One of the sessions that I led (with a little help from some Westbrook staff) at the Exponential National New Church Conference late last month was entitled Unique Challenges in Pursuit of the Dream.  My task was to share some of the interesting, challenging and sometimes frustrating challenges that seem to be inherent  with planting and building a Multi-ethnic church.  See below for just a birds eye look at some of the most common ones we at Westbrook have faced.

1.  Societal Stigma~  Planting and developing a multi-ethnic church intentionally is not going to come without it’s fair share of people who think it’s just plan wrong.  When you do this long enough there will be a stigma that comes with it.  Some will think that you are just trying to please others, that you are attempting to be politically correct and even prejudice.

2.  Dealing With Critics and Those Who Misunderstand~ What critics and those who misunderstand the multi-racial church must do is be challenged to consider the words of the late Benjamin Mays, president of Morehouse College quoted in the book, “United by Faith” who stated,

A true Christian who believes in the fatherhood of God, the lordship of Jesus Christ, the brotherhood of man, and the dignity of every person and who believes that the church is God’s house cannot deny membership to Christian nor deny membership to one of the same faith. If Islam can admit all races to the mosque and if atheistic communism can embrace all races in its fellowship without segregation, certainly the Christian can do the same in his(or her) church, and it is wholly within his power to do so.

3.  Communicating Passion and Value to the Body~  We certainly applaud those who seek to revitalize churches around this paradigm, those who seek to transform their churches to model and especially to those who intentionally plant church to be multi-ethnic.  The bottom line however is that no matter where you are in the continuum you still have to be faithful to communicate the value that you hold to this work.  In other words… you have to continually prime the well of the “get it factor.”

4.  Dealing With the Hard Work to Make it Appealing to All~  Not everyone will like what you do, they may or may not share your vision.  And even if they seem to be OK with the vision they may or may not like your approach in fulfilling your vision.  They may not like the music you select, the illustrations you use or the videos you select.  It’s a constant challenge to think through the appeal issue.

5.  Finding the Right Personnel~ Recruiting and setting into place the right people is a challenge for any church staff, but especially so in the Multi-ethnic arena.  While you need to process the big 3… competency, character and chemistry… you also have to find a person who shares your vision for multi-ethnic ministry.

Now we know that there are surely many more, this is just a list of some that we are chewing through.  If you are reading this and you’d like to comment or even add some of your unique challenges please let us know.