Ethnic Blends?

This article is excerpted from Multicultural Ministry.

In the spring of 2006, I received a call from the local NBC affiliate wanting to feature our church in a segment on people and institutions of faith making a difference in the lives of Arkansans. They wanted to describe the diversity of our church—a story of interest, in part, because we are located only three miles from Little Rock’s Central High School where, in 1957, nine black students (the Little Rock Nine) were denied entrance, despite a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court ordering the desegregation of public schools throughout the United States.

When I inquired into the producer’s interest in Mosaic, she said, “I want others to know that your church is not just diverse on the outside but diverse on the inside as well.” In other words, what had caught her attention was the fact that our leadership—indeed, our pulpit itself—is fully integrated.

The leadership at the church in Antioch (Acts 11:19—25; 13:1) serves as a model for enlisting diverse leadership within a local church setting. Luke was compelled, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, not only to mention the names of the men involved as prophets and teachers at Antioch, but their countries of origin as well.

This made clear that the church, like the gospel itself, is for all people, and that a diverse team is best fit for leadership in a “house of prayer for all the nations.”

According to the Encarta World English Dictionary, quotas define “the number or quantity that is permitted or needed” within a given setting. In other words, those in positions of authority determine the limits as to who, what, and how much is needed. Of course, there is no place in the New Testament where racial quotas are prescribed, but that doesn’t mean diversity was not a high priority.

Recruiting with intentionality

We should not expect to integrate our leadership teams through random prayer or wishful thinking. Diverse individuals of godly character, theological agreement, and shared vision do not just arrive on waves of whim. Like the best of college coaches, multi-ethnic churches must continually be on the lookout for potential recruits. When we find them, we should establish a dialogue, mindful that there may be an opportunity for formal partnership together at some point in the future.

Intentionality is the middle ground between quotas and wishful thinking.

Years ago I was cautioned by an African American pastor of a large congregation in Little Rock that I should never presume to have achieved integration simply because diverse individuals were involved:

“Mark, if you hire or otherwise empower African Americans only to lead your church in worship, you may inadvertently suggest to people, ‘We accept them as entertainers.’ If you hire or otherwise empower African Americans only to work with your children, you may inadvertently suggest, ‘We accept them to nanny our kids.’ And if you hire or otherwise employ African Americans only as janitors, you are quite clearly stating, ‘We expect them to clean up after us.’ It is only when you allow us to share your pulpit, to serve with you on the elder board or alongside you in apportioning the money, that we will be truly one with you in church.”

With that in mind, we currently have a vacancy to fill in our pulpit and we are intentionally looking for an African American replacement. This decision is affected to some degree by the fact that we are located in the South. Because we desire at least three individuals to share the pulpit, we are also informed by the fact that my partner, Harry Li, is Chinese American and I am white.

At this time as well, a white woman and another white family are raising support to join our staff team. Once they do, our staff will consist of five whites (one who is deaf), three blacks, two Latinos, one Chinese American, and a woman from Antigua—a pretty healthy mix.

Another white man has also recently shown interest in joining our team. The balance of diversity can quickly shift if leaders are not intentional.

While quotas should in no way dictate the diversity of your staff, potential hires must be considered in light of both the current and future composition of the team. Saying yes to someone of a particular ethnicity or other valued descriptive (one who is deaf or blind, for example), may mean saying no to someone else like him or her later on.

Intentionality will safeguard the diversity of your staff, and therefore the credibility of your church, by ensuring that no one people group becomes so dominant in number as to undermine the vision.

Break the cycle of sameness

Of the 7 percent of churches that can be currently classified as multi-ethnic, a significant number are led by mono-ethnic staff teams. Although the diversity of these congregations is commendable, the challenge for such churches going forward is to recognize that more work needs to be done.

In one church I know, over 100 people were hired, over the course of eight years, to fill positions of leadership. But only two minorities were hired in ministry positions, and one in an administrative role. Yet this was a town that was nearly 40 percent black! Each time a new pastor was hired, the leaders would say, “We are pleased to announce that we have found the best man for the job.” He was always white and in many other ways reflective of core leadership.

