Is 11am Sunday the most segregated hour of your week?

 

 

Who goes to your church?

No, not just names.

What are they like?

Are they white or black?

Middle or working class?
Do they all like a formal or informal service?
Are they all ‘educated’?
Are they hands up, hands out or hands down?

And so on...

 

You may well baulk at the distinctions I’ve just drawn.

The question remains however – is your time at church the most culturally segregated time of your week?

 

Multicultural society

We live in a multicultural society. Many of you will work and study with people from all over the world. Your neighbours may be Eastern European. Your work colleague may be Asian. Your Badminton partner may be South American. We are used to living alongside and often counting as friends people from different cultures, with different religions and different tastes and preferences.

 

Monocultural church

But so often churches can be monocultural. So I may visit a ‘black African’ church. Or I may visit a strict Baptist (aka in my experience white middle class central). Or even a ‘youth church’. And I confess, I feel uncomfortable about this. Perhaps in part because I feel uncomfortable in churches where people are so different to me. The thought of mixing it up seems, well, just a bit radical…

 

The diverse church

Galatians 3:28 says: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”.

And in heaven the church is described as being ‘from every tribe and language and people and nation (Revelation 5:9).

• A diverse church presents this as a present-yet-future reality.
• A diverse church shows the world that Jesus is not a tribal God but Lord of all nations and ethnicities.
• A diverse church is evidence of Christ’s power on the cross to “reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Eph. 2:16).

 

Stop segregating

And so God’s church is not supposed to be segregated. Granted, we will naturally drift towards those like ourselves. In some ways I believe God means for the Global Church to have different local expressions. This is not in and of itself wrong.

But what if? What if we saw an end to black and white churches? What if we saw an end to churches defined by cultural preference and instead we are defined by our belief in the Gospel?

What a magnificent picture people of different cultures, preferences, personalities, all united under the gospel presents to the world.

 

So let me ask:

• Will you desire to demonstrate the Gospel in your church by pursuing cultural diversity?

• Will you abandon many of your secondary preferences for a greater goal?

• Will you stop being comfortable with people who are just like yourself and see that church is not for you or for us, but for Him and for a needy world?

Will your Sunday service be the most culturally segregated of your week?

Thanks for reading.
Any thoughts? Am I way off the mark with this?