We Can't Afford To Stay Ignorant of the Non-White Church

We have all heard the saying, that Sundays in the South are the most segregated day of the week. Here in Mobile, there are over 400 churches, which, in truth, can be categorized as much for their denominational bend as their racial makeup. Some say that style of worship is the main cause. I disagree. While style may be a cause (no one doubts the differences), it is not the cause.

Love trumps style. I have seen it with my own eyes. Style is the main issue for consumers; but it is almost a non-issue for those who consider it an undeserved privilege to worship the God who saves all sorts of sinful people. This is not an indictment, but an observation. If taken as an indictment (as I, myself have), we may be consumers more than worshipers.

What is interesting is that it seems we are okay with this reality. We acknowledge the issue - that Sundays are segregated - but do little about it. Its almost as if we believe we can continue this way until the Day Jesus returns; and that the health of the church will suffer little to no consequence. As a result, we continue doing things the way we always have. We worship with white folks, and listen to white folks, and subscribe only to blogs which are written by white folks (I just looked at my feed list - all white folks).

What is true is that we are suffering the consequences of this reality. Day by day what goes on within the church walls falls out of step with what goes on outside of those walls. Day by day, the inside of the church resists diversification, while the outside is becoming more diversified. While we see the outside outgrow the inside, we conclude that our churches are in decline. We are wrong. Hear this sobering observation from Soong-Chan Rah:

"The American church needs to face the inevitable and prepare for the next stage of her history - we are looking at a nonwhite majority, multiethnic American Christianity in the immediate future. Unfortunately, despite these drastic demographic changes, American evangelicalism remains enamored to an ecclesiology and a value system that reflects a dated and increasingly irrelevant cultural captivity and is disconnected from both a global and local reality."

Love not only covers a multitude of sins, but it also covers a multitude of styles, differences, and non-moral cultural aggravations. It is time that American Christians ask if we living the Gospel. Are we worshiping the God who is both unity and diversity? The one Gospel (unity) is powerful to save everyone (diversity). While the outside world has embraced diversity without unity; we have embraced unity without diversity.

But Rah states that this is not the case with the global Church. Outside of our Western, White, middle-class walls there exists a gospel-centered multiethnic church. This church is far from decline, far from segregated and far from what we may have ever seen. We must only look beyond ourselves and follow their lead.

For further reading on this topic, I highly suggest Rah's book The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church From Western Cultural Captivity.