Preaching without Borders: The Challenges and Blessings of Expository Preaching in a Multi-Ethnic Church

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The Need for Cross-Ethnic Preaching

The first church I pastored was a strange place and I would not have had it any other way. Though I have been called to serve in a new setting, I miss my strange church family. By strange, I do not mean that it is heretical or heterodox in any way. Quite the contrary, my church was a strange place because we were ethnically diverse, which was an entirely new experience for me, as every church I had ever served in or attended consisted of a white majority. These were excellent churches with faithful pastors and Christians who deeply loved the Lord, but they were not integrated. They did not look like the neighborhoods and communities which surrounded the church property.

But my church was different. We resembled the community of the city of Orlando (and our neighborhood) quite well and that was clear from the moment one walked into the building. We had Malaysians, Ethiopians, Puerto Ricans, Kenyans, Colombians, Mexicans, Costa Ricans, Dominicans, Cubans, Uruguayans, Haitians, Japanese, Chinese, and even an Alaskan as part of our church during my pastorate.

My church was strange, with a membership makeup of only half Anglo. My prayer is that other churches will become like we were in representing their respective communities so that one day, having such a diverse congregation will not be so strange. The more time I spent in prayer, in my study, and in the pulpit, the more I got a slight glimpse of the beauty of heaven because I saw how the gospel goes beyond our differences and brings unity around the common goal of glorifying Christ. I want my fellow pastors to experience this as well.

My hope in this area is not simply to appear multi-cultural or to be well-liked because I follow a popular trend. My hope in preaching, pastoral ministry, and everything else I do is found in the hope of being made right with God through the perfect obedience and sacrificial death of Christ.¹ What is needed from preachers and pastors is more than making claims that diversity is admirable and excellent. We need more than progressive or politically correct messages. Our focus in ministry must be all about the gospel and how the message that we carry is the only way to bridge the racial and ethnic divides that infect our communities, schools, and congregations.

My hope is that none of us should ever want to put limits on the gospel. In the pages that follow, I hope to show how easy it can be, however, to overlook important issues of race, culture, and ethnicity in our preaching and, most importantly, how the gospel addresses those things. This mostly unintentional oversight to apply the gospel cracks open the chasm between the preacher and his listeners because it misses the application of the gospel to issues that matter to many. The gospel changed us at the moment of our conversion, and it is still changing us as we grow in holiness. That experience and life-altering truth should be the catalyst for us to remove any impediments that limit our effectiveness to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ from the pulpit every week.

The Modern Landscape

Though it certainly seems like racial tension and political discord are sending American churches down a path where homogeneity in the local church is the future, with further integration in America there will come a need for further integration of American churches. And if our churches are to be more integrated than they are now, our preaching must adapt as well. With joy we celebrate the church plants and revitalization efforts, but the movement must continue and the first step we can take as preachers is to be more mindful of our audience as well as the needs and burdens they carry.

This journey will not be easy, but it is desperately needed. For preachers of previous generations, the movement toward a diverse congregation is likely a new concept. Not long ago, most churches were segregated because most communities were segregated. Black churches in the United States were not formed due to voluntary segregation. Rather, black Christians were not allowed full membership at white churches so they were forced to start churches where they could serve and use their gifts.

A 2015 report by the United States Census Bureau states that by 2044, more than half of all Americans are projected to belong to a minority group; and by 2060, nearly one in five of the nation’s total population is projected to be foreign born.² Today’s white population will soon be the minority, and in many cities this is already the case.³ Some pastors may be tempted to brush this off and continue living and worshipping in their preferred way because it is easier and safer, but the gospel must change how we see those who are different because Christ has united his people as brothers and sisters. If we live with a focus on the gospel in our lives and ministry, we will be open to adapt and possibly even change our ministry methods (while staying biblical) in order to give the gospel to current and future generations.

