One in the Lord

MULTIRACIAL CHURCHES are becoming more common in this country—but that doesn’t happen by chance.

A 2010 study by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, based on a random sample of more than 11,000 congregations, revealed an increase in multiracial congregations in the U.S.—30 percent of churches reported that more than half of their members were part of minority groups.

Members of three multiracial churches in and near the nation’s capital—one Catholic, one Methodist, and one nondenominational—say that at their church “people don’t look the same, or think that much about it,” and describe their congregations as welcoming places “where you can feel God’s presence, where you can be yourself.”

Though Sunday worship time is still known as “the most segregated hour in America,” older members of churches such as Peace Fellowship Church in Washington, D.C., St. Camillus Catholic Church in Silver Spring, Md., and Culmore United Methodist Church in Falls Church, Va., remember when things started changing. As migration and demographic shifts altered neighborhoods and communities, members sought to engage in “desegregated” worship, opting to join communities that mirrored a world with different cultures and ways to praise God.

Reconciling Divisions

Dave Cho, a Korean-American who started attending Peace Fellowship Church in 2008 with his family, said he felt welcomed by Dennis Edwards, the founding pastor.

“Rev. Edwards’ philosophy is to reach out to people on the margins,” Cho said. “We didn’t know anybody. About 60 percent [of the congregants] were African American. We didn’t have much in common other than our faith.”

Faith was enough. Even though Peace Fellowship, a small, nondenominational community in the Deanwood neighborhood of Washington, D.C., did not set out to be a multiracial church, it welcomes everyone.

Edwards’ original goal was to “create disciples east of the Anacostia River” and to be relevant to the predominantly African-American, working-class community surrounding the church. “We were only intentional about love,” Edwards stated, “and being a bridge for people who are different.”

Nearly 14 years ago, Edwards and a group of members from his former church founded Peace Fellowship after attending a church-planting conference. Peace Fellowship has a diverse congregation, both ethnically and economically. Churchgoers come from both middle and upper classes across the District, with an estimated 80 percent of the church evenly divided between blacks and whites, an additional 10 percent being Asian American, and the remaining being of mixed or international backgrounds.

Peace Fellowship’s new pastor, James Ellis, explained that as the U.S. continues to become more and more diverse, churches will too—but not without some growing pains. “If someone doesn’t look like you or share your same experiences, it can be seen as a challenge,” he said. “Or it can promote authentic conversations about race and theology and help people to begin their journey with God, forming a real community.”

“Race has been a vexing problem in the U.S.,” said Ray McGhee, an African-American church founder. “Multiracial congregations are a testimony of healing and reconciliation.”

Peace Fellowship values relationships and resists traditional structures. Many of the members are young adults who prefer a place that does not ask them to identify themselves as part of one racial group or as part of the dominant white Christian culture. “We tend to attract families that are multiracial,” added Kristi McGhee, Ray’s wife and fellow church founder. “A good number of families, including my own, are mixed.”

Ray McGhee believes now that the church has a new pastor, Peace Fellowship can expand its work in the community, particularly in mentoring youth. “We’re trying to minister to the community around the church,” he explained. “We’re taking the attention off ourselves and focusing on the community in ways that show respect and humility, and that help us to learn more about how to support each other.”

But just as peace does not happen overnight, Ellis added that having unity in their multiracial congregation would not happen immediately.

“We recognize that it’s a long journey, and we’ll engage people who do not always see things the same way,” Ellis said. “And that’s okay. God is the one who holds everything together.”

A Multitude of Nations

St. Camillus Catholic Church, known affectionately as “The U.N. of Silver Spring,” continues to embrace the diversity of its changing Maryland neighborhood and currently ministers to people from 105 different countries.

Founded in 1950, the congregation was predominantly white until waves of immigrants from Latin America, Africa, and Asia moved near the church during the 1980s. For the past 30 years, the church has been intentional about cultivating a space for its 4,000 parishioners to feel at home.

Martin Bednar, the first Franciscan friar to pastor St. Camillus, said the process of becoming a multicultural congregation was a gradual one. Months after the church began to hold a regular Mass in Spanish, the Latino population at the church grew to 200. Years later, it approached 1,400.

The friar also offered services to help the surrounding community. Later, he welcomed Vietnamese Catholics and other migrants.

Not everyone was happy, however, with the community becoming multicultural. “In the old days, there was a real disagreement,” Bednar explained. “Some old timers said this was their parish, and they did not like the idea of these people taking over. Many left.”

To address the crisis, the friar instituted a parish festival in 1984, with food and cultural programs to bring the different communities together. Various ministries invited members of the other communities to participate, and friendships were forged. Some of the descendants of European immigrants who left came back. “We saw real growth,” Bednar said. “They were able to see the value that the others had.”

