ReligionLink

Despite a lot of rhetoric about diversity, racially segregated worship is still a reality in most congregations. One study found that only 8 percent of Christian congregations in the U.S. are considered racially or ethnically “mixed,” meaning no one group makes up more than 80 percent of the congregation.

At the same time, multicultural congregations are growing in number and prominence, for several reasons. There is a growing trend toward planting new congregations that are intentionally diverse racially and culturally. Some existing congregations are working at diversifying their membership because they believe they should reflect their communities or because they are trying to survive and thrive, or both. And immigration has increased the percentage of ethnic minorities in this country and the number of areas where they live, from big cities to small towns and rural areas.

These multiethnic congregations are pioneering new ways of doing worship, fellowship and community outreach that reflect their diverse memberships.

For more sources, see these previous ReligionLink issues:

• Race and religion in America
• Church planting is top priority
• Guide to Hispanics and religion
• Guide to African-Americans and religion

Why it matters

Young people today have grown up in a racially and ethnically diverse world. They expect their houses of worship to be as multihued as their schools, their workplaces, the coffee shops they visit. Families are changing too, through international adoptions and with relationships across racial and ethnic lines producing children who don’t clearly identify themselves as being of only one race. If racial reconciliation is possible within a congregation, some contend, that can be a sign to the world that divine reconciliation may be possible as well.

National sources

• Michael O. Emerson is a sociology professor and director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life at Rice University in Houston. He wrote People of the Dream: Multiracial Congregations in the United States, and he co-authored Against All Odds: The Struggle for Racial Integration in Religious Organizations, both published within the last two years. Contact 713-348-4448, moe@rice.edu.
• The Rev. David A. Anderson is senior pastor of Bridgeway Community Church, a nondenominational, intentionally multicultural church of more than 2,000 in Columbia, Md. Anderson also is president of BridgeLeader Network, a nonprofit group that trains congregations, colleges, companies and other groups in multicultural work. Contact 410-992-5832, david.anderson@BridgeLeader.com.
• Scott L. Thumma is a professor of the sociology of religion at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary. He has done research on megachurches and can speak about the role they play in developing multiracial and multiethnic congregations. Contact 860-509-9571, sthumma@hartsem.edu.
• George A. Yancey is an associate professor of sociology at the University of North Texas in Denton. He is the author of One Body, One Spirit: Principles of Successful Multiracial Churches. Contact 940-565-2179, gay0002@unt.edu or gyancey@unt.edu.
• James W. Lewis is executive director of the Louisville Institute, a program for the study of American religion at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. With funding from the Lilly Endowment, the Louisville Institute has sponsored research on multiethnic congregations. Lewis can connect reporters with scholars and pastors who’ve studied multiethnic congregations. Contact 502-992-9341, jlewis@louisville-institute.org.
• Erwin Raphael McManus, a native of El Salvador, is lead pastor and cultural architect at Mosaic, a diverse Southern Baptist church in Los Angeles. Mosaic is packed with a multiethnic mix of artistic young adults; McManus describes Mosaic as a cosmopolitan congregation serving the post-modern, post-Western, post-Christian world. McManus is the author of An Unstoppable Force: Daring to Become the Church God Had in Mind and, most recently, Soul Cravings, which was published in 2006. Contact 562-908-2200 ext. 105, alisah@mosaic.org.
• Kathleen Garces-Foley is an assistant professor of religious studies at Marymount University in Arlington, Va. She is studying the efforts of Protestants and Roman Catholics to create multiethnic churches and is the author of Crossing the Ethnic Divide: The Multiethnic Church on a Mission, released in January 2007. Contact 703-284-5721, kathleen.garces-foley@marymount.edu.
• D. J. Chuang is working with Leadership Network to assist churches that are trying creative approaches to reach Asian Americans. Leadership Network, based in Dallas, works to nurture innovative leadership and church growth by connecting and equipping church leaders. Contact 800-765-5323 or 214-969-5950, dj.chuang@leadnet.org.

