Charles Van Engen contributed the following work for discussion.

The Complementarity of Universality and Particularity in God’s Mission:
 Reflections on Planting Multi-ethnic  Congregations in  North  America

By: Charles Van Engen

Excerpts of the paper prepared for the

The Ward Consultation

“The Development and Nurture of Multiethnic Congregations”

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Chicago, IL -- November 3-4, 1997

  This paper is meant to stimulate discussion and reflection during the “Ted W. Ward Consultation on the Development and Nurture of Multiethnic Congregations.” It is my understanding that participants will also be reading Manuel Ortiz, One New People: Models for Developing a Multiethnic Church (Downers Grove: IVP, 1996). Because of this, I have chosen to write this paper not as a finished product that seeks to convince, but rather as a series of reflections that may raise issues and questions to be addressed during the consultation.

The thesis of this paper is the following:

  Because God’s mission seeks careful and balanced complementarity between universality and particularity, churches in North America should strive to be as  multi-ethnic as their surrounding contexts.

  God recognizes and values cultural and ethnic diversity.  Yet within the particularity of ethnicity God loves all peoples and invites all to faith in Jesus Christ, each in their own special cultural and ethnic make-up.

The Biblical Motivation of Mission

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  (Jn. 3:16)

These words of Jesus to Nicodemus focus the biblical narrative of God’s universality of love for all peoples--and God’s particularity of loving and caring for specific, different, unique peoples. When we trace this theme through the Scriptures, we see how important these twin truths are for understanding God’s mission. An understanding of the twin truths of universality and particularity in God’s mission will influence our missiological orientation to the issues facing us today in the North American context. Too strong an emphasis on universality will drive us toward uniformity and blind us to cultural distinctives. Too strong an emphasis on particularity will push us toward either exclusivist homogeneity or fragmented ethnocentrism, creating serious questions about our oneness in Jesus Christ. A brief summary of the Bible’s portrayal of both the universality and the particularity of God’s mission is in order.

Genesis

            Three times in the first eleven chapters of Genesis we are told that God is the creator and judge of all peoples. All people are created in Adam and Eve; all people descend from Noah; all people have their languages confused and are then spread out over the entire earth after the Babel episode. In each case, there is a recognition of the particularity and difference of various peoples -- as is signaled by the inclusion of the Table of Nations in Genesis 10 -- yet in each case these many different peoples are collectively and unitedly said to be the objects of God’s concern.

Abraham

            When God calls Abram, his call involves being a blessing to a plurality of nations -- but this happens through the particularity of one clan whose origins are traced back to Nahor and Terah from the Ur of the Chaldeans. They are particular instruments of God’s mission, chosen with the intention of being a blessing to many particular peoples within the universality of God’s love for all peoples.

Deuteronomy and II Chronicles

            The complementarity of particularity and universality is repeated in Deuteronomy. I Peter 2 draws from Deuteronomy 10:14-22. The creator Lord God (to whom “belong the heavens, the earth and everything in it”) chose Israel out of all the nations, and now calls Israel to exhibit compassion and care for the fatherless, the widow, and the aliens who represent the plurality of particular nations. Thus many years later, at Solomon’s dedication of the Temple, the symbol of the most centralized form of Israel’s faith, Solomon prays, that when “the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your great name..comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven...and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you” (2 Chron. 6:32-33). God loves and recognizes all nations, families and languages (universality), yet God chooses Israel to be God’s special instrument for inviting all peoples to participate in God’s covenantal relationship and thus be blessed through the People of God (particularity).

Jesus and Isaiah

            Thus it is no accident that Jesus, the Messiah of Israel, would use Isaiah’s language in speaking of Herod’s Temple as “a house of prayer for all the nations” (Isa. 56:7; Mk. 11:17). The complementarity of universality and particularity is very strong in Jesus’ ministry. At one point Jesus sends his disciples “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6). Yet this is the same Jesus and the same gospel of Matthew that will strongly emphasize that the disciples are to meet Jesus in the cosmopolitan, multi-cultural setting of Galilee. There he will say, “all authority is given to me in heaven and on earth, go therefore and disciple panta ta ethne -- the nations (Matt. 28:18-19). [1] The gospels strongly support the vision articulated by Simeon at the time of Jesus’ dedication in the temple: Jesus is the Lord of lords and the Messiah of Israel and he is “(God’s) salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Lk. 2:32). Later, when Jesus describes his own mission, drawing from Isaiah 35, 49, and 61, he will proclaim his mission in Nazareth (particularity), but speak of it as a mission of preaching good news to the poor, freedom to the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (universality). Jesus mission is articulated in global, universal terms that have specific, local contextual significance in Galilee (Lk 4:18-19; 7:22-23).

Paul

            Paul emphasized the complementarity of universality and particularity in God’s mission. In universal passages like Galatians 3: 28 (“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.”) and Colossians 3:11 (“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free..”) the cultural distinctives are not erased. The particularity of ethnicity, sexuality, and socio-economics is not ignored. Rather, in the midst of such specific forms of homogeneity, there is a universality of union (not uniformity of culture) -- a universality of oneness in Jesus Christ: “you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 3:28); “but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11).

