A multi-cultured future
By Evan Silverstein
Part of the family of god: members of Eliot Presbyterian Church in Lowell, Mass. Photo by: Michael ShueWorshiping at Eliot Presbyterian Church in Lowell, Mass., “feels like being part of the family of God,” says longtime member Scottie Farber.
That’s because after more than a century as a traditional New England congregation — mostly white and aging — Eliot Church began a multicultural ministry in the 1980s. The congregation began reaching out to newly arriving refugees who came to the city fleeing the killing fields of Pol Pot’s Cambodia.
The Southeast Asian immigrants found work in small businesses, computer assembly, and other manufacturing companies in Lowell, a city of 150,000 people about 40 miles northwest of Boston. Introduced to Christianity in refugee camps, these weary newcomers felt safe in the pews of Eliot Presbyterian, Farber says. They appreciated the church’s mission of providing friendship, shelter, food and English lessons along with Sunday worship.
“When we do the most basic aspects of worship, study the Bible, pray together, celebrate and grieve together,... we all become one body,” says Farber, an elder in the 200-member congregation.
Over time, as Eliot Church welcomed these strangers, most of whom were raised Buddhist, they became increasingly involved in the congregation. Now they have formed a choir that sings hymns in Khmer, the official language of Cambodia. They are Sunday school teachers and serve on church committees and on session. One has been ordained as a Presbyterian minister. Cambodians now make up a third of Eliot’s membership.
They have been joined by people immigrating to Lowell from Africa, Taiwan, Nicaragua, Argentina, the Dominican Republic and other places. These new members, most of whom have fled oppressive governments and economic hardship, worship comfortably alongside middle-class white parishioners such as Farber and her husband, Douglas.
A Portuguese-speaking Brazilian group holds separate Sunday evening worship services at the church, and some who attend these services have become full members of the congregation.
“We have no predominant culture,” says Edward C. “Ted” Zaragoza, the church’s pastor. “As we like to say, the world gathers at Eliot from North, South, East and West and finds a home in the family of God.”
The influx of new congregants from distant lands sustained the vitality of Eliot Church, at a time when many longtime members were moving to new digs in the suburbs as the church’s neighborhood became more racially diverse.
Neighborhoods across the United States have seen the same pattern of transition. But while many congregations in older cities decline and close, the church in Lowell has learned how to adapt and grow. In doing so it has joined a vanguard of congregations across the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that are breaking down racial barriers, altering the long-segregated landscape of mission and Sunday worship.
As waves of immigration shift the nation’s demographics, multicultural congregations are becoming vital to the PCUSA’s future. By the year 2050, sociologists say, the majority of the U.S. population will be non-white. Countless churches in the cities, suburbs, and increasingly in rural areas are located in the midst of ethnically diverse communities.
Churches that fail to ride this wave of social change may find themselves struggling to survive. Declining membership and resources, however, should not be the main reason Presbyterians embrace multiculturalism, says Rhashell Hunter, director of Racial/
Ethnic and Women’s Ministries/Presbyterian Women for the PCUSA.
“The desire to become diverse, appreciation of people of different cultures and races, and commitment to living out the gospel of Jesus Christ should be primary motivations for becoming a multicultural congregation,” she says.
Raafat Girgis, the PCUSA’s associate for multicultural ministries, says if multicultural ministry “is not the approach to evangelism, then it is one of the most important approaches.”
The PCUSA is currently about 92 percent white, but a growing number of churches are attempting to incorporate cultural traditions of more than one ethnic or racial group, Girgis says. He estimates that more than 1,900 congregations (out of some 11,000 in the denomination) are at least moving toward a multicultural identity.
“We don’t say that they are there yet, or that they are absolutely multicultural with the definition that we hope for. But definitely there are more churches exploring [multicultural models] than before.”
If this trend continues — and the many immigrant fellowships that have formed across the country eventually become congregations — Girgis believes it’s possible the PCUSA will meet a goal adopted by the 1998 General Assembly: to increase the denomination’s racial-ethnic membership to 20 percent by 2010.
