Emergent and Diversity

I haven't visited Dan Sheffield's blog in such a long time, but am glad I finally did tonight. At our Greenhouse meeting on Saturday, a meeting where at least 80% of those in the room were white males, we had a good starting discussion on the impact multiculturalism will inevitably have on coming generations of church. It was so good and so necessary to talk about this, especially since so much of "emergent" church culture is heavily influenced by the white male. I'm not hating on myself here, I don't think that's entirely helpful, but I'm glad that conversation is starting to happen about what the emerging church might look like as the goateed, blogging, ibook-toting, dark-rimmed-glasses-wearing church planter is joined by people who don't conform to that picture: Within a decade or so, the majority of Christians in the United States will be non-white. I can say that with confidence because all the sociological trends, all the ways the white church is declining and all the ways the immigrant church, the African American church, the Spanish-speaking church is growing by leaps and bounds. Within a decade, in every metropolitan corner of the United States, we are going to see more non-white Christians than white Christians. Why is it that the leadership is still all white? Time magazine does an article on the top 25 evangelical leaders. Twenty-three of those spots are filled by white evangelicals. Why is it that the face of the "emerging church" is always white? Full Article