Building multi-cultural churches - Ken Brownell with some thoughts from Acts 11

One of the great things about London is its ethnic and cultural diversity. It is estimated that a third of Londoners are born outside the UK. Everywhere you see people of different races speaking different languages, eating different food, wearing different clothes and practising different religions.

I find this very exciting. I love shopping at our local street market in Hackney on Ridley Road where something from almost everywhere in the world Ð African snails, Jewish bagels, Asian fruit, Turkish delicacies Ð seems to be present. But it is not only ethnic diversity that is striking in London. There is also an amazing social diversity, with rich and poor, young and old and everyone in between living often in close proximity.

From a biblical point of view this ethnic and cultural diversity is no accident and is, indeed, significant. For sure, you can find all sorts of social, economic and political reasons why people from all over the world end up in cities like London, Paris and New York. But, as Christians, we believe that God is the sovereign Lord of history. He is working out his purpose in history to bring his saving reign to every nation on earth. One of the ways he is doing that is by moving people from all nations to where they can hear and believe the gospel. When they believe, these new Christians are gathered in churches that should be living demonstrations of the reconciling power of the gospel. In turn, these churches send out people to take the gospel to other cities, peoples and nations.

In Acts 11, we discover how this happens. Here Luke describes how the church in Antioch was born. What makes this church so significant is that it was the first multi-ethnic and multi-cultural church. Until this point in Acts the churches have been made up of Jewish and Samaritan believers, but, with the conversion of the Gentile centurion Cornelius, that began to change. The church at Antioch revealed the ethnic and cultural diversity that God intends for his church and as such is a model of what churches should be like in the ethnic, cultural and social diversity of cities like London.*

1. The surprising conversions that shattered ethnic, cultural and social prejudice.

Before we look at what happened at Antioch we need to look at what happened in the aftermath of Cornelius’ conversion. When Peter returned to Jerusalem from Caesarea he came in for some severe criticism (vv.1-3). Some of the ‘circumcised believers’, that is Jewish Christians, rebuked him for associating socially with Gentiles. Peter understood where these critics were coming from since until recently he had shared their prejudice against Gentiles. But, as he explained, his prejudice had been shattered. First, he had a vision in which he was told that nothing made clean by God was unclean (vv.4-10). Second, when in obedience to God he went to the home of Cornelius and preached the gospel, Cornelius and his household received the Holy Spirit just as had the Jewish believers on the day of Pentecost (vv.11-17). In other words, these Gentiles were converted and were as much members of God’s family as Jewish believers. Peter knew that if he refused to recognise these Gentiles as fellow believers he would be opposing God. And the Jerusalem church agreed with him (v.18).

What happened to Peter and the Jerusalem church continues to happen. When Christ gives the Holy Spirit to people of different ethnic groups, social classes and cultural backgrounds it shatters the prejudices of Christians against such people. For various reasons all of us can have prejudices against certain types of people. We can’t see why or how they can be saved and, if they are, why we should have anything to do with them. But when faced with genuine conversions our prejudices are shattered. These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Or put another way, it is the gospel that shatters prejudice.

Now it has to be said that it takes time for prejudice to be overcome. We know from Acts that as more and more Gentiles came to faith that their acceptance as Christians became a big issue. Some Jewish Christians began to insist that Gentile believers had to effectively become Jews first in order to be saved (15:1). A council was called in Jerusalem to deal with this matter (15:2). In many of his letters Paul also deals with this matter. On one occasion he even had to rebuke Peter for acting in an ungodly way in relating to Gentile believers (Gal. 2:11-16). Sadly, prejudice takes time to die even in Christians. Nevertheless in time the gospel destroys the prejudice that poisons human relationships. As we face the challenge of making disciples in a multi-cultural society we need to be confident that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. More than any methodology or strategy the gospel of grace is the key to building multi-cultural churches.