Two ministries now under Hunter’s direction have been working toward that goal for years. Since 1999 Immigrant Groups Ministries has facilitated entry of new groups of immigrants into the life of the denomination. Congregational Enhancement offices were created in 1986 to support Asian, Korean, Native American, Black, Hispanic and Middle Eastern congregations.
The vision of a multicultural church is deeply rooted in Biblical tradition. For example, Isaiah 56:7b proclaims, “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” Citing Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that his disciples might be one, Girgis insists that unity in Christ transcends cultural, ethnic, national and racial barriers. It requires taking seriously the belief that Jesus Christ has made peace between people of every ethnicity, culture and class.
Why is building a multicultural church important? “We do it because it is the Biblical mandate,” says Girgis. “The day of Pentecost [the disciples] were all together in one place. There were... people... from every nation, from every tribe, from every language,...”
But becoming a multicultural church can be messy, he warns. It involves challenging a mindset that resists change. And it requires a commitment from every church member.
“Issues of racism, classism, xenophobia, all these things cannot be solved, cannot be really addressed appropriately, unless we are addressing them together,” he says.
As members of Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C., discovered recently, new members from different cultures can transform a congregation on the brink of closing.
Last August Kevin and Tovi Martin, an interracial couple in their 30s who were looking around for a new church, happened to attend worship at Caldwell Memorial the Sunday that pastor Charlie MacDonald made a sad announcement. He informed the handful of elderly white members in the pews that their 95-year-old congregation would have to be dissolved because of declining funds and members.
His words took the Martins by surprise. They had felt so welcomed by the church’s few remaining members that they wanted to join.
“It was the people that drew me there,” says Kevin Martin, a computer analyst with Duke Energy, who is African American. “When my wife and I first walked in,... it was basically an all-white congregation and we’re an interracial couple but nobody batted an eyelash. There wasn’t a head that turned. There was just this overwhelming sense of welcoming and worth. It was awesome.”
In an effort to save the church the Martins rounded up a group of fellow church-shoppers who used to worship together at another Presbyterian church in town. Soon these newcomers started filling Caldwell Memorial’s pews. The church stayed open, and today some 75 to 100 members of various races delight in worship services that blend classic Presbyterian hymns with African-American gospel music led by an interracial choir. It’s not unusual any more to see visitors and children in the sanctuary.
“Everyone is welcome in terms of ethnicity, in terms of sexual orientation, in terms of their place in theology,” says Tovi Martin, a grant proposal writer at Presbyterian-related Queens University in Charlotte. “We’re open to people who are still questioning and aren’t sure where they fall in the grand spectrum of Christians.”
Is going multicultural the key to church growth? “Not in every case,” says Eric Hoey, director of evangelism and church growth for the PCUSA and former co-pastor of a multicultural congregation in San Gabriel Presbytery.
“You can’t just say, ‘You must become multicultural or you won’t grow.’ You can’t be that narrow,” Hoey says. “You have to read the situation. Is the congregation primed for that type of thing? Where are the people coming from? Are they commuting in or do they live locally? There are all kinds of issues.”
Richard Burns, a member of Church of All Nations in Columbia Heights, Minn., was born in England but grew up in the United States. His wife, Sharon Tan, is a native of Malaysia. Burns calls the All Nations congregation, which averages more than 200 worshipers every Sunday, “the real thing.” Led by founding pastor Jin S. Kim, the church includes members from a wide variety of racial-ethnic backgrounds.
“It’s truly a place where people can be authentic, but also a place to confess, talk about racial sin, separation, pride and arrogance,” Burns says. “It’s a place where our kids can grow up and be part of a fabric of multiracial people. In a culture that still struggles with what race means, they’re loved in their multiracial identity in a multiracial family.
“And they’re loved just as they are, as God made them.”
—Evan Silverstein is a reporter for the Presbyterian News Service. |