Thus in Ephesians, Paul’s ecclesiology recognizes the distinctive differences of being Gentile or Jewish (“This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise of Christ Jesus” (Eph. 3:6). Yet Paul also affirms that they are brought together into one new family in Jesus Christ (Eph. 3:15). This does not mean that Jews must live like Gentiles, neither must Gentiles live like Jews. Paul follows the dictum of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 in affirming the cultural differences, yet creating a new oneness in Jesus Christ. In Acts 21, Paul participates in a Jewish rite of purification in the temple in Jerusalem, knowing he will be arrested, but making a public statement that Jews who are now believers in the Messiah may still follow Jewish custom. Thus, even though “there is no difference between Jew and Gentile -- the same Lord is Lord of all,” (Rom. 10:12), yet the proclamation of the gospel, according to Paul, is “first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Rom. 1:16). [2] This complementarity of the universal and the particular is also a built-in feature of Paul’s organic image of the Church as the Body of Christ.

John in Revelation

            In Revelation, John echoes the same kind of complementarity of particularity and universality. Throughout the Revelation, John keeps emphasizing the fact that Christ is bringing together people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9; 7:9). In Revelation 21, in the vision of the New Jerusalem, a picture of the Church, there is a plurality of “nations” that will “walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.” (Rev. 21:24-25). Thus there is a recognition and celebration of the differences and distinctives of a plurality of different peoples and cultures -- yet a oneness in their coming into the same New Jerusalem, to be in the presence of the one Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. [3]

            Universal Particularity -- Particular Universality

As I read Scripture, I see God affirming cultural distinctives. I see Babel as judgment, yes, but also as grace. The beauty of resplendent creativity shines forth in the wonderful multiplication of families, tribes, tongues and peoples of humanity. Rather than destroy humanity (which in the Noahic covenant God had promised not to do), God chooses to confuse the languages. This confusion, although an act of judgment, mercifully preserves all humanity in its cultural and ethnic distinctives, differences so significant that we are given a Table of Nations to enumerate the civilizations known to the compilers of the Pentateuch. These differences are so significant that when the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost one of the first extraordinary acts of the Holy Spirit is to enable people of many different languages, coming from different peoples and nations, to hear the proclamation of the Gospel in their own language. Yet these distinctive features of multiple cultures are not allowed to divide humanity’s relation to God, nor to support the concept of a national or ethnic plurality of gods. There is one God, creator and sustainer of all peoples.

Particular universality, universal particularity. How can we give concrete, lived out shape to this biblical view of reality as God sees it? This theology of God’s mission and God’s view of humanity should be normative for us as we consider the missiological implications of planting multi-ethnic churches in North America. In fact, I believe it constitutes the bottom-line biblical motivation for such activity. Sociological realities, human justice, economic equity, survival of a unified and functioning society--or greater numerical growth, or being a truer sign of the coming Kingdom of God, or survival of older churches in transitional neighborhoods – we could create a long list of valid motivations for planting multi-ethnic congregations in North America. However, I would suggest that the most basic and pervasive of all mission motivations derives from the universal scope of God’s mission as depicted in Scripture and spoken by a particular Messiah (Jesus) to a particular Jewish teacher of the law (Nicodemus): “For God so loved the world (of many peoples, tribes, tongues and nations) that he gave his Son.” (Jn. 3:16).

            An understanding of the complementarity of universality and particularity of God’s mission as described in Scripture is of utmost importance. I believe it points to what God intended the Church to be. This biblical orientation will influence the rest of our reflection about planting multi-ethnic congregations in North America. The way in which we associate these twin truths will affect our orientation to the issues facing the church in North America today. Too strong an emphasis on universality will drive us toward uniformity and blind us to cultural distinctives. Too strong an emphasis on particularity will push us toward either exclusivist homogeneity or fragmented ethnocentrism, and create serious questions about our oneness in Jesus Christ.

            The complementarity of particularity and universality may help us understand more fully our mission in North America. It could help us see that neither cultural superiority or uniformity, nor multicultural fragmentation or balkanization are acceptable forms of Christian mission. We need to bear both the universality and the particularity of God’s mission on our mission in the North American context.

 

The North American Reality

We are talking about planting multi-ethnic congregations in North America--with particular focus in the United States. Already in 1981, Time magazine said it this way. “Invited or uninvited, rich and poor--but mostly poor--foreigners are pouring into the U.S. in greater numbers than at any time since the last great surge of European immigration in the early 1900s. Indeed the US today accepts twice as many foreigners as the rest of the world’s nations combined....Although their turn-of-the-century predecessors were mainly Europeans, today’s new arrivals are mostly from Latin America and, to a lesser extent, Asia and the Caribbean.  They are transforming the U.S. landscape into something that it has not been for decades: a mosaic of exotic languages, faces, customs, restaurants and religions.” [4]

