastor to consider a special Sunday several times each year where the church holds a “joint” service with another church of like doctrine but of a different culture.  This will be an enriching experience for both churches and new friendship will emerge.  Fifth, specifically look for inter-racial and bi-racial friends and family you can invite to church to begin breaking the ice.  Prepare to handle some stinging remarks from separatist church members.  Not everyone will share you enthusiasm to become a biblical first century church.  Sixth, evangelize your neighborhood with a purposeful mindset having predetermined to share Jesus with all people and invite them to your church.  If a Hmong family moves into your neighborhood, you share your faith and invite them to your church; you do not send them across town to a Hmong church.  The only time I have ever referred other people to a church other than where I served the Lord was when they did not speak our language.  Seventh, be prepared for losses.  As the church become more biblical, some people will leave.  Be prepared to let them go and do not try to talk them into staying.  Realize that every Christian is responsible to Christ for their personal walk.  I suggest you only pray with them, assuming they want to be obedient to Christ, and pray that Jesus guide them into a greater depth of service to His kingdom.

The Assimilationist Church

The Obdurate Church is sometimes referred to as a Segregationist Church.  These churches consist of a belief that each racial group, or even classes within a racial group, must seek only like people to be a part of the Obdurate or Segregationist Church.  These churches are mono-cultural, mono-ethnic, and mono-class by choice, not necessity. “Good Christian people” dress excuses up in pious sounding verbiage that sometimes fools man, but God sees right through to the heart.  The Segregationist Church never erects signage in front of their edifice to declare their disobedience to God’s Word, but their actions clearly define who is welcome and who is not.  Contrary to the belief of some, this is not only an Anglo-Saxon issue.  Segregationist Churches exist among every racial group.

Only slightly more biblical, yet the most common, are the Assimilationist Churches who have started inching on a journey from mono-cultural to multi-cultural, from mono-ethnic to multi-ethnic, and from mono-class to multi-class.   These churches claim to favor integration, and have a well established method by which another class, race, or cultural group become an accepted member of their homogeneous community. Christians find it hard to voice opposition to integration, so most churches verbally say they are open to all people becoming a part of their church, but what exactly do they mean?  Usually what is being said is not what is meant, and it is time for the leadership of our churches to address and correct this sinful behavior.

The Assimilationist Church will “welcome visitors” but will not acknowledge or treat those who are different as a true “guest.” If the “visitor” continues to come or wants to join, he must “assimilate.”  Assimilation is the process in which one individual or small group takes on the culture of a larger group based on the class or ethnicity of that group.  In simple terms, the visitor must become “like” the larger group and learn to “fit in.”

When I was a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary I served as pastor of Sanford Memorial Baptist Church in Brodnax, Virginia.  The whole area held a communal view of assimilation.  The story was told of a resident who had died before our arrival to the community.  The resident’s family moved to the area when he was a boy of four years of age.  He died at the age of ninety-six.  For some ninety-two years he lived in the community, longer than most people who were born there.  Everyone who knew him loved and respected him.  In fact, when he died the epitaph on his tombstone read, “He was almost one of us.”

The attitude of this community at that time is representative of the Assimilationist Church today.  This type of church will accept a person of another race if that person moves in, becomes like everyone else in the church, but deep down that person will never be fully accepted as “one of” the larger group.  He will always be the outsider, the one who is different.  The church will not attempt to modify or change to the desires or preferences of other races, cultures, or even classes.  The Assimilationist Church has little enthusiasm for racial, class, or cultural sensitivity.  The educated upper social class African American who goes to a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant church may be racially an African American, but has become culturally white and is thereby happy in Anglo-Saxon churches, but never fully accepted by the Anglo-Saxon church racially, but rather culturally because the African-American has accepted the Anglo-Saxon church’s culture and usually class.  Studies show that racial groups that are upwardly mobile, well educated, and have some level of wealth tend to association themselves with White Anglo-Saxon Protestant churches.

Assimilationist churches are found in every racial and cultural group. So what do you do if you discover that you are in such a church? First, commit to serious prayer about your church.  Admit to God that the church has prejudices and is not conducting itself like a first century church.  Pull together likeminded persons to pray with you about the church, pleading with God to transform the church to a more biblical model.  Second, confess to God and to others your desire to fully accept and befriend other races already in the church.  Since these individuals have already taken on the culture of the group, this should be fairly easy; however, you must make a conscious effort to become friends with the individuals from other races and have them in your home.  Third, talk with your pastor about ways to highlight and honor all races and cultures currently represented in the church (include all organizations, scouts, daycare, etc).  Share your concerns with your pastor and let him know you have pulled together a small group who are praying for serious revival and unity within the church.  Fourth, work with your pastor and seek his support in teaching and mentoring a true Christian love for people who are “different” and pointing out the benefits of coming together and learning from each other.  There is so much about God cultures and races can learn from each other.  Fifth, be intentional about developing friendships and socializing with people who are different from you.  Visit the Wal-Mart closest to your church and notice the people groups and cultures represented in the store; the shoppers should be representative of your church congregation, and if not there is much work to do.  Sixth, seek to diversify the leadership and staff of the church.  It is important for other races and cultures to see “like faces” in the worship service and other church events.  Seventh, actively begin encouraging different cultures and races to attend worship, discipleship, and other church events.  Look for opportunities to create special events designed to purposefully draw others groups into the church.  This may even mean pairing with other churches and having joint services to build greater community within the larger community.

