What Do Minorities At Your Church Think?: Don't Take Their Silence ForAbsence of Struggle

In this blog,  I am going to highlight what it is like to be a minority in a majority culture church context. When I say minority, I mean a group of people that do not have as many numbers as the others in a given context. When I say majority, I mean the group of people that outnumbers the rest of people in a given context. Therefore, when I say minority in this blog I do not necessarily mean people of color and when I say majority I do not necessarily mean white. I want to highlight the illusion that a majority culture can have when they have minorities come to to their church:  minorities do not struggle with the majority culture's way of doing things. On the contrary, majority cultures should not take the silence of minorities for the absence of struggle.  The following quote represents the reasons they might be there and have not said anything:

"I do not necessarily like the music at this church, but I go because the community is real and the preaching sticks to the word. Therefore, I am willing to sacrifice somethings in order to be here. I don't really want to say that I desire something different in worship, because I do not want to cause discord in the church. I just want enjoy the word and the community."

This declaration would be true of most minorities that attend a majority culture church that does not reflect anything from their "heart language". I define heart language as: the language that best communicates to a person through representing familiar cultural norms, symbols, music, food, language, .etc. For instance, as an African American hearing anything familiar from the African American church  experience allows me to connect with God in a deeper way, than hearing things from contemporary white christian experience. (Don't get me wrong I love me some "Come Thou Fount", "How Great Is Our God",  the "Horse and Rider Song" (shouts out to Brandon Marshall) ,  Bryan Chapell is one of my favorite preachers, etc.) This connection happens because I hear things in my heart language. It makes me feel more at home. All people no matter their background, need to hear things in their "heart language", to have a deep experience in worship and the life of the church. In addition, doing things in their heart language communicates to them that they have a voice in the life of the body. When people have a voice, they feel empowered. when they feel empowered, they feel like they have a place.

     Yet, a lot of times when we find ourselves in the majority culture, when we have minorities come to our church we do not consider that they may have different ways of doing things then us. For instance, in my experience in the African American church we would have a spattering of white people, sometimes Africans, but we never took time to consider doing things in their "heart language". Instead, we took their presence as legitimizing the way that we did things. Sometimes we would even make them "honorary Black People". You not "really white for real" or you not "really X for real". I am convinced that this happens to minorities a lot in majority contexts. Their identity gets assimilated into the identity of the majority. This assimilation usually carries with it a little bit of resentment of having their cultural identity disregarded and made to seem unimportant. If it does not have resentment it definitely has sadness. In a lot of cases both feelings are there simultaneously.

Consequently,  a lot of churches that have multi-ethnicity and/or multiple races, but they have minorities longing to hear things in their heart language. If you are a multi-ethnic church and/or mutiracial church (a church with more than one ethnic group or racial present), and you know your worship, leadership, langauge, etc. is monocultural, then I challenge you with four things:


I.) Go to one of the minorities in your church and ask them to tell you candidly about their experience. Ask them if there where no other person from the majority culture present, how would they describe the church in comparison to what was familiar to them? For instance, if your church is all Asian and you have some black people ask: "If you were just around black people, how would you describe our church in comparison to what is familiar with you culturally?"

II.) Alert your church leadership that there are people different from the majority context and we need to make sure they feel included.

III.) Ask those minorities in your church context, "How can we help shape a worshiping experience a community experience that would help you feel more at home, and reflect things from your culture?"

IV.) Do what they suggest to you or they will lose trust in you. (If you are an individual member of a bible study, you can make a home where these heart language issues get worked out. Invite that person to your house and have them cook their favorite dish for you or you could go to theirs, etc. Be creative and ask for wisdom from the spirit. )

The majority culture must initiate this conversation, because minorities in your church have no hope of you really changing. Secondly, they do not want to cause discord, because they truly love the community they have. Lastly, they have been burned in the past by trusting people in the majority and have them not make good on their promises. Whatever you do, do not take their silence for absence of struggle.

Image from: http://www.fredspencer.com/where-has-this-year-gone.html/man-thinking-02