ISLAM
• Ihsan Bagby is associate professor of Islamic studies in the department of modern and classical languages, literatures and cultures at the University of Kentucky. He can speak about racial diversity in American mosques, based in part on research from the 2001 study “The Mosque in America: A National Portrait.” The Council on American-Islamic relations, a co-sponsor of the report, has posted on its Web site a summary of the ethnic background of American Muslims, based on that report. Contact 859-257-9638 (office), 859-257-3761 (department), iabagb2@uky.edu.

JUDAISM
• Gary A. Tobin is president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, a nonprofit think tank in San Francisco. He formerly directed the Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University and is the co-author of In Every Tongue: The Racial and Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People. Contact press@jewishresearch.org.

BUDDHISM
• Choyin Rangdrol is a teacher in the Tibetan tradition of Buddhism and the founder of Rainbow Dharma, a Buddhist center in Oakland, Calif., and of the Web site RainbowDharma.com. The author of Black Buddha: Changing the Face of American Buddhism (published in 2006), Rangdrol has written about racial separation in American Buddhism. Read a fall 2005 interview with Turning Wheel magazine and an article he wrote posted on UrbanDharma.org, which addresses the question: “Are Buddhist People of Color Separate from American Buddhism?” Contact rainbowdharma@aol.com.

FAITH GROUPS

• Ronaldo M. Cruz is executive director of the Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He can speak about the involvement of Latinos in Catholic churches. Contact 202-541-3150, hispanicaffairs@usccb.org.
• The Rev. Josue’ Del Risco is director of the International and Multiethnic Evangelism Team of the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Contact 770-410-6344, jdelrisco@namb.net.
• The Rev. Chester Jones is general secretary of the United Methodist Church’s General Commission on Religion and Race in Washington, D.C. Contact 202-547-2271, cjones@gcorr.org.
• The Rev. Alvin C. Bibbs Sr. is executive director of multicultural church relations for Willow Creek Association and is the founder and executive director of National Compassion Network. He has developed training curriculums for congregations that want to diversifytheir congregations to become more racially inclusive and to become involved in compassion and justice issues, and he provides training for congregations seeking to become more diverse. Contact 224-512-1103 (office) or 708-373-3925 (cell), abibbs@willowcreek.org.
• Sherman Hicks is executive director of multicultural ministries for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Rosemary Dyson is associate executive director. Contact 800-638-3522 ext. 2841 for Hicks and ext. 2832 for Dyson, or Sherman.hicks@elca.org and rosemary.dyson@elca.org.
• Randy Lee is moderator of the Presbyterian Multicultural Church Network and associate general presbyter for new church development and redevelopment in Grace Presbytery in Texas. Contact 214-630-4502 or 800-678-4502 ext. 5602, Randy@gracepresbytery.org.

• Kathryn Kahn is director of outreach for the Union for Reform Judaism. She can speak about ethnic diversity and changing demographics within American Judaism. Contact 212-650-4230, Kkahn@urj.org.

Background

STUDIES
• Sociologist Michael Emerson and a team of researchers at Rice University conducted a national study on multiracial Protestant and Catholic denominations. They found that more than 9 in 10 U.S. churches remain segregated. They analyzed 20 multiracial congregations in the U.S. and identified seven models for how those ethnically diverse congregations came to be. Among their findings:

• Read a Feb. 28, 2001, story from Christian Century outlining the findings of the Congregations Project at Rice University and other research studies on multiracial congregations. The article is posted by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
• Research at Hartford Seminary found significant racial diversity among American megachurches. Thumma found that 35 percent of megachurches studied claimed to have at least 20 percent of their membership from a nonmajority ethnic group, and more than half were making specific efforts – such as diversifying their staffs or holding worship services in a language other than English – to become more intentionally multiethnic.
• Read a 2006 research report on “Racial Diversity and Buddhism in the United States” from the Pluralism Project at Harvard University.