Bryan Chappell, a pastor, former seminary president, and one of the foremost experts on expository preaching, recognizes how life (at least in the United States) has changed. He writes,

A Hindu is someone I meet on the street, not a distant pagan . . . in Delhi. A Muslim is the respectful student that sits next to me in a university class, not a robed Saracen brandishing a crescent sword in a black and white movie starring Errol Flynn. Three to five million Buddhists live in the United States. Miami is now the unofficial capital of Latin America. Los Angeles and New York are home to literally hundreds of language groups. A quarter of the residents of California are foreign born.⁴

These discussions about our preaching and the church in the United States can be much more beneficial if we see our churches and our communities for what they are—a mission field. We no longer need to travel thousands of miles to share the gospel with someone who speaks a different language, comes from a different culture, or follows a different religious worldview. By living in a city or even a suburb, we quickly discover that those we once travelled to share the gospel with are now our neighbors and co-workers.

Author and professor J.D. Payne notes that the church is to be on mission until Jesus returns because it is God who has brought the world to us. He explains, While a major part of making disciples occurs as we go throughout the world (Matt 28:19), we must realize that the divine Maestro has been orchestrating the movement of peoples into our neighborhoods. He has been bringing the peoples of the uttermost parts of the world into our communities.⁵

Even with the changes in the demographic landscape, many American churches are lagging behind the rest of society in terms of integration. John Perkins, who has personally experienced the horrors of racism in the South, has written about this problem extensively. In his book, Dream With Me: Race, Love, and the Struggle We Must Win, he argues, We claim to be an ethnic ‘melting pot,’ yet people of different nationalities and backgrounds—black, white, Latino, Asian, Eastern European—most often worship with people who look, act, and talk like themselves. He refers to Jesus’ prayer in John 17 that Christians would have unity: Yet, on Sunday morning, we seldom model this reality of the gospel.⁶ Perkins echoes the famous statement made by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the American television show Meet the Press in April 1960: I think it is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hours, in Christian America.⁷

Even though Sunday mornings are often segregated hours, there is hope. Prolific scholar and researcher Michael Emerson observes, In 1998 a national study of American congregations found that just 5 percent of Protestant churches were racially diverse (no one racial group is 80 percent or more of the congregation). When the same study was conducted nine years later, the researchers found that large Protestant churches were three times more likely to be multiracial. That change took place in just nine years! The study found that in evangelical churches, large congregations were five times more likely to be multiracial.⁸ This is great news, but most churches are not large and are more likely to remain dominated by a single ethnic or cultural makeup.

Mark DeYmaz, a pastor and author who is well-known for his experience and research in the area of pastoring multi-ethnic congregations, takes an immensely optimistic view of the future makeup of the American church. He believes that by 2050, 50 percent of American churches will achieve 50 percent diversity.⁹ This belief is based on the demographic cultural trends of integration in society and a strong hope that the church can make the necessary changes to advance the gospel to everyone, regardless of the barriers that have prevented it from moving in the past.

As followers of Christ, we have the solution for the problems that the world faces. Racism, ethnocentrism, and political battles over immigration and racial disparities are issues Christians can address from a gospel-centered perspective. In other words, the church is in a unique position to deal with problems that plague modern day culture. DeYoung, et al., write,

The twenty-first century holds the potential to be the century of the multiracial congregation, despite the relatively small percentage such churches represent among total congregations. The broad population shifts taking place in the United States are expected by the midpoint of the century to produce a country with a racial demographic that is very diverse and without a numeric majority. Such changes produce settings with an increased possibility for multiracial congregations. A movement toward more multiracial congregations must be the cutting edge for ministry and growth in this century.¹⁰

