Dr. Warren Bird asks, What Have You Learned?

Warren Bird, Ph.D., is Research Director at Leadership Network, and co-author of nineteen books on various aspects of church health and innovation. This week, he posted the following article on Learnings@Leadership Network, a blog featuring "first-hand reports of what innovative churches are doing." I discussed the post with him a couple of weeks ago and affirmed my own belief that mergers and campus plants (via multi-siting) are ways in which healthy, but otherwise homogeneous churches can expedite their pursuit of transition. In addition, I believe such a church would do well to consider launching a multi-ethnic venue within their existing weekend worship schedule.

Warren's entire post is repeated here (in bold) for your convenience. And after reading, please let me know what you think by commenting below.

What have you learned about launching an ethnic or multi-cultural site?
By Warren Bird

People like Mark DeYmaz have written about and modeled what he calls "the biblical mandate for the multi-ethnic church" -- see his book, Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Leadership Network, 2007).

Yet this is not the case for most churches. According to research conducted by sociologists Michael Emerson, Christian Smith, George Yancey and others, 92.5% of Catholic and Protestant churches throughout the United States can be classified as “mono-racial.” This term describes a church in which 80% or more of the individuals that attend are of the same ethnicity or race. The remaining churches (7.5%) can be described as “multi-racial,” i.e., churches in which there are a non-majority, collective population of at least 20%. By this definition, approximately 12% of Catholic churches, just less than 5% of evangelical churches and about 2.5% of mainline Protestant churches can be described as “multi-racial."

Early research by Dr. George Yancey, published in his book, One Body, One Spirit (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), identified general “principles of successful multi-racial churches.” Mark DeYmaz then adapted and restated them as follows, each a chapter in Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church:

1. Embrace Dependence
2. Take Intentional Steps
3. Empower Diverse Leadership
4. Develop Cross-Cultural Relationships
5. Pursue Cross-Cultural Competence
6. Promote a Spirit of Inclusion
7. Mobilize for Impact

Interestingly, the most multi-racial churches at present are the largest ones. Beyond Megachurch Myths by Scott Thumma and Dave Travis reports on a major 2005 study of very large churches. It asks, "What is the total percentage of attenders in your church that are not of the majority racial/ethnic group?" The average was 19%. Some 36% have 20% minority presence or more. The response to the next survey question was even more telling: "Is your congregation making efforts to become intentionally multi-ethnic?" A surprising 56% said yes.

What about churches that are multi-site? Are they placing much emphasis on launching ethnic or multi-cultural sites? I suspect it's a low priority for many. In Leadership Network's 2007 release named "Survey of 1,000 Multi-Site Churches," we asked for participants' primary motivation for doing multi-site. The overwhelming reply was evangelism" (63%), although 1% did say "cross language or ethnic barriers." we next asked their secondary motivation for doing multi-site. Of the same seven answers, there was a two-way tie for first place: solve overcrowding (27%) and bring our church closer to a target area (also 27%). This time 4% said "cross language or ethnic barriers" -- and those churches were different from the ones who said 1% earlier. So a total of 5% of the churches indicate it's a top motivation. That's 1 out of 20 cases.

Interestingly, another set of questions asked "To what extent are you reaching the same kinds of people on each campus in terms ofrace?" Only 12% said yes. When asked, "To what extent are you reaching the same kinds of people on each campus in terms oflanguage," only 5% said yes.

What's your sense between multi-ethnic churches and multi-ethnic campuses of multi-site churches? Which is more likely to take the lead, and why?

My prediction is that it will happen through mergers. Our multi-site survey also asked, "Have you used your multi-site approach to assist (or take responsibility for) a declining church?" Of 197 churches that replied to this question, 30% said yes, plus 10% more said "no but we plan to in the future." I think those mergers will open the way to more multi-ethnic congregations.