2. The courageous communication that penetrated ethnic, cultural and social barriers.

About this time some Jewish believers made their way to the city of Antioch (v. 19). Because of prejudice or simply because they were more comfortable evangelising their own people, these believers didn’t tell the gospel to people of other races or cultures. However in Antioch some of them began to evangelise Greeks (v.20). By ‘Greeks’ Luke means not only people who were ethnically Greek, but also people who spoke Greek and were culturally Greek in the way they lived. It took some courage to evangelise these people, but that is what these Jewish believers from Cyprus and Cyrene did (v.21).

Do you see what happened? In Antioch an ethnic, cultural and social barrier to the gospel was penetrated. Some Christians were not content to tell the gospel to people not of their own ethnic, cultural or social background. In some way they stepped out of their group and took the gospel to another group. That is what we need to do as well. It is relatively easy to evangelise people like ourselves. But if our cities are to be reached for Christ then we need to courageously communicate the gospel to people ethnically, culturally and socially unlike ourselves. In doing so we need to adapt how we communicate the gospel without compromising its content. Perhaps there is a person you live near or work with who is ethnically, culturally or socially different from you to whom you can tell the gospel so that he or she will be saved.

That it was in Antioch that this ethnic, cultural and social barrier was penetrated is significant. Antioch was the third city of the Roman Empire with a very ethnically diverse population of some 500,000 people. We know that there were Romans, Jews, Greeks, Syrians, Persians, Indians, Arabs and even possibly some Chinese in Antioch. It was a political, economic and cultural centre with excellent transport links with the rest of the empire. In other words this was a strategic melting-pot city not unlike London. It was the kind of city from which the gospel would spread once ethnic, cultural and social barriers were penetrated. That is indeed what happened as Acts and church history bear witness. Antioch became one of the great centres for mission in the early church. The same is true for a city like London today. Let’s then penetrate ethnic, cultural and social barriers by communicating the gospel to all the different kinds of people in our communities. And by God’s grace may many not only believe and turn to the Lord, but may the gospel spread far and wide to places and among people we can’t begin to imagine.

3. The remarkable congregation that embraced ethnic, cultural and social diversity.

When the news of what happened in Antioch reached the church in Jerusalem the leaders sent Barnabas to investigate (v.22). Barnabas appears earlier in Acts as a generous giver to the Jerusalem church who had helped Paul get accepted by the church after his conversion (4.36-37; 9.27). Both because of his gifts of encouragement and discernment as well as being a Greek-speaking Jew from Cyprus, Barnabas was the ideal man for the job. When he met these new Gentile believers in Antioch he discerned in their faith and lives real evidence of God at work (v.23). He was able to see beyond cultural and other differences to the unmistakable evidence of grace. True to form he encouraged them to be loyal believers. Not surprisingly even more people were brought to the Lord (v.24).

Because the church in Antioch was growing so rapidly Barnabas felt the need of help. He knew just the man Ð Saul who was converted some 13 years before and whom Barnabas had helped as a young believer. Saul was living in his home town of Tarsus to the north of Antioch. Barnabas went there, found him and brought him back to Antioch (vv.25-26a). For a year Barnabas and Saul taught this young and growing church. Such was the impact of their teaching that pagans and Jews began to call these people ‘Christians’ (v.26b). The faith and lives of these believers was so distinctive that they were seen as Christ’s people.

Here then was a congregation that embraced the ethnic, cultural and social diversity of its city. It was a congregation of Jews and Gentiles and the Gentiles represented many peoples and classes. Not only so, but if this church was like other churches mentioned in the New Testament, it also embraced rich and poor people, slaves and free people, old and young people, men and women. Such ethnic, cultural and social diversity should characterise churches today as well. Of course not every church is located in such a diverse city as Antioch. But as far as possible, churches should reflect something of the ethnic, cultural and social diversity of their communities. This is the pattern we see in the New Testament in letters such as Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, James and so on. This is why church growth strategies that aim to build churches with people from one ethnic, cultural or social group are wrong. The technical term for this is the Homogeneous Unit Principle. Churches grow when they are made up mainly of people of one kind. To some extent that principle is fine for evangelism since we cannot expect unconverted people to overcome their prejudices before they hear and believe the gospel. But as a principle for building churches it is unbiblical. I prefer the Heterogeneous Unit Principle. Spiritually healthy congregations embrace the diversity of their communities. In this way they become living demonstrations of the reconciling power of the gospel. In an ethnically, culturally and socially diverse city like London what a powerful witness that is.

