On any given Sunday, look around your church and take note of the amount of diversity you see. How many different cultures can you pick out just by looking at the people in the service? Or think of all the different people you know who attend your church. How many of them come from a different culture than you?
“It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning.” – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Typically, there will be very few church-goers in your church who are much different than you. Christian congregations are more likely to be almost wholly one specific culture. Only 2–8% of Christian churches have any sort of diverse range of congregants (Klagge). That’s not that many.
So how do we encourage diversity in our own churches to see those dismal numbers shift?
A multicultural worship gathering in your church is difficult to create out of thin air. Many times we have great ideas and vision from God that we expect to happen near-immediately. After all, shouldn’t things be easy if God is behind it? Yet we see that practically speaking, working on a vision from God takes much time, thought, and prayer to see it through. If God has given you a heart to see your church become more culturally diverse, expect some hardships to occur along the way. However, expect more that God will do something great amidst the difficult times.
Has God given you a heart to see a more culturally diverse set of worshippers in your church? We as humans cannot force this to happen. God most likely wouldn’t force it to happen either. A shift like this, even in churches, will take much time, prayer, and effort. Yet we can trust that God is good and that He desires for Christians to worship as one.
In this series, we’ll give practical steps to help bring diversity in your church.
Join us in the coming weeks as we discuss these ideas by commenting and offering your own thoughts. And, as always, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you want to see a multicultural worship event happen in your church.
Klagge, James C. “The Most Segregated Hour in America?” http://www.phil.vt.edu/JKlagge/ConductorChurch.htm
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