Le Que, can you tell us a little bit about what you are involved with in the Vineyard?
Within the larger community of Vineyard churches in the United States, I currently serve as the Coordinator for the Vineyard’s Ethnic Diversity Task Force and have been in this role for about a year. I have been on the Task Force since it began as an informal cohort in 2007. In my local setting of Minneapolis, MN, my husband and I co-lead Mercy Vineyard Church which we planted in 2004.
What is the Diversity Task Force working on right now?
Our task force desires to partner with Vineyard churches in the United States to more effectively preach the Good News to their communities. As our neighborhoods and citizens become increasingly multiethnic and multicultural, the projects we as a group work on are trainings and resources that will equip Vineyard pastors and leaders to effectively remove any unintentional barriers that would prevent ethnic minorities from experiencing God in Vineyard churches.
Beyond that, we want to help promote unity and mutual understanding between people of different ethnic groups within churches. Reflecting the multicultural nature of God’s kingdom is more than just sitting next to each other on Sunday morning. It means diving into cultural differences, facing past pain and injustice, and experiencing the aspects of God’s nature that have been deposited in every cultural nook and cranny of humanity.
We have many projects going, but there are three primary ones I will mentions. We are currently providing a weekend seminar to pastors that introduces the principles and practices of what it would mean to move toward a multiethnic church. If any Vineyard pastors are interested in hosting such a seminar at their church for their leaders or general congregation, please don’t hesitate to contact the nearest Task Force member (contact information can be found at www.vineyardusa.org).
We also have a workbook we’ve developed for those folks who are just beginning to think about engaging the idea of diversity in their lives and churches which you can access here <<>> and use. More such workbooks are being developed as well.
And we are working on developing a way to partner with local churches to build an internship that develops leaders who have intercultural competence. This one is very exciting to us, but still very much a work in progress.
Are you encouraged by the trend you are seeing in terms of ethnic diversity in the Vineyard movement?
I am very encouraged by the trend of increasing ethnic diversity I see in the Vineyard movement.
Numerically, we are becoming increasingly diverse in our local churches. The definition of a multiracial church is that at least one-fifth (or 20%) of the congregation is not of the same race. In looking at our 2007 census data, 21.7% of our churches self-reported as being multiracial. In 2008, the number increased to 24.8%. By this definition, if VineyardUSA were a congregation, we’ve been a multiracial organization since at least 2007.
If you include Vineyard churches that are not considered multiracial but are comprised of mostly ethnic minorities (such as a primarily Hispanic or Asian church), we have increased from 22.8% to 26.6% of our churches being of the non-majority race. I think this is tremendously encouraging as this shows our Vineyard family is welcoming people from all different walks of life and backgrounds.
I am also very encouraged by the general tone any time I gather with Vineyard leaders that pastors and leaders care about reaching out and welcoming people. I remember hearing the difficulties that early Vineyard churches pressed through regarding changing the style of worship and dress some thirty years ago so that people outside of reach of the traditional evangelical church would feel like they had a place where they would be welcome to come meet Jesus.
Seeing these statistics and being part of increasingly more conversations about how to welcome all kinds of people reminds me so much of the faith-filled leaders who led worship with instruments and threw off those ties. It says to someone like me that the Vineyard is still welcoming anyone and everyone who wants to know Jesus. For someone like me, a generation later and one who was raised very far outside of the traditional evangelical church, I still feel like I am welcomed and can meet Jesus when I am in the Vineyard.
Do you have any book recommendations for those who may want to read more about how Christians should think about diversity?
The book that sparked my keen interest in the social significance of diversity within our churches is a book called Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith. These two sociologists look at the social forces within the church that make it an unusually segregated institution in America.
Those folks who are looking for a theologically-oriented take and don’t mind a dense read will enjoy Exclusion and Embrace by Mirslov Volf and walks through key passages on how followers of Christ can “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you” (Romans 15:7).
For the practically minded, there is a collection that Vineyard Resources offers a “Diversity Pack” of books that we recommend that include the following titles:
United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation As An Answer to the Problem of Raceby Curtiss DeYoung, Michael Emerson, George Yancey, and Karen Chai Kim. This book is a follow up to Divided By Faith which provides thoughts on how to address and work toward solving some of the issues pinpointed in the first book.
A Beginner’s Guide to Crossing Cultures: Making Friends in a Multicultural Worldby Patty Lane. This is a helpful primer on how to understand the different ways people from different cultures see the world and helps define why people from different cultures cross wires. This is good for those folks who have cross cultural friendships and want to have more understanding of the differences going on in such friendships.
The Heart of Racial Justiceby Brenda Salter-McNeil and Rick Richardson. These two authors look at the core of how racial justice and reconciliation happen through healing and the supernatural work of God in individual hearts and lives.
One Body, One Spirit: Principles of Successful Multiracial Churchesby George Yancey. Yancey discusses principles he found were common among the most effective multiracial congregations in the United States and shares about how such principles can be implemented in local churches wanting to reach out to their diversifying communities.