From the Pastor: I have Yearned to Serve a Church with Ethnic Diversity
I have yearned to serve a church with significant ethnic diversity. Throughout my ministry, I have served predominantly “white” churches, always with minor ethnic diversity. I find it embarrassing that Sunday morning remains one of the most segregated hours in America, even though I understand the need of persons to associate and worship with their own kind. But I have always believed in an expression of Christianity based on inclusion and diversity. I even wrote a book entitled, “Transforming Discipleship in the Inclusive Church.” I think it is possible to worship in a racially and ethnically diverse congregation.
Second Baptist Church didn’t plan a ministry to Burmese refugees in south city. Most of these refugees have languished in camps along the Thai border for years, having narrowly escaped a tyrannical military government in Burma (Myanmar). They have arrived in St. Louis, mostly over the past two years, as legal immigrants.
We did assume that many of these refugees would be Baptists with historic ties to our denomination, the American Baptists. For example, the grandparents of a medical doctor in our congregation once served as American Baptist missionaries in Burma. We felt some responsibility to reach out and we began serving as tutors, helping these new arrivals learn English. When the refugees discovered that we were American Baptists, they began attending and found that our style of worship and approach to faith was familiar to them. Today, about 30-35 Burmese refugees are in our worship service every Sunday and participate actively in all phases of our congregational life.
Our diversity isn’t without challenges or limits. We have no Hispanic members. We have always had African American members and several Africans now are a part of our congregation. We’ve elected an African American moderator in our past and currently our vice-moderator is African American. We are a congregation that easily incorporates and welcomes diversity. The challenge of our diversity is that most of the Burmese adults are not yet fluent in English. Thus, as we gather, we do a lot of gesturing and smiling, hand-shaking and embracing, but we cannot engage in in-depth soulful conversation except with a few. We are convinced that the youth of our congregation will lead the way as the Burmese young people are quickly learning the language. Even here, mixing and inter-relating isn’t easy, for the backgrounds of middle-class American youth and immigrant Burmese youth who have experienced violent upheaval in their lives couldn’t be more different. But it is happening in amazing and gratifying ways among our young people.
There are different cultural values among us and different family values. As with all immigrant families who come to America, our Burmese families are in the midst of amazing change. But Second Baptist Church is one stable place where they can interact with friendly, well-meaning Americans who share a similar faith. They have found authentic hospitality as well as a helping hand within our congregation. We face constant issues of how to help without imposing or without doing too much for them.
Yet, an amazing thing has begun to happen: we now have visitors who come to Second Baptist Church BECAUSE of our diversity. I assumed that we would have to explain the diversity and help visitors accept it. In fact, some visitors are now coming because they also, like me, want to be a part of a diverse community of faith where we learn from one another and respect our differences. Some visitors are coming because they have discovered, like Apostle Peter, that “God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34-35) and is the Creator and Lord of all humankind. Since we have one divine Parent, we are all God’s children. How natural, how faithful, that we would worship in a diverse congregation!
If you are searching for a congregation…
• engaged in a deep sense of mission with our new neighbors
• that is ethnically diverse
• building a new and deeper sense of community among members whose stories are vastly different
• that has an historic past, founded in 1833, but is experiencing amazing change…
then we invite you to join us at Second Baptist Church of St. Louis.
- Stephen Jones, pastor
Posted by Linda Novak on Dec 4, 2009 at 16:38:41 | Article Path: Home: About: From the Pastor: I have Yearned to Serve a Church with Ethnic Diversity