It is most important that you not give up.  Stay determined to help your church move being the small number of “token” members of other races and cultures to a true picture of the first century church.

The Obdurate Church

Obdurate Churches exist throughout our cities. These churches are single race single class churches.  Obdurate churches are found in different racial and cultural groups.  In the South these churches are predominately Caucasian or African-American, although this continues to evolve as the South becomes more diverse.  Obdurate churches refuse to change to accept others races, cultures, or social classes.  They are only open to those who are exactly like them – same race and same social class.  The problem with obdurate churches is that they are governed by unyielding leaders.

A couple years back, Susan and I went to worship with an “Obdurate Church” in our city not far from the New Life Theological Seminary.  After the service I stood and talked with the Deacon Chairman about the dying congregation.  I offered the assistance of the Seminary, promised we would come along beside them, involve our students and faculty, and help the church transition.  He refused my plea.  The church no longer exists.  Over the past two decades Christians have averaged nearly 1,000 church starts every year in America, but every year more than 4,000 churches close their doors!   Half of all churches in the United States did not add any new members in the last two years, and it is estimated that every year 2.7 church members fall into inactivity.  What is going on?

Obdurate churches are disobedient churches and disobedient churches die!  Tom Billings, Executive Director of Union Baptist Association in Houston Texas is known for reminding churches that they “are responsible for reaching all of the people in the city, not just the folks that look like us.  It’s hard for us to cross over those barriers and boundaries in order to reach out, but we’ve got a responsibility for other people.”  With 584 people unengaged, unreached people groups in North America there is a tremendous demand for pastors to be trained and equipped to reach them.  Pastors must learn to think more like a missionary and more seminaries need to work to properly equip those called into vocational ministry.

Obdurate church can change through the power and might of the Lord Jesus!  What should you do if you find yourself in an obdurate church?  First, commit to serious prayer about your church.  Second, begin seeking out others in the congregation that are open to praying with you about revitalization.  Third, talk with your pastor about your concerns and let him know you have pulled together a small group and that you are all praying for serious revitalization of the church.  Fourth, work with your pastor to begin teaching and developing a true Christian love for people who are “different” from those already in the church.  Fifth, become personally intentional about developing friendships and socializing with people who are different from you.  Sixth, seek to diversify the staff of the church.  Sometimes this can be done with the help of a seminary theological school.  At New Life Theological Seminary we designed a special Mission and Mentoring program we refer to as “M&M” for this step.  Seventh, actively begin encouraging your new “different” friends into discipleship and worship.  Look for opportunities and create special events to purposes draw others into the church.

As a last result, if you can’t find others to commit to pray with you or your pastor is unwilling to help revitalize the church, leave.  Sometimes death has to happen for new life to begin.

Urban Churches Face Four Choices

Urban churches often face changing communities, and I'm not talking race.  Communities change spiritually, psychologically, economically, etc. This causes urban churches to face many different challenges as they often deal with decreasing membership, broken friendship, reduced budgets, and sometimes fear.  Faced with these changing communities, urban churches face four choices, and I have witness all of these here in Charlotte in the last few years.

Some churches look to relocate to what they believe to be greener pastures.  This means the church moves to the suburbs where land is cheaper and like-minded are more plentiful.

The second alternative churches have in a transitioning community is to disband the church.  These churches make a conscience decision that they are unwilling to make the needed changes to revitalize the church.  Not far from the seminary there was a church in decline.  I met with the deacon chair and asked if the seminary could come alongside them and help them transition to reach the community around them, but they chose to disband.  New Life Theological Seminary is the recipient of such a church.  The Whiting Avenue Baptist Church disbanded on the day of their centennial celebration, having earlier given their property to the seminary.

The third choice is to merge with another like-minded church.  While this may seem like a good idea, the reality is that few mergers work.  When two unhealthy congregations join, the problems of both continue and chaos follows.  Bringing two unhealthy churches together does not produce a healthy congregation.

The only biblical alternative is to adapt.  This is not easy but when God places a church in a community, God knows how that community will change over time.  God is never caught off guard.  He knew that your community and my community would transition.   In our area there are churches that were planted in rural communities that over time have been enveloped by a rapidly expanding city.  Once suburban churches now find themselves in the heart of the city.  Anglo-Saxon neighborhoods have become African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods.  Through gentrification some of the poorer neighborhoods have now become socially elite neighborhoods taken over by young professionals.  Was God taken by surprise by any of these transitions?  Of course not, God was not by surprise.  Adapting means that urban churches must develop a more diverse staff, become creative in meeting the needs of the community, and are willing to embrace change.  Urban churches must transition regularly.  Churches are living organisms and as such must change and transition in order to grow.

Why a Blog on Urban Ministry and Urban Issues?

Christian Ministry in urban areas is very challenging. Most church starts fail and their ministers give up and quit or burn out. The task is overwhelming and failure is the norm. The difficulty of the task causes many churches to flee the cities and relocate to the suburbs, attempt to merge with other churches to hold on a little longer, or to close their doors. If you have lived in any city for more than a decade and are observant, you should be able to name half a dozen churches that have closed, merged, or relocated. This blog is to help those with a heart for urban ministry. As the author of this blog, I do not claim to have all the answers, but I do believe I have learned a few things through my successes and failures as a pastor and educator on the subject. I invite you to ask questions and to share your thoughts on the forthcoming discussions.