ARTICLES

• Read a story from The Associated Press, published Feb. 24, 2007, in the Deseret News, about the efforts megachurches are making to become multiracial and multiethnic congregations.
• Read a Feb. 15, 2007, story, posted on the Web site of the Bahá’ís of the United States, about an annual Black Men’s Gathering, advertised as “a comfort zone in which to find spirituality and cultural identity.”
• Read a Sept. 28, 2006, story from The Christian Science Monitor about an increasing number of Latinos in the U.S. who are becoming Muslim.
• Read a Sept. 15, 2006, story from the National Catholic Reporter on efforts in the Diocese of Oakland to address increasing racial diversity.
• Read a May 4, 2003, story from The Washington Post, which discusses how evangelical groups on many college campuses are attracting many Asians, while many white students are turning to Eastern religions.
• Read an April 29, 2002, story from Religion News Service, published in the Baptist Standard, about segregation in America’s churches.

• Read a September 2001 story from The Commission Online about ethnic and racial diversity in Southern Baptist congregations.

Regional sources

IN THE NORTHEAST

• Paul Kim is pastor of Berkland Baptist Church, a predominantly Asian-American congregation for students and young adults in Cambridge, Mass. He also is co-chairman of the Multicultural Church Network of the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board. Contact 617-497-3334, bbc-boston@berkland.org.
• Stephen Um is the senior minister of Citylife Presbyterian Church in Boston. He also is an adjunct faculty member at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and at Emerson College. Citylife, a multicultural congregation affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America, was started in 2002 as part of the network of the Redeemer Church Planting Center in New York and now has more than 500 members, representing more than 25 ethnicities. It’s one of a number of congregations intended to appeal to theologically conservative young professionals in big cities. Read a Jan. 10, 2004, story from The Washington Times and a Feb. 26, 2006, story from The New York Times. Contact 617-424-1055, pastor@citylifeboston.org.
• The Rev. Michael Westerberg is rector of Holy Transformation Orthodox Church in New Haven, Conn. Founded by immigrants from the Belarus area of Russia, the parish has become multiethnic and interracial. Contact 203-387-3882, frwesterberg@sbcglobal.net.
• Peter Skerry is a political science professor at Boston College. During the 2006-07 school year, Skerry is a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, where he is working on a book about how a distinct Muslim identity is emerging in the United States – influenced by the presence of Muslims from Arab, South Asian and African-American backgrounds. Contact 212-752-3279 (Russell Sage Foundation) or 617-552-3112 (Boston College), peter.skerry@bc.edu.

IN THE EAST

• Jacqui Lewis is senior minister at Middle Collegiate Church, a multicultural, Reformed Church in America congregation in New York City. Lewis has written that multiracial and multicultural congregations “help us to rehearse the Reign of God here on earth.” Contact 212-477-0666, jlewis@middlechurch.org.
• Steven Kushner is rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid. This Reform synagogue in Bloomfield, N.J. , has held multiethnic Shabbat services and discussed how factors such as interracial marriages and international adoptions are changing the ethnic makeup of communities and congregations. Read a Jan. 25, 2006, story from The Montclair Times challenging the stereotype that “you can’t be black and Jewish.” Contact 973-338-4486, rabbi@nertamid.org.
• Richard Alba is a professor of race and ethnicity in the sociology department of the State University of New York at Albany. He is co-author of Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration and can speak about the impact of immigration and ethnic identity on religious life. Contact 518-442-4669, r.alba@albany.edu.
• The Rev. Anita Hendrix is pastor of Hunting Ridge Presbyterian Church, a multiethnic congregation in Baltimore affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Her congregation is about 60 percent Anglo, with others of African-American, Caribbean, Asian and African heritage. Contact 410-566-2926, huntingridge@verizon.net.