This statement is echoed by Edward Gilbreath in his book Reconciliation Blues: A Black Evangelical’s Inside View of White Christianity. As the title suggests, the author shares his understanding of how he (a black man) relates to American evangelicalism (largely white). He remarks that even though the church is certainly not perfect, it is the one institution equipped to deal with the racial divide. Gilbreath references the anti-slavery movement in the nineteenth century and the civil rights movement of the twentieth century as examples of how the church was at the center of the struggle for justice. He notes, In both of these cases, the faithful response of a few daring believers gave way to powerful demonstrations of God’s deliverance, justice and grace. After a long human struggle, God broke through.¹¹

This example of dealing with justice issues should give hope to everyone who has a desire to reach their neighbors with the gospel of reconciliation to God and, as part of the covenant of the gospel in our own lives, reconciliation to one another. Our focus in our preaching should not be to build a kingdom of our own, make a name for ourselves, become a famous conference speaker, or write books. Those are the world’s values, but our value is not in how good we are or what we do. Instead, our value is found in what Christ has already done for us through his perfect life, sacrificial death, glorious resurrection, and coming triumphant return. The good news of Christ’s achievement is what we are to give to our people every time we step behind the pulpit to open God’s word, anything less being a dereliction of our duty.

Why This Study?

This study is needed and the reason is simple. My aim is to challenge preachers to think through their sermons, from the beginning of their preparation as they are pondering the scheduled text all the way to the conclusion of the message they deliver on Sunday morning. The lack of multi-ethnic awareness and application in sermons is certainly not done on purpose or from a heart that does not care about ethnic groups outside of the preacher’s own groups. The problem is simply not thought of much. Little has been written on leading multi-ethnic churches and even less on preaching in a multi-ethnic setting. Scripture is not silent on ethnic diversity in the church. Chapter two of this study dives into some of the scriptural examples of tension between ethnic groups (Jews and Gentiles) in the early church.

Beyond that, I have been challenged in my own churches to preach in such a way that everyone will hear and understand the gospel presented and have an opportunity to respond. In Romans 10, Paul writes,

For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? (Romans

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It is clear from this passage that God has called every Christian to proclaim the gospel and preachers have an audience to hear it every week.

But there are often impediments that arise in our preaching. In the United States, there is an often-unspoken chasm which exists between black and white and, in the pulpit, most pastors unknowingly contribute to the divide. According to Emerson and Smith, two scholars who spent time examining the problem of race in America, the divide does not come from outright racism. Instead, what they call racialization understands that racial practices that reproduce racial division . . . (1) are increasingly covert, (2) are embedded in normal operations of institutions, (3) avoid direct racial terminology, and (4) are invisible to most Whites.¹² The racial division Emerson and Smith discuss is not direct racism found with groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

We all have different preferences and activities we like and we all bring those into our church families. This is well-understood, but what is overlooked is how different those interests can be and what impact that has on the church body and, in particular, the preaching. Emerson and Smith found an intriguing fact through their research of television viewing habits of black and white individuals in the mid-1990s. They found that in the mid-1990s the two top-rated television shows for whites were ranked twentieth and eighty-ninth for blacks. The top shows for blacks were one hundred and twenty-second and one hundred and twenty-fourth for whites. They write, Black and white Americans largely watch and identify with separate stars, shows, humor, drama, and more.¹³ This likely extends into every ethnicity in our communities and we would be foolish to somehow think that it does not extend into our churches.

Though these differences will be addressed in later chapters, it is important for the preacher to understand his context and experiences are likely different than those of a different ethnicity or race. Understanding this is the first step in being able to adapt or change our preaching methods so that the gospel is presented unhindered by cultural barriers. This is especially important in a nation that is fractured by violence and racial tension.

There is a shortage of valuable research and literature in this area, especially as it relates to preaching. Books on missions and intercultural communication address many of the barriers in communication (which will be addressed in chapter 3) and many preaching books briefly touch on these barriers, so we know they exist. Sermon illustrations, applications, and even how we frame our explanation of the biblical text can hinder someone from grasping the beauty found in the gospel if we do not consider the issues that one may have experienced. Paul understood the importance of knowing his