            In 1986, Peter Wagner wrote, “Whether in Oregon, California, or Maine, this is the real America. Today’s America is a multi-ethnic society on a scale that boggles the imagination. The teeming multitudes of all colors, languages, smells and cultures are not just a quaint sideline in our nation; they are America. And it is this America that God has called us to evangelize. [5] Two years later Orlando Costas commented, “Besides the traditional European groups, which have “melted” into the main “pot” of North American society, there are said to be over 120 ethnic groups communicating in more than 100 languages and dialects.” [6]   In 1993, Oscar Romo remarked, “It is said that America is a melting pot where the English language is the “language” and the “Anglo” (European) culture is superior.  In reality, there are 500 ethnic groups who daily speak 636 languages of which 26 are considered major languages.” [7]

            Statistics abound, and to give more would be to belabor the obvious. The North American context is increasingly multi-cultural and multi-ethnic. In the midst of diversity, many are striving for equity and justice and a degree of cohesion, while at the same time seeking to affirm, preserve and celebrate cultural distinctives. We have known about our cultural diversity, and we have heard it presented often and forcefully. Yet the Church in North America seems reluctant to face what perhaps may prove to be the greatest challenge in its history. So, how do we read our new reality in North America? What hermeneutic of the context do we adopt? I would suggest we are faced with two different perspectives: universality and particularity.

 

Universality: An Immigrant History

            A quick review of American history would point to the fact that the church in the U.S. has been an immigrant church from its inception. [8] The fact is that the history of Christianity in America is a history of ethnically-defined and culturally-shaped religion. Immigration is at least one of the most significant determinants of the nature of American religion, as historians such as Withrop Hudson, [9] Jerald Brauer, [10] and William Sweet [11] have forcefully demonstrated. This special nature of American Christianity is such a strong feature that Martin Marty calls American Christians, “Pilgrims in Their Own Land.” [12]

            There is, however, a very important difference between the Nineteenth Century immigrant churches and the immigrant/ethnic churches of the 1980s and 1990s. With a few notable exceptions, the culturally-shaped churches of the Nineteenth Century all shared a common foundational world-view in their Western European roots in modernity. By contrast, the new immigrant churches of the last four decades in North America represent Christians from every part of the world, a global humanity located primarily in the cities of North America, speaking a host of languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Gujarati, Tagalog, Indonesian, Korean, Mandarin, Japanese, and so forth. We are all immigrants. We all need to accept as part of our self-understanding the fact that we are “aliens and strangers in the world.” (I Pet. 2:11; Hebrews 11:13; Gen. 23:4; Exod. 22:21-22; Lev. 24:22; 25:23; Ps. 39:12; 105:12; 119:19; 146:9). This perception can transform our understanding of the Church’s mission in North America today.

            Why emphasize this history? Because the fact of religion in America is that we are all immigrants. To a lesser or greater degree, all Christianity in America has been ethnic Christianity. In North America churches have always been immigrant, ethnic churches, culturally influenced and culturally circumscribed. By way of example, I grew up in one of the oldest towns in the Americas: San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico. My missionary parents went to Mexico in 1943 and lived there until 1978. They were essentially Dutch-American immigrants to Mexico. Born and raised in Mexico, I was therefore the second-generation of an immigrant family. Now that I live in the U.S., I consider myself a Mexican-American immigrant of Dutch descent. When I think of immigrants, ethnic minorities, and multiple cultures in North America, I tend not to identify with the dominant descendants of Europeans, but with immigrants from Latin America -- past and present.

 

Particularity: Recognizing Ethnicity

            How, then, do we read our context? What hermeneutical spectacles influence what we see? Let’s begin by considering how we define ethnicity. Shibutani and Kwan provide the most concise definition of ethnicity that I have found: “An ethnic group consists of those who conceive of themselves as being alike by virtue of their common ancestry, real or fictitious, and who are so regarded by others.” [13]

 

            How we see the interrelation of the multitude of ethnic groups that comprise North American society is a matter that must be carefully examined.  Wagner and others have suggested that we need to re-consider, if not discard, the “melting pot” idea prevalent at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. [14] The melting-pot ideal, was never a practical one in the history of this nation. All the races and cultures and values and ideas did not melt into a smooth, even, well balanced mixture. The “melting-pot” theory of assimilation appears to have been rejected by members of the dominant culture as well as by members of the culturally different populations. [15]

            In fact, in many parts of North America, we may need to re-examine what we mean by “minority” and “ethnic,” since the minority ethnicity may be White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. “The real America,” Peter Wagner says, “is not a melting pot; it never was. The real America is a stewpot....In the stewpot each ingredient is changed and flavored by the other ingredients.” [16]   So, what do we see? It seems to me that our missiological perspective of the present and future context in North America in relation to cultures and ethnicities will greatly influence our assessment of, and approach to, the matter of “planting multi-ethnic congregations in North America.” Particular universality, universal particularity. How can we understand this seemingly contradictory perspective of God’s view of humanity that Scripture seems to offer?