When a position becomes available in most churches, leaders tend to contact those they know and trust for names of those they’d recommend for the job. The people we contact and those they recommend are, more often than not, people just like us in ethnic, economic, and educational background.

Consequently, the people we know recommend people they know, and by the time résumés are submitted, interviews conducted, and decisions made, the new hire—”the best man for the job”—looks just like us. Indeed, we may have searched the country, but only through a limited field of contacts.

Those intent on building a healthy multi-ethnic church should develop relationships with people outside their own ethnic and economic background in order to break this cycle. Our intention to hire an African American speaker has meant connecting with other African American church leaders to express our desire. Without this network of relationships, the task would be much more difficult.

If you don’t have connections outside your own ethnic group, start by simply picking up the phone and introducing yourself to pastors and professors, ministry and business professionals alike. Of course, once the church is established and diversity takes root, the process of finding candidates becomes much less contrived.

Again, let me illustrate from our own experience at Mosaic.

Philip Lamar (white) was one of my former students. Responding to Christ as a senior in high school, he spent most of his college years actively pursuing ministry. A gifted evangelist with a heart for internationals, Philip soon began traveling to Guatemala to work with orphans; there he picked up Spanish as a second language. When he came back to Little Rock, I invited him to join me in planting Mosaic and to apply his passion, gifting, and experience in reaching out to Latinos living here. It was the summer of 2001.

Several years before, Philip had met Inés Velasquez (Nicaraguan) while visiting friends in Texas. He introduced her to me, and by November of 2001, she had also joined our emerging staff team. Inés, in turn, recently introduced me to a young woman named Jamna Abdullah, one of her best friends from Nicaragua. Jamna was in town visiting just prior to beginning seminary training in Guatemala.

During her stay, we began a dialogue that very well may lead to her involvement with us at some point in the future.

Diversity at a discount

Hiring a diverse staff isn’t the only way toward a multi-ethnic team. Even if there is no money to hire additional staff, diverse volunteers can be positioned for maximum impact.

For example, the first call I placed in this regard was to Harold Nash, the African American leader of an inner-city ministry in North Little Rock. At that time, I invited him to join me in planting Mosaic and to share the pulpit. However, concluding that it was not God’s will for him to leave his ministry at that time, Harold accepted the invitation as a volunteer.

In that capacity, he served alongside me for five years as a teaching pastor and for four years as an elder. Two of our initial worship leaders also served in the beginning as volunteers; one was black and the other was white. Rotating from week to week and, at times, singing together, their unity of mind, spirit, and purpose helped to model both an attitude and expectation that diverse leaders could and should serve side by side at Mosaic.

However, let me also provide you with a word of caution. If you are revitalizing or transforming an existing church, it is important not to move too quickly in adding or making changes to your leadership team. In other words, you do not want to split a church in the name of unity! Yet this may happen, for instance, if without any preparation at all, the (homogeneous) body is told one Sunday morning that you have hired someone quite different from yourself and them, who will, from now on, share the pulpit. It could happen if you too quickly enlist volunteer worship leaders to change the music in style and format, replace pictures of a white Jesus with those that depict him as Latino, or programmatically legislate the desegregation of midweek small groups or Sunday school classes.

Once again, although intentionality must govern the approach to the revitalization or transformation of a church, as well as its leadership team, so must wisdom be displayed through prayer, patience, and persistence.

Restrictive thinking related to roles and ethnicity is formulated by fear, ignorance, or outright racism. Sadly, many remain largely unaware of conditioning that has long shaped the American psyche and its effect on who we are or how we make decisions from day to day.

Indeed, the time has come to change our approach to staffing and commit ourselves to ethnically diverse leadership. Let’s extend opportunities to various men and women of sound integrity, theological agreement, and shared vision and invite them to join us as partners in proclaiming the love of Christ in and through the local church. More than that, let us show the world through such diverse interaction just what that love looks like.

Mark DeYmaz is pastor of the Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas in Little Rock. This article first appeared in the Spring 2008 issue of Leadership Journal.