Wow — It only gets better!
Day Two started off with a tremendous message from Dr. David Ireland, Pastor of David Ireland is a pastor of Christ Church in Montclair, New Jersey that is 80% African American and 20% other, while the local community is about 70% caucasian. This compares to the national average where the majority of churches in America typically have no greater than 2-5% of diversity in their congregations. This is probably the most learned man on the issue of race in churches that I have heard. He told us he has a PhD in Organizational Management and his thesis was on the difference in racial issues in large churches, both black and white.
1. Discover each other — Be a learner. You can’t change your culture unless you are willing to understand the other person’s life, baggage etc.
2. Racial diversity is “accommodation” NOT tolerance — The mistake churches make is to communicate the idea of we will tolerate your race or your culture. We need to communicate that we will make room for you.
3. Intentionally create diversity in our worship AND our preaching — Dr Ireland made a very profound statement about ethnic diversity in the American church, as he told the story of a Puerto Rican couple who were bringing their family to church before a Sunday afternoon wedding in the church. “I asked the worship team to learn a couple of songs in Spanish and learn the correct pronunciations. When we sang the song in Spanish, the Spanish speaking grandmother cried as she felt that this church had PLANNED for their visit.”
I was impacted greatly by this statement. “We planned for them!” They had made a conscious decision to alter their current style of worhsip to accomodate those they knew to be in the congregation that day. He was quick to say — don’t just go out and hire an Asian Pastor, or a Hispanic pastor or an African American pastor. It means that the elders and leadership team must have a broken heart and a fire in their belly for the people that are NOT in your church. Your church ought to reflect the demographics in a 20 minutes radius of your church. If it doesn’t, you need to develop passion for the lost in your community and out of that passion we strategically accommodate for those people…even before they arrive.
The humble church–Santa Monica’s oldest remaining wood structure and a landmark since 1977–has had four owners and three locations in its 130-year life. When the building was threatened with demolition in 1971, local artist Helen Taylor Sheats saved it from the wrecking ball by converting it into her atelier. The predicament for Troutman and her husband, architect Aleks Istanbullu, was how to retain the architectural integrity of the church, yet have it reflect their modern sensibilities. Their solution: a free-standing cabinet-like structure set within the 40-foot-square sanctuary. “The walls don’t touch the old church,” explains Troutman. “We essentially built a building within a building.”
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