IN THE SOUTHEAST

• Imam Muhammad Musri leads the Islamic Society of Central Florida, a mosque in Orlando whose members come from more than 30 countries. Located in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood, the mosque is seeing an increasing number of Latino converts and now offers a Spanish-language program for women. Contact 407-273-8363, iscf@aol.com.
• Gerardo Marti is an assistant professor of sociology at Davidson College in Davidson, N.C. He has done research on the religious experience of immigrants and also on the relationship between music in worship and congregational diversity. He wrote Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church, a study of the Mosaic congregation, a multiethnic Southern Baptist megachurch in Los Angeles. Contact 704-894-2481, gemarti@davidson.edu.
• Nibs (Gibson) Stroupe and Caroline Leach are pastors of Oakhurst Presbyterian Church in Decatur, Ga., a congregation that’s committed to diversity and whose membership is about half white and half black. Together they wrote O Lord, Hold Our Hands: How a Church Thrives in a Multicultural World, and Stroupe is a co-author of Where Once We Feared Enemies: Inclusive Membership, Prophetic Vision and the American Church. Contact 404-378-6284, oakpres@earthlink.net.
• Rabbi Mitchell Chefitz is scholar-in-residence at Temple Israel of Greater Miami. Temple Israel – a progressive, inner-city congregation and the oldest Reformed congregation in Miami – states on its Web site: “You want diversity? Some of our services are a tropical tzimmes of languages: English, Spanish, and Hebrew, with a little Yiddish, Ladino and Aramaic thrown in for good measure.” The congregation also is diverse in socioeconomics, in age and in religious background. Contact 305-573-5900, mchefitz@templeisrael.net.
• Jim Thomas is pastor for cross-cultural mission at Chapel Hill Bible Church in Chapel Hill, N.C. People from more than 40 countries worship at this nondenominational congregation, which grew in part through a ministry to international college students and which is intentionally building relationships with African-American and Latino communities in that region of North Carolina. Contact 919-408-0310 ext. 112, Jim.Thomas@earthlink.net.

IN THE SOUTH

• Mark DeYmaz is a founder of Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas in Little Rock. That congregation, founded in 2001, was established with ethnic and economic diversity in mind. It now has about 750 members, roughly half white and half black. DeYmaz also is a co-founder of the Mosaix Global Network, which is working to establish multiethnic churches across the United States. He wrote Building a Healthy Multiethnic Church, which is expected to be published in fall 2007. Contact 501-562-3336, mark@mosaicchuch.net.
• Ed Shepard, an African-American, and Wes Dickson, who’s white, are co-pastors of Celebration Fellowship Church in Ponchatoula, La. Contact 985-386-8024, info@celebrationfellowshipchurch.org.

IN THE MIDWEST

• Michael N. Allen is senior pastor of Uptown Baptist Church, a multicultural Southern Baptist congregation in Chicago. The church has an English-speaking congregation that’s about half Anglo, half people of color. It also has congregations that worship inSpanish, Russian and Vietnamese, along with two West African congregations. Contact 773-784-2922, seniorpastor@uptownbaptistchurch.org.
• Virgilio Elizondo is Notre Dame Professor of Pastoral and Hispanic Theology at the University of Notre Dame. A former rector of San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Elizondo has written about the way that Mexican, Spanish and indigenous religious customs are blended into the Catholic Church in The Future Is Mestizo: Life Where Cultures Meet. Contact 574-631-7654, velizond@nd.edu.
• Richard Brent Turner is coordinator of the African American Studies program at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. He is the author of Islam in the African-American Experience and can speak about the involvement of blacks in American mosques and Islamic life. Contact 319-335-2175, Richard-turner@uiowa.edu.
• Corinne G. Dempsey is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point. She wrote The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York: Breaking Convention and Making Home at a North American Hindu Temple, which explores the vibrant spiritual life of a nontraditional temple in Rush, N.Y. She can speak about issues of ethnicity among Hindus in the U.S. Contact 715-346-2505, cdempsey@uwsp.edu.
• Korie Edwards is an assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State University. She has done research on when and how interracial congregations work and is a co-author of Against All Odds: The Struggle for Racial Integration in Religious Organizations. Contact 614-247-8482, Edwards.623@sociology.osu.edu.
• Peter T. Cha is an associate professor of pastoral theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Ill. Cha wrote a chapter for This Side of Heaven: Race, Ethnicity and Christian Faith and is co-editor of Growing Healthy Asian American Churches; both were published in 2006. He also can speak about the experience of second-generation Asian-Americans in congregations. Contact 847-317-8034, pcha@tiu.edu.