In 2000, a French-speaking African community with eight families became part of the church, with a worship service in their own language; it now has nearly 900 members from 14 countries. The parish also welcomes Bangladeshi and Creole-speaking Haitian communities.

The various groups know that focusing on their cultural differences can divide them into mere factions sharing a roof, but they see each other more like strands woven into the same fabric. “African, Spanish, Anglo—there is no difference,” said Louis Kimmakon, president of the African community. “We are just one body and one Christ.”

“It’s a balance between unity and diversity,” added Father Mike Johnson, one of the current pastors. “People celebrate their cultures, and they feel at home. But the church is bigger than any one group. We are enriched by being with one another, and that pushes people out of their comfort zones.”

St. Camillus has also been intentional about making sure the major communities are represented on the parish council. “It’s a place where their concerns and voices can be heard as part of the larger structure,” explained Sister Kristin Matthes, SND. “It’s a family. The benefit of one is the benefit of all.”

With their Catholic faith in common, all the groups have embraced the mission brought to St. Camillus by the Franciscans to strive for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation for all God’s creatures, said Ottoniel Perez, the Latino community minister. “The homilies awaken a consciousness beyond an ethnic group,” Perez stated. “The faith asks us to take the gospel to those who are at the margins of society.”

To build these bridges, St. Camillus facilitates intercultural activities, such as opportunities to discuss spirituality together. The church also offers multicultural Masses in English with music in different languages and multilingual readings during Easter and Advent.

Father Jacek Orzechowski, another St. Camillus friar, said that it is important for the multicultural ministry to extend its commitment to justice and peace beyond its own ethnic community. “It’s not only diversity for the sake of diversity,” he said. “It’s about growing deeper in a commitment to the mission of the church.”

Loving Your Neighbor

“I thought I was seeing a glimpse of heaven,” said Rev. Jung Pyo Hong, describing his first visit to Culmore United Methodist Church, where he now serves as pastor. A small church in Falls Church, Va., Culmore describes itself as “a house of prayer for all nations” and genuinely welcomes and nurtures all “to be Christ to others.”

What surprised Hong was how different ethnicities managed to share life together on Sunday—without engaging in tokenism. According to Hong, the church’s demographics consist of Asians (40 percent), Africans from Sierra Leone and Ghana (35 percent), and people of other nationalities (25 percent).

Culmore’s outreach activities include a boys and girls club, ESL classes, advocacy for immigration reform and affordable housing, and support for day laborers and the homeless. The church also cultivates spirituality through Bible study groups and Filipino vespers.

Roseanne Salonga, a lay leader from the Philippines, returned to Culmore seven years ago. It was a very different church, she said, than the one she left in the 1970s.

Culmore began in 1952 as an Anglo, middle-class congregation in northern Virginia. As more immigrant families came to the area, they found an open-minded, welcoming place. Rev. Stephen Rhodes, a former Culmore pastor and author of Where the Nations Meet the Church in a Multicultural World, said that embracing an identity as an international church helped to resurrect it at a time when membership was low and financial problems abounded.

“The neighborhood served as a prime location for waves of immigrants,” Hong said. “They could walk to church, and they brought their relatives.”

Now the congregation has dwindled to 100 members, in part because many of the original Anglo members have died or moved away, and the patterns of immigration that fueled the congregation have plateaued.

Though many of the immigrants joining Culmore practice the Western-style Methodist service on Sundays, there is a conscious effort to invite all—long-timer, newcomer, old, and young—to participate during worship. During the high seasons, more cultural expressions are added to the mix.

Leslie Atkins, a white lay leader, indicated that seeing her friends experience Christ in different ways has deepened her faith. “You learn by being around people and hearing them give their faith story,” she said.

Carol McSween-Brooks, who is African American, pointed out that church diversity can create schisms, which can start over musical preferences across generations or the goals and mission of the church. “We are still working on worshiping together and building the church,” she said.

“Sometimes Filipinos, Africans, and Anglos can be three separate groups, three tribes,” Salonga said. “It would be nice if we just forgot about being Filipino or being American and just accepted each other. It makes you practice what Christianity is all about.”

To do this, the leaders of each community meet every two weeks. This has caused them to rediscover one another and put their assumptions to rest.

Hong thinks that the congregation is a place to grow together.

“That is the saving grace for Culmore, not just the diversity—as important and wonderful as it is—but that leadership is able to work through its assumptions about one another and bring their values to the table,” Hong said. “If you can come into some level of discomfort and be okay with that, you will not only be receiving the gospel—you’ll be practicing it.”