 

An Over-emphasis on Particularity: The Homogeneous Unit Principle

            No examination of multi-ethnic church planting in North America would be complete without a review of the Homogeneous Unit Principle (HUP). The HUP provided the theoretical basis on which church planting in North America emphasized planting ethnically homogeneous churches rather than multi-ethnic ones during the past thirty years. Donald McGavran, Win Arn and Peter Wagner were among the architects of the American Church Growth movement that began in the early 1970’s. Through Doctor of Ministry courses, seminars given by the Charles Fuller Institute and through their prolific writing and speaking, they influenced the church-planting methodology of almost every major denomination in North America. And the HUP was part of the equation.

But the HUP may represent an over-emphasis on particularity, with an accompanying loss of legitimate openness to universality. Today we need to re-examine the perspectives and emphases of the HUP missiology for the North American context. Given the changes reflected in North American, the original intent of indigenization and contextualization that lay behind the HUP may suggest today that planting multi-ethnic churches is as contextually appropriate as planting homogeneous ones.

            Donald McGavran’s original conceptualization included the beginning formulation of three interrelated observations: (1) that there are distinct culturally-defined subgroups in any given population in a specific context; [17] (2) that at a specific time certain sub-groups appear to respond more readily to evangelistic efforts than others; and (3) that this is an important factor in being able to explain why some churches grow numerically more quickly than other churches.  Notice that in this early formulation McGavran’s desire was to find methods of evangelization that were culturally-appropriate to the particular context of a specific people group.

McGavran further refined this line of reasoning, publishing, in 1970, the foundational work for all Church Growth thinking, Understanding Church Growth. [18]   “The homogeneous unit,” McGavran wrote, “is simply a section of society in which all the members have some characteristic in common.  Thus a homogeneous unit (or HU, as it is called in church growth jargon) might be a political unit or subunit, the characteristic in common being that all the members live within certain geographical confines....The homogeneous unit may be a segment of society whose common characteristic is a culture or language, as in the case of Puerto Ricans in New York City or Chinese in Thailand....The homogeneous unit might be a tribe or caste....As these illustrations indicate, the homogeneous unit is an elastic concept, its meaning depending on the context in which it is used....A Homogeneous Unit Church may be defined as ‘that cluster of congregations of one denomination which is growing in a given homogeneous unit....” [19]

The development of this line of reasoning led McGavran to articulate the observation that became foundational to all subsequent thought on the issue in the Church Growth Movement:

 “MEN (AND WOMEN) LIKE TO BECOME CHRISTIANS WITHOUT CROSSING RACIAL, LINGUISTIC OR CLASS BARRIERS.” [20]

            McGavran said, “This missiological principle, sometimes called the homogeneous unit theory, has been vigorously attacked from both the left and the right....Churches must fit the segments of population in which they are multiplying. Each must read the Bible in and worship in the language spoken by its segment....Since urban (hu)mankind is a vast mosaic of innumerable pieces, my thesis is that the Church in the cities of the world must have multitudinous new urban faces. A significant part of the plateaued or declining membership of many congregations and denominations is that their image of the church is limited to what it should be like in their segments of the urban population.” [21] And, “In almost every land some pieces of the mosaic are receptive to the Gospel.” [22]  

From 1955 to 1970, McGavran’s thought changed little on this subject, although he did soften and qualify the way he spoke about homogeneous units. In 1972, Alan Tippett, McGavran’s colleague and associate, articulated the concept by affirming, “When we speak of ‘responsive populations’ we are thinking of large homogeneous units of people who, once they have made their decision, act in unison. Many peoples have become Christian in this manner....Today the people-movement idea is more widely accepted by evangelical missionaries and strategists because it is better understood....Church-growth writings,...have been working on people movements for years and have resolved the basic problem by means of the term multi-individual to describe the phenomenon....Side by side with (the use of group structures in...the process of church-planting), some new dimensions, and warnings, have been developed about the indigenous church concept....The concept relates to the permanence of culture change when the social group accepts it, and speaks especially to directed change and therefore is significant both in anthropology and mission.” [23]

                The most intentional and thorough-going application of the concept of homogeneous groups occurred in American Church. By 1976, McGavran’s concept of homogeneous groups in a social mosaic was presented by Peter Wagner not only as a hermeneutic of the cultural context, but as a desirable characteristic of a local congregation. It is important to notice that by this stage in the development of North American Church Growth, Wagner was speaking of “the homogeneous unit PRINCIPLE,” something that McGavran consistently avoided doing. McGavran remained strictly descriptive in his observations about homogeneity--and he predominantly used the concept of homogeneity as a tool of social analysis of the reality outside the church. At this point Wagner transformed the concept into an ecclesiological characteristic, adding an imperative twist to it, making it a “principle” feature of vital, healthy, and growing congregations.

            The classic statement of the HUP remains McGavran’s: “Men (and women) like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers.” Notice that McGavran is focusing here on non-Christians rather than Christians. His purpose in advocating the HUP was consistently motivated by a desire to bring non-Christians into the Christian Church. An underlying assumption of the principle has always been that once people become Christians and are growing in their application of biblical ethical principles to their daily lives, they will lose their inclinations toward racism and prejudice. Other things being equal, a higher rate of conversion growth was expected of homogeneous unit churches.