Perhaps the areas we need to concentrate on today are age and social class. In time churches become more ethnically heterogeneous as the children and grandchildren of immigrants integrate with ethnic groups already here. However there is today a tendency to segregate churches on the basis of age and class. It is especially tempting to target students, professional people and the better off. So, for example, there are in many churches youth services that are the primary service for younger people. This trend must be resisted. The main church service should be for everyone, young and old, less well off and better off. This is not easy and some compromises on things like music have to be made. Preaching is also more difficult to a very diverse group, but we must try.

But how is it possible to build such churches? Naturally people gravitate to people like themselves. At worst there can be bitter enmity between different groups. How then are ethnically, culturally and socially diverse churches possible? Only through the gospel. That is why Barnabas and Saul spent the year teaching the church. They were simply teaching the gospel to these young Christians so that it was woven into the fabric of their lives. We get an idea of what they taught from the letters that Saul later wrote to churches in other multi-ethnic and multi-cultural cities. For example, read Colossians 3.1-18. As Paul (as he had become) describes the process by which believers are to change through their union with Christ and in the fellowship of his people, he does so cognizant of the way the gospel has broken down the barriers between them and made them one in Christ.

Paul is simply applying the gospel to the lives of a diverse group of people seeking to live in a way that pleases God in a messy world.

This is why the teaching of the gospel is so important in churches. Humanly we would divide up and gravitate towards people like ourselves. But the gospel of God’s reconciling grace keeps churches together. Yes there are differences due to our ethnic, cultural and social backgrounds. But there is far more that as Christians we have in common. Therefore the teaching of the gospel must be kept central in our churches. Our prayer is that its impact would be such that non-believers see us as Christ’s people because our lives and our churches reflect his character.

4. The practical compassion that transcended ethnic, cultural and social differences.

When some prophets came down to Antioch from Jerusalem one of them predicted that there would be a great famine (vv.27-28). Such a famine would mean that Jerusalem would be particularly affected as proved to be the case. Hearing this, the Christians in Antioch collected money and sent a gift to the Jerusalem church through Barnabas and Saul (vv.29-30). In this way the Christians in Antioch practically showed their compassion for their brothers and sisters in Judea in spite of their ethnic, cultural and social differences. Such an offering for Christians in need became a practice in the early church (1 Corinthians 16.1-3; 2 Corinthians 8.1-5).

This kind of practical compassion should be true of us today. If God has blessed us with material possessions and money we should share some of that with Christians in need in other parts of the world as well as in our own churches. After all, we are members of the same spiritual family. What will motivate us to be generous in our giving? It will be the gospel of Christ. In Christ God has been so generous to us in our deepest need that we should be generous to others whatever their need (2 Corinthians 8.9).

We’ve seen how the gospel advanced in an ethnically, culturally and socially diverse city like Antioch and how it can advance today in cities like London with all their ethnic, cultural and social diversity. That is the vision that we need to keep in our sights as Christians and churches. We need this vision in our churches and as we engage with others in church planting. No church will be perfectly reflective of the ethnic, cultural and social diversity of its community. But together we can work to build churches to aim to reflect the rich diversity of our cities. We need to celebrate the ethnic, cultural and social diversity of our communities as the gospel saves all kinds of people and brings them together in the church of Christ. As we do, may people have a glimpse of the great congregation made up of people ‘from every nation, tribe, people and language’ that will forever praise the Triune God for his grace.

* I warmly recommend Bruce Milne’s Dynamic Diversity (IVP) for anyone wanting to explores this issue further.

Ken Brownall is pastor of East London Tabernacle and editor of the theological journal Foundations which is published by Affinity.