A Winding Road

You never can tell how where you've been, what you've done, what you've heard, or who you are is going to come into play for the Kingdom of God. This is a long story, so maybe I will spread it out. Or maybe not.

About ten years ago, I met a woman in the UK Library. She looked lost and no one was helping her. I asked if she needed something and could tell from her accent that she was a Russian speaker. Her name was Svetlana, and because of a simple gesture of help, she took me to her house to meet her husband and parents. There was an impromptu concert, because her dad was an unbelievable tenor and Svetlana was a great pianist. Over the course of the next few months, I met many Russians, especially a babushka who was lost downtown and I helped her get home. I had just come back from First Church's mission trip to Estonia, and was blown away that the Russian I learned to be of use during the Cold War was turned to the Gospel. I asked the powers that be to find a way to minister to the rising tide of Russian immigrants. But there wasn't much interest, and a Russian pastor was assigned to Eastern Kentucky, when he could have a fruitful ministry right here in Lexington.

I vowed that if the opportunity to minister to immigrants ever came up again, I would jump on it. So, some of you know of my attempt to minister in the Ukrainian community. It came about because shortly after I got to Louisville, I kept running into Ukrainians. Unfortunately, I could see that a ministry to Ukrainians and immigrants generally was not going to mesh with where I was at that time. So, even though it was clearly a God-thing, I did not carry through. That said, I do believe that it will one day. I just have to be patient.

But perhaps not. There ends up being more to it than I can see. The Rock/La Roca has a subversive value behind its mission: to be a multicultural ministry. It is subversive not only in terms of the usual structure of churches, but I think we are finding that it is even subversive to our own comfort zones. To whit: Ruben and I discovered that we are perceived as an Hispanic ministry, or a church that has an Hispanic ministry. Not only do others see us this way, we see ourselves this way. And then we think we have done our job in being multicultural because we have Anglos and Hispanics together! We realized that we have a problem in our name. What will happen if Koreans or Sudanese begin to be a part of our church? Will we add a new name, “The Rock” in whatever language is coming? We're thinking maybe we just use a symbol, and become “The Church formerly known as...”

Here's how this comes to a head. Again about ten years ago, I was working for a small construction company. We were building a wooden fence with stone pillars. We had rebuilt a large rock wall and with all the masonry work going on, I got to thinking of my great-grandfather, who was a stonemason in France. He left because he did not really like his future as a stonemason in France. I got to thinking, “I am not so sure he left France thinking his great-grandson would end up doing masonry work in Kentucky, and preparing to be a Protestant minister at that.”

I grew up speaking French. In some ways I suppose most people expected that speaking a few languages I would be working overseas, if not doing something glamorous, at least not living the counter-intuitive life I have now. But then... the Kentucky Refugee Ministries in Lexington is settling a lot of Congolese refugees. Two things about the Congolese-- they speak French and they are often Methodists. There are a number of families here, and there are more on the way (26 this month).

America is in a golden age of immigration. Every wave of immigration has made us stronger, made us, well, more American. Let me tell you some sad facts:

There is no county in America that has more people in church than it did in 1990. So, that means that if your church has grown it has done so by transfer, by people moving to the suburbs, or by luring people from a church they use to go to. This last is especially pernicious because what it amounts to is larger churches siphoning people away from smaller churches that can't provide the “programs” that