In 1981, Wagner wrote Church Growth and the Whole Gospel, responding to some of the criticism that Our Kind of People had generated. “The ‘homogeneous unit principle’ is by far the most controversial of all church growth principles. Because it relates directly to socio-cultural issues, it cannot be omitted from this book....The homogeneous unit principle should be seen at the very beginning for what it really is: a tool which many have found helpful in implementing the evangelistic mandate.  But it is nothing more or less than a tool....The essential purpose of the Church Growth Movement is not to fulfill the homogeneous unit principle, but to fulfill the evangelistic mandate..” [24]

            In time, Wagner began to qualify his view of the HUP. “Every church growth principle has exceptions.  Some church leaders are so accustomed to thinking in categories of true-false or right-wrong that they mistakenly place church growth principles in those frameworks. This is one reason why the HUP has offended many people. They have understood American Church Growth leaders to say that homogeneous churches are the right and true way for churches to grow, when they haven’t intended to be saying this at all. They meant to describe the observable fact that, worldwide, most unchurched men and women are first attracted to Christ by hearing the gospel from those who talk like them, think like them, and act like them. Apparently God has been using such culturally-relevant channels of communication for the spread of the gospel for centuries, just as a matter of history. McGavran called those channels “bridges of God.” But he never suggested that a church be kept homogeneous as a matter of doctrine or ethics. His ideal was a church where lines of class, race, and language are completely broken down.” [25]

            But exactly what do we mean by “homogeneity” in North America today? Even following McGavran’s concept of socio-cultural mosaics, how do we read our present reality? Clearly what I would call the “macro-cultural” categories of the U.S. Census Bureau (African-American, Asian, White, Hispanic, Native American, etc.) simply do not work. Hispanics are sometimes lumped among “whites.” “Asian” is a catch-all term that is essentially meaningless, given the wide differences between Asian groups. When one gets into generational issues of immigrant families, the second- and third-generations are so culturally dissimilar from their immigrant parents that to lump them into the same “ethnic” categories is to ignore some of the most important features of cultural differences that anthropologists and sociologists would want us to hold dear. Further, when one begins to take into account major generational shifts even in “Anglo” culture (boomers, busters, twenty-some things, retirees, etc.) the compartmentalization of society stretches the limits so far as to produce a profound balkanization, fragmentation, and atomization of American society. Eventually, “ethnicity” is reduced to the peculiarities of each individual person. That would mean taking the HUP to its absurd extreme of encouraging the creation of a church for every person.

            Whether intended or not on the part of Donald McGavran, Peter Wagner, Win Arn and others in the American Church Growth Movement, the emphasis on homogeneous units tends to stress cultural differences to such a degree that oneness, togetherness, unity in Christ, church cohesion, the universality of the Gospel are in danger of being lost. This issue is not the same as the ethical, racial, and social criticisms that many mainline church strategists leveled against the HUP. Rather, I mean to stress the fact that too strong an emphasis on the HUP makes its strengths -- like cultural sensitivity, contextualization, receptor-oriented communication, careful targeting and wise presentation of the Gospel in appropriate ways for specific audiences -- become weaknesses. They too quickly can atomize social cohesion and relegate persons to ever smaller units of homogeneity– completely ignoring the ways in which all persons share common human traits within social structures that call for common sharing of resources and experiences. In our present context in North America, especially in our cities, persons from very different “homogeneous” groups may in fact represent people who go to the same schools, use the same banks, shop in the same stores, go to the same health facilities, use the same freeways, enjoy the same entertainments, rent the same videos, and maybe even live in the same neighborhoods. To divide these persons up into little “homogeneous units” is in fact to super-impose a social viewpoint that may be quite foreign to the new reality of North America today.

 

An Over-Emphasis on Universality: Ethnocentric Blindness

            The other side of the coin of an over-emphasis of particular homogeneity is an over-emphasis on universality that tends to make us insensitive and sometimes even blind to cultural diversity and cultural uniqueness. Multi-culturalness must not be confused with only race or only ethnicity. But neither should it be allowed to fragment into atomistic multi-culturalism that points only to differences between groups and offers no social and spiritual cohesion. By the same token, it is no longer realistic or appropriate for social analysts, missiologists of western culture and church planting strategists in North America to pretend that cultural differences are not significant.

Church Planting Strategists in North American

            First, it is fascinating to see that apart from the HUP emphasis some of the most prominent strategists of church planting in North America have essentially ignored issues of multi-ethnicity. I surveyed George Barna, [26] Robert Logan, [27] and Carl George. [28]   In their writings, there is little or no reference to the multi-cultural context in which we find ourselves, to multi-ethnic or homogeneous churches, or to the impact of multiple cultures on the shape of the church. It is not that Barna says this is unimportant--he simply does not mention it. This omission makes us ask, Which of the multiple cultures of North America is Barna studying? Similarly, when Carl George writes about the meta-church movement, what cultural enclave is envisioned as the place for the development of the meta-church model? I would like to suggest that it was primarily constructed for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Suburban (WASPS) upper-middle and upper-class congregations. A few years ago, I reviewed a book by one of the best-known and highly-respected analysts of church growth, and one who has critiqued Church Growth theory, C. Kirk Hadaway. [29] Even in this work there is no mention of a plurality of cultures, ethnicity, ethnic churches, our multi-cultural reality, or language issues in church planting.  Is this work also ghettoized within a (WASPS) world?

