I absolutely love facilitating the Newcomer Meal and Conversation. Here, newcomers to Christ Church share bits of their stories and then, we converse about our church’s story and mission.
As people introduce themselves, I also ask them to answer a couple of questions:
- How did you hear about Christ Church?
- What were one or two of your first impressions?
Because I am one of the ministers, I have to coax people to share not only the good, but the bad and ugly as well! Churches can learn so much about themselves if they would simply listen to people’s first impressions. It only takes a few months for an outsider to become an insider, and during that stretch, one loses the ability to have “first impressions.” People become quickly familiar with a bunch of “stuff” in the church that would, if it were not for the newcomer, get missed. It is kind of like the pile of clothes that sits in the corner of the room. You might notice it for 2 or 3 days, but pretty soon it just sort of blends into the floor and wall.
This week a couple of newcomers posed concern that Christ Church was too homogenous. Now, on some levels and to some degree, I share this concern, so I hope you will not read what follows as a defense of our church or a refutation of the observation. In fact, I think it is because I might level a similar observation that I take the time to write about it here. Again, I am most grateful for good, honest, critical feedback.
What is a homogenous church?
When we address this question, I think we need to think about it in two directions. First, we need to think about different layers or fields of homogeneity. And second, I think we need to think about different facets or ministries of the church.
Homogeneity
First, what sort of homogeneity are we talking about? Socio-economic homogeneity? Education-level homogeneity? Ethnic homogeneity? Geographic homogeneity? Spiritual homogeneity? Cultural homogeneity? Age and stage homogeneity? Sexual orientation diversity? Or, a confluence of some or all of these?
For instance, there are 20 homes on my street. To one degree or another, I know everyone that lives in these homes. I am pretty sure that 18 of the 20 houses are inhabited by agnostics or atheists, and 2 of the 20 houses by theists. But, the age range on our street is quite expansive—we have single students, young urban professionals, young families, and empty nesters. Thus, we are a spiritually homogenous sort who is radically diverse when it comes to age and stage. Of the 20 houses on our street, 13 are inhabited by Caucasians, 2 are African American, 2 are Asian American, and the other 3 house multiple ethnicities. And so, when it comes to ethnicity you might say that we are both somewhat homogenous and somewhat diverse.
The Church
When one looks at a church, they hopefully see all sorts of different aspects, facets, venues, services, opportunities, etc. There are service projects, vocational initiatives, worship services, parishes, community groups, spiritual formation classes, affinity groups, etc., etc. The worship service might be the single, greatest opportunity to have an entire congregation on display, but even at the worship service, you only get to see the participants in the church and not the recipients of some of the church’s services. There is a robust body of literature that addresses how diverse a church can be (or cannot be) ethnically, culturally, socio-economically, age and stage, etc., etc., and I will not get into all of it here, but, suffice it to say, it is easiest for a church to be ethnically diverse and hardest for it to be socio-economically diverse. Being culturally diverse in a melting-pot-mono-culture-America is virtually impossible! Some churches have some success in exploring diversity across many of these lines in worship, but most do not. Many churches have success in being more diverse across these lines when they are actively engaging their respective communities via service (mercy, justice, and peace), but, of course, if your congregation is fairly homogenous, and your recipients of service are fairly diverse, that a church must work hard at not being paternal in its approach to the broader community.
Pastoral Word
I imagine as the pastor of a church in the Bay Area, I would need to urge our congregation to both settle into homogeneity and fight for diversity. I mean, after all, that we even talk about things like homogeneity is to suggest that we are church that is only going to appeal to folks with a certain degree of education. As a mentor, Tim Keller, has said, “When you quote Nietzsche from the pulpit you are limiting your capacity for diversity.” Nietzsche’s name is designed to be a fill-in-the-blank: “When you __________, you are limiting your capacity for diversity." In this light, I think we need to be comfortable with (and even embrace) a certain level of homogeneity.
But, as Christians, we should always be “pushing toward the throne room” where the diverse throngs are worshipping Jesus in the most climactic service of all time. By my estimation, our congregation is currently pretty diverse ethnically, pretty diverse spiritually, somewhat diverse socio-economically, a little bit diverse when it comes to age and stage, and not at all diverse when it comes to level of education. I think it is appropriate to long and pray for more diversity! And as we do, we must remember that the church is not a stand-alone entity, but we are the church. In other words, one should never say, “I wish the church would be more diverse,” without first saying, “Wait a second! I am the church. How diverse are my friendships? Do I have friends that are a different color? That have a different level of education? That make a lot more or a lot less money? That are entirely different than I am Spiritually?”