I’m prompted to write this post as a reaction to all the hand-wringing, doomsday predictions, and fear of the future that I have observed over the last 2 days. Let me stress this is not a political commentary. Rather its me playing missiologist about the 3rd largest mission field called the United States of America.
As I watched both the political conventions this summer and the speeches given Tuesday night by the respective candidates, I was struck by the vast difference of who made up the audiences. One was a picture of a vast array of people of color. The other was a picture that lacked any color at all.
I won’t delve into why it seems most ethnics vote one way and most whites vote another. I’ll leave that to the sociologists and political pundits. For Kingdom citizens, there is a bigger question on the table – which audience do we want the evangelical church to look like?
For 20 years I have beat the drum telling evangelicals that they need to get their institutional house in order because diversity is coming. That line no longer is accurate. Ladies and gentlemen, diversity is here.
And as demonstrated Tuesday night, the organizations that figure out how to express their values, attitudes, and beliefs in a diverse manner will be the ones that come out on top. The ones that don’t will slowly and steadily lose their impact.
Here are the facts. Our country is browner, is more female, and is well on its way to becoming an ethnic minority/majority country. If we can’t figure out how to speak to this reality evangelical institutions will be completely marginalized.
We need a modernization of the Church as a whole. If our gospel message is to be heard it cannot be held captive by the traditions and rituals of one ethnic group. We cannot run our Christian organizations as niche marketers if we truly want to reach the mission field the Lord has put in front of us.
Though I agree with the intent of reaching a diverse world (that’s why we are in Philly), I think this statement does not offer a helpful analogy — “And as demonstrated Tuesday night, the organizations that figure out how to express their values, attitudes, and beliefs in a diverse manner will be the ones that come out on top.” Whatever created the diversity of the Democratic party offers no model for a church. We seek a principled diversity unified in the gospel not an ‘anything goes’ diversity fragilely unified only in diversity. The democratic victory on Tuesday night says a lot about many things but says nothing helpful to those of us who want to reach a diverse world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Thanks John. As I said in the post this is not a political commentary. Whether it is the Democratic Party, Starbucks, a university, or the church the message is if any organization in the 21st century is going to be successful it cannot be held captive by the ideology of one ethnic group. Whether one agrees with their message or not, they have figured out a way to be inclusive and multiply as opposed to exclusive and subtract. That is the broader point and holds eternal implications for us as believers.
I think one of your key statements is, “the organizations that figure out how to express their values, attitudes, and beliefs in a diverse manner will be the ones that come out on top.” I notice how you carefully did not say the organizations who GIVE UP their values, attitudes and beliefs in order to be on top. A few pundits were basically recommending that the party that did not win the White House needs to change their values. I don’t think that’s a good idea, but especially when it comes to the message of the Kingdom. The values and beliefs CANNOT be changed, but the way in which they are communicated and the way in which people who are different from us are are engaged must be changed.
I still remember a pastor in the mid-west who had been a missionary in Mexico for a season and saw much fruit. He came back to the states and failed in his first pastorate. He later apologized to that church because he realized he had worked hard to understand the culture in Mexico so that he could translate the Gospel into images and concepts that would resonate but had failed to do so in the States because he thought he already knew that culture. As a guy from a blue collar town he failed miserably in a rural church. For many in the evangelical community we seem to have lost the desire to understand our culture in order to be better translators of God’s good news. Instead we keep speaking “evangelicalese” and wonder why they look at us blankly.
Well, that’s enough for now. Thanks for kicking up some dust.
“The values and beliefs CANNOT be changed, but the way in which they are communicated and the way in which people who are different from us are are engaged must be changed.” You’ve summed up my intent nicely with that sentence Paul.
In response to Paul:
The portion of Alvin’s sentence that you quoted is self-evident to anyone church planting in a diverse community. However, you left off part of the sentence “And as demonstrated Tuesday night ….” Alvins point seemed to be that the evident diversity of the Democratic party was due to a superior ability to communicate their values and beliefs and we should learn from that. My point is that the diversity is not necessarily due to a superior ability to communicate their values and beliefs but may be due as much to the values and beliefs themselves.e. content may be as much responsible as the way of communicating it. Therefore, I only learn from Tuesday night that one party is more diverse than the other but not whether the diversity exists because of the values themselves or the communication of those values. I pursue diversity but learn nothing valuable from Tuesday evening that would help me achieve that.
By the way, I agree with Alvin’s response to Paul, but I don’t learn that from Tuesday night.
John I don’t see what I am saying and what you are saying as an either/or proposition but a both/and. I think the vast ethnic differences in the audiences we saw Tuesday night was a result of the Dems ability to communicate their content in a diverse manner. I think the content of the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the GOP could draw a diverse crowd as well if they knew how to communicate it in a way that would cause people of color to self select them. For us as ministers I’m talking about contextualization.
Hi Alvin:
Blessings, JOHN
I agree with what you are trying to say about contextualization, though I believe Tuesday night revealed more about content than communication. We will have to have Gallup do a poll to see who’s right
John fair enough. One thing is for sure as a battleground state resident (Ohio) I’m glad its over! Blessings to you as well.
[...] Just like Michael L. Brown and most of the other white evangelical leaders of white evangelicalism, Linda Harvey would insist that she favors diversity, in principle, and that she would be very pleased to see “our” church become more inclusive. In theory, people like Brown and Harvey can nod along with Alvin Sanders as he outlines his “Mission Lessons From Election Night“: [...]