            I then turned to two works written by two of my good friends and published in 1996. George Hunter III wrote an excellent book, Church for the Unchurched. Eagerly I turned to Chapter Three: “A Case for the Culturally Relevant Congregation” This is an excellent chapter helping people inside the church learn to lower the “culture barrier” between churched culture and non-churched culture, especially with reference to issues of contemporary worship forms, styles of music, and processes of the organization of the congregation. However, there is no treatment of multi-ethnic churches, of ethnicity, or of crossing cultural barriers. There is no entry in the book’s Index for “immigrants” or “immigration.” Language issues are not touched. In what cultural corner is this work located?

From Hunter I turned to Thom Rainer who is considered a significant leader in church growth matters among the Southern Baptists.  His 1996 book deals with Effective Evangelistic Churches: Successful Churches Reveal What Works and What Doesn’t. The book is the product of a survey of 576 mostly Southern Baptist churches with effective evangelistic programs in North America. I found two references to “ethnic ministries.” One, on page 141, was to note that 130 of the 576 churches have begun ministries to ethnic groups, mostly making their facilities available to a particular ethnic group (I assume this means mostly white congregations lending their facilities to a non-Anglo group.) The second reference on page 147 reported that, “most of the churches that did not view ethnic ministries as a factor in their evangelistic effectiveness were those that did not have such ministries.” Given the pausity of treatment concerning mult-ethnic churches, one might think that this work also is to be located primarily among WASPS congregations.

Researchers of the Church in North America

            Lest the reader think I am being unreasonably critical of North American Church Growth Strategists, let me offer an overview of some significant works in the field of the study of religion and evangelization in North America. This survey is not intended to be exhaustive or even representative–it is only an illustrative sampling to demonstrate how easily a too-heavy stress on universality can cause us to suffer extreme ethnocentric blindness.

            In 1993, James Bell published Bridge Over Troubled Water: Ministry to Baby Boomers, a Generation Adrift. (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1993). Full of good suggestions, the book contains a chapter on “The Baby Boomer Cultural Ethos.” Significantly, this chapter has a section entitled “Cultural Relativism.” I expected that Bell would deal here with issues of multi-ethnicity. Instead, he transforms conversation about “relativism” and “pluralism” into a theological discussion regarding a plurality of faiths and the uniqueness of Christ. Important as this is, it is strange that Bell then makes only two passing references to multi-cultural matters and none to the matter of ethnic church planting. There seems to be little recognition that studies of Baby-boomers deal primarily with a specific, narrow segment of predominantly Anglo, affluent, educated, suburban America.

In Donald Posterski’s book (Reinventing Evangelism: New Strategies for Presenting Christ in Today’s World   [30] the references to “pluralism” also deal with issues of inter-religious proclamation of the Christian gospel among people of other faiths, ignoring the matter of multiple ethnicities and cultures in both church and society.

            Continuing my search, I reviewed the following works for references to, acknowledgment of, or suggestions for, multi-ethnic churches in North America. All the following works have been published within the last decade. What does it say to the church in North America that significant sample works like these are apparently blind to matters of multi-ethnicity in North America?

            Harold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation.

            Charles Colson, Against the Night: Living in the Dark Ages.

            William Pannell, Evangelism for the Bottom Up: What is the Meaning of Salvation in a                            World Gone Urban?

            Wade Clark Roof, A Generation of Seekers: The Spiritual Journey of the Baby Boom                              Generation.

            David A. Roozen and C. Kirk Hadaway, edit. Church And Denominational Growth:

 What Does (and Does Not) Cause Growth or Decline.

            Doug Murren, The Baby Boomerang: Catching Baby Boomers As They Return to                         Church.

            Dean R. Hoge, Benton Johnson and Donald A. Luidens, Vanishing Boundaries: The                              Religion of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers.

            Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion.

            The one notable exception in this group of researchers was Lyle Schaller. In reviewing three of Lyle Schaller’s recent works I found that Schaller does recognize the issue, though his treatment is disturbingly brief. In 21 Bridges to the 21^st Century and in Innovations in Ministry: Models for the 21^st Century, he gave some, though minimal, attention to ethnic churches, ethnic church planting, and the development of multi-ethnic churches. In Center City Churches: The New Urban Frontier, Schaller included a chapter entitled “A Multi-Cultural Church in a Multi-Cultural Community.” that describes in detail the history, development and present ministries of the First Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, Queens, New York City. [31] I hope the reader will find the suggestions offered at the end of this chapter as helpful as I did.

            The leaders of the church write, “Out of our experience in multi-cultural congregations we have learned these lessons.

Multi-cultural congregations grow best by word of mouth as enthusiastic members share their story and their pilgrimage in God’s community.

Multi-cultural congregations grow when leadership is shared and is representative.

Multi-cultural congregations grow when the community of faith is nurtured through worship, education, and fellowship in content and relationships.

