How easily migrants fit into life in Australia parallels how smoothly they become part of our church life.
by Archie Poulos
A few weeks ago I met Nabil, a man with a Muslim background who has raised three children in Australia, and through them began reading the Bible. He told me “I read your four books (gospels) and fell in love with Jesus”. For many reasons, including security, feeling uncomfortable and so many questions left unanswered he has not joined a church.
Sydney is a great place to be. It has embraced the Diocesan Mission. People come to Sydney from every conceivable ethnic group. I am sure this is a gift from God as it is our privilege to welcome people like Nabil and under God work and pray to see them come to faith.
However, how easily migrants and their children fit in with the dominant culture parallels how smoothly they can be enfolded into our church life. Most of our churches reflect the dominant culture. For some, moving country is like moving suburb. Yet others live part time in each of two cultures. Others spend all their time recreating small enclaves of their home country.
For some migrants joining our churches it is not an issue. For others it is a real obstacle and for others it is a liberation from the family culture. There are some people for whom ‘majority culture’ churches are not an issue , but there are some who remain outside our reach because of it.
How will we evangelise this group as we pray and strive for the Mission?
The problem of reaching ethnic groups is made more difficult by everyone’s natural ethnic prejudice. Nabil feels it and so do we. If 20 per cent of a group is comprised of one non-majority culture, a person joining from the majority culture often thinks the place is over-run by the 20 per cent group and does not feel comfortable. A person from the 20 per cent culture who joins feels the group is almost entirely majority culture! This is a lose-lose way of thinking, but one that is so natural, despite our best attempts to enfold people.
What should we do?
This is a question
churches have been addressing in Sydney since the earliest settlement, and one that creates strong opinions and divisions.
So far, there have been two basic solutions - the international method and the homogeneous method.
In the first, everyone joins the one meeting and is part of the one meeting, regardless of ethnic background. It is the melting pot of all nations. It is a public display of the gospel reality that the dividing wall between peoples and cultures has been destroyed in the cross of Christ.
On the other hand, the homogeneous structure looks to create a fellowship which is ethnically the same. Either the entire parish life can focus on one ethnic group, or ministries within a parish can concentrate on single groups. For example, one congregation could be Chinese and another Arabic, but all in the one parish.
However, the problem with the international structure is that it requires homogeneity to work! There must be some commonly shared elements that allow people to enjoy meeting together in a profitable way. The meeting would have to be held in a language all can understand, which immediately excludes those who cannot understand that language. It also means particular issues of faith facing one group can be overlooked.
The problem in the homogeneous structure is that from the outset it has an exclusive feel. It has the very real danger of uniting people not around the gospel, but around ethnic background which perpetuates ungodly ways of relating.
Both methods have been tried in Sydney. They have usually been assessed by whether they have grown. This is a poor way of assessing how well people are being reached, as it does not convey their growth in faith.
At present, Nabil meets with another Christian one to one, but he would love to invite his friends to a regular meeting. What should that meeting be?
In upcoming articles we will examine whether the homogeneous model is Christian, and ask if it is the structural changes or something else which will enable us to fulfil not just the Diocesan, but Christ’s mission.
Archie Polous has planted an ethnic church and is currently helping to plant two more. He is Director of Recruitment and Training at Moore Theological College. This is an edited version of talks given at a recent Australian Institute of Ministry (AIM) conference.