IN THE SOUTHWEST

• Rodney Woo is senior pastor of Wilcrest Baptist Church in Houston. Wilcrest, started in 1972 in a mostly white neighborhood, watched the neighborhood around it change dramatically and then made a decision to try to become a multiracial church. Read a July 8, 2006, profile from The Dallas Morning News of the church’s transformation into a congregation with no racial majority. Wilcrest’s vision statement proclaims the congregation to be “God’s multiethnic bridge that draws all people to Jesus Christ.” Contact 281-498-1370, info@wilcrestbaptist.org.
• Herbert Cooper is senior pastor of People’s Church in Oklahoma City. This Assemblies of God congregation, started in 2002, draws about 1,400 people to worship on a weekend – about half black, about 40 percent white. Cooper is black; his wife, Tiffany, is white. Read his blog and a May 9, 2005, story from the Assemblies of God News Service about multicultural Assemblies of God churches. Contact 405-775-9991, info@peopleschurch.tv.
• Ed Lee, who was formerly a pastor with a Chinese congregation, is lead pastor of Mosaic Community Covenant Church in Missouri City, Texas. The church’s Web site states that “like colorful, broken pieces arranged by an artist to create a beautiful picture, Mosaic is a blend of multiracial and multiethnic people, broken by the adversities of life but brought together by God.” Contact 713-269-4774, info@mosaicpeople.org.
• The Rev. Simon Kalonga is administrator of Curé d’Ars, a Catholic congregation in Denver. This multiethnic parish, in what was once a predominantly white neighborhood, uses music and a worship style with a strong African-American flavor. Contact 303-322-1119, curedarsoffice@yahoo.com.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST

• Angela L. Ying is pastor of Bethany United Church of Christ in Seattle. Bethany was founded in 2000 at the site of a previously dying Anglo congregation in the diverse Beacon Hill neighborhood, as an intentionally multicultural, multiracial and multigenerational church. Read a Jan. 15, 2007, profile of Bethany and other local multicultural churches in The Seattle Times. Contact 206-725-7535, bethanyucc@earthlink.net.
• Charles Lienert is pastor of the Community of St. Andrew. This Catholic congregation in a racially diverse neighborhood in Portland, Ore., offers Mass in English, Spanish and Kanhoval, a Mayan language. Contact 503-281-4429 ext. 11, lienert@archdpdx.org.
• Jonathan Lee, son of a Korean missionary to the United States, is pastor of Holliston United Methodist Church in Pasadena, Calif. Holliston was formed by the merger in 2005 of an established but declining white congregation and a younger, growing Korean congregation. It has services in English and Korean. Contact 626-793-0685, humc@gmail.com.
• Arlene M. Sánchez Walsh is an associate professor of Latino church studies at Haggard Graduate School of Theology at Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, Calif. She is working on a book about multicultural evangelical youth and can speak about the integration of Latinos in American churches, including Catholic and Pentecostal congregations. Contact 626-815-6000 ext. 5620, asanchez-walsh@apu.edu.
• Karen Ward is abbess of the Church of the Apostles, a multicultural Lutheran-Episcopal congregation in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. Apostles describes itself as a multicultural “future church with an ancient faith.” Contact 206-851-8962, Karen@apostleschurch.org.