Multi-cultural congregations grow as they serve.

Multi-cultural congregations grow when they extend a warm and genuine welcome to visitors from another culture.

“We have also learned that a single-culture congregation moves to a multi-cultural identity through a combination of hope, vision, planning, prayer--and surprises.

Among the central principles we have identified and can affirm are these:

The inclusive congregation has:

Its identity grounded in biblical doctrine, especially that of reconciliation;

A healthy pride in diversity is nurtured;

Leadership that is carefully planned, both clergy and lay;

Sociological factors that are honestly studied and realistically understood,

            and these include:

a) availability of diverse people

b) peer identity for all

c) attractive, adequate facilities

d) accessible location in a nonthreatening setting

e) parking and security

f) membership of sufficient size to support quality worship, Christian education, pastoral care, service/advocacy

g) Structuring and planning in terms of growth patterns, visible leadership, and a variety of styles of worship are essential.

 

The Gospel and Our Culture Network in North America

A third group studying the matter of the church in North America are persons who around 1990 formed a network of conversation and reflection called the “Gospel and Our Culture Network” (GOCN), with George Hunsberger as the coordinator. Some of the most significant fruit of the group’s reflection was published in 1996. [32] One looks in vain in the volume for any recognition of multi-ethnicity, of the fact of immigration, and of a consciousness of multiple cultures living side-by-side in North America. There is little examination of what is meant by “culture.” itself with reference to multi-ethnicity in the North American. I would suggest that what is really being referred to is Western, WASPS culture that seems to eclipse all consideration of alternative world views present in today’s North American reality. If the GOCN network were to address the matter of “the Gospel and our cultures” (plural), I believe their work would have been quite different.

            Now, let me add some additional titles of works by Evangelical authors whose thinking I deeply respect and whose theological work in many instances provides foundations for my own. Each of these books has much excellent and very important material. However, the issue of planting multi-ethnic churches in North America has given me another set of glasses, a different hermeneutical question with which to read these and similar works. Disturbing is the extent to which these works demonstrate the same phenomenon of cultural blindness that could be seen in the publications mentioned above. If we are dealing with such ethnocentric cultural blindness in the Evangelical movement in North America as an examination of these works seems to show, what does this mean for Evangelicals attempting to plant multi-ethnic churches in North America? I examined the following and did not find in them any significant recognition or treatment of the multi-ethnic reality we now face in North America.

            John H. Armstrong, general editor, The Coming Evangelical Crisis.

            James Montgomery Boice and Benjamin E. Sasse, edit. Here We Stand: A Call from

            Confessing Evangelicals.

Harold Bloom, The American Religiona: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation.

            Os Guinness, Dining With the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity.

            John F. MacArthur Jr., Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church Becomes like the

 World.

            Dennis McCallum, The Death of Truth:; What’s Wrong With Multiculturalism, The

            Rejection of Reason, and the New Postmodern Diversity.

Alister McGrath, Evangelicalism & the Future of Christianity.

Douglas D. Webster, Selling Jesus: What’s Wrong with Marketing the Church.

This section has sought to demonstrate the effect of an over-emphasis on universality that seems blind us to cultural distinctives and then tends to superimpose one cultural perspective on the multi-ethnic reality of North America. I believe it is important to hold together both universal particularity and particular universality.

 

One Church Made Up of Many Cultures

            The essential nature of the church is that it is a reconciling community, one family made up of persons from all the families, tribes, languages and peoples of the earth. In its life, the Church is to demonstrate simultaneously oneness in Christ and cultural diversity. [33] Our starting point must be the nature of the Church as that is embodied in the local congregation. The nature of the Church resembles the nature of the Head of the Church in having two complementary yet united aspects: human and divine. [34] The Church Universal can only be experienced, only takes concrete shape, in the local congregation. The church, as we know it embodied in the local congregation is both theological and sociological; both a spiritual unity in faith in Jesus Christ its Head and a socio-cultural unity of human relationships that come together in corporate vision, sense of purpose, shared interests and similar needs.

            Paul made it a habit of writing to “the Church” (singular and universal Church) “in” Ephesus, or Galatia, or Corinth, or Rome (plural and contextually particular contexts). In other words, if we are to have authentic congregations that in fact embody the most essential nature of the Church, they should demonstrate this dialectical reality as well--they must be simultaneously universal and particular. It is imperative that we understand this dual nature of the Church when we consider the matter of planting multi-ethnic churches in North America.

 

A Suggested Guideline for Church Planting in North America

            If we take seriously the dual nature of the Church mentioned above, I would suggest we consider a new “guideline” of church planting in North America. I call this a guideline because I do not intend to raise this to the level of “principle,” and repeat the highly questionable and problematic step taken by the American Church Growth Movement in relation to homogeneity. The guideline is this:

Church-planting in North America should strive to be as multi-ethnic as the surrounding context.

             If we utilize a systems-approach to understand the nature of the congregation’s relationship to its surrounding culture, we will soon begin to see that the same people who go to school together, who keep their money in the same banks, shop at the same malls, use the same hospitals, buy groceries in the same supermarkets, and drive the same freeways are the same folks who may attend a particular local congregation, say, in Cerritos, California. If the reality in which they live is multi-cultural, is there any reason for them to be (in a sense) “segregated” when it comes to their church attendance?

             I am suggesting that we allow a contextual reading to give us the direction as to the appropriate balance between homogeneity and multi-ethnicity. Harvie Conn edited Planting and Growing Urban Churches: From Dream to Reality, a symposium volume containing a chapter by David Britt entitled, “From Homogeneity to Congruence.” I believe what Britt is calling “congruence” is very close to this contextual approach I am suggesting in advocating the planting of multi-ethnic churches. Britt suggests that we substitute a linear analysis of a multiplicity of institutional and contextual factors that impact church growth with the concept of “congruity” which compares the make-up and nature of the congregation with the make-up and nature of the context. It may be that the concept of “congruence” will offer us a helpful way to allow the multi-ethnicity of the context to influence the multi-ethnicity of the congregations we plant in that context.

            The reader should note here that this approach does not say that planting homogeneous congregations is inappropriate. Quite the contrary. The “guideline” I am suggesting allows us to affirm the planting of both homogeneous and multi-ethnic congregations.

 

Models of Multi-ethnic Church Planting

            Eldin Villafañe has suggested that there are at least four options that may address the matter of multi-ethnicity.

The first model is the ‘multi-congregational model.’...This pattern consists in ‘a corporation composed of several congregations (Anglo and ethnic) in which the autonomy of each congregation is preserved and the resources of the congregations are combined to present a strong evangelistic witness in the community.

The second model is the ‘temporary sponsorship model.’  This model pictures an Anglo congregation using its resources to minister to the ethnic groups in the neighborhood by aiding them to establish their own ethnic congregation. . .            The third model is the “bi-lingual, bi-cultural model.” This is an “integrated church” model, where members of more than one homogeneous unit hold membership and participate in the activities of a single congregation.

The fourth model is the “total transition model.” This pattern involves the planned phasing out of the original congregation and the phasing in of a new ethnic neighborhood congregation...The above models and others that can be added represent structural adaptations that try to respond to communities undergoing ethnic transitions. While the “multi-congregational model” may be the ideal for urban ministries in transition communities, the other models are viable options. The particular context of ministry, with its distinct demographic trends, cultural/ethnic diversity, and socioeconomic reality, coupled with the ‘health’ of the receiving and the original church, are the most determinative factors in the Spirit-let selection of the appropriate model. [35]

            Oscar Romo advocated what he called a, “Transcultural Outreach,” which he described as following at least two different paths. The models he mentioned involve a number of multi-ethnic dynamics and overlap with what some seem to be calling “models of multi-ethnic church planting.”

Transcultural Outreach is the effort of an existing homogeneous church to share the gospel with persons of another ethnic/language-culture group residing in the community . . .The recent emergence of the “indigenous satellite” approach uses the bases of the concept (of Transcultural Outreach), encouraging a continual ministry. Transcultural Outreach provides a way for a local church to minister to all the people in the community regardless of culture and language.  It also permits the usage of existing facilities initially. Often this has led to the development of a bilingual, bicultural church. . . . Decades of change in America and the diversity of value systems call for a mission strategy focused on ethnic people. The strategy should consider the nation, especially the urban areas, as a related unit made up of people who live not only in a geographical, professional, and socioeconomical community, but also in the ethnic community. [36]

            In The Hispanic Challenge: Opportunities Confronting the Church, Manuel Ortiz described a number of “ecclesiastical structures” as possible options in ethnic church planting. He mentioned “Growing Alongside,” “Growing Within,” “Growing Without,” “Growing Through House Churches,” and “Growing Into (Assimilation).” Ortiz suggests that primarily contextual matters and issues of the historical development of particular congregations should assist church planters in selecting from among these models. Ortiz’s thinking progressed after the 1993 publication of that work, and in One New People (1996), Ortiz wrestled more deeply with the issues that face congregations in affirming ethnic diversity while they seek processes that positively contribute to oneness and unity.

            Here is the issue. These and other “models” should not be evaluated only on the basis of whether they grow numerically, nor only on whether they reduce cultural conflict and preserve the cohesion of groups. They should not even be evaluated as to whether they are well-received by the people or groups in a particular context. I believe the primary criterion on which models should be evaluated is the extent to which they are able in that context to preserve a contextually-appropriate balance between the UNIVERSALITY and the PARTICULARITY of the Church. We should seek to avoid both cultural blindness and cultural imposition.

            In today’s multi-ethnic North America, we need to find ways of planting multi-ethnic churches where cultural and ethnic differences are affirmed, appreciated and celebrated. At the same time, we are beginning to understand that ethnicity as such must not be the basis of unity for these congregations. They are brought together and held together as disciples of Jesus Christ, as the Church. Their basis for unity needs to relate to the universality of the Gospel -- but that universality must complement rather than eclipse the marvelous richness of ethnic diversity that can be fostered in multi-ethnic congregations. The challenge lies before us. Let’s get on with the task of planting multi-ethnic congregations in North America.  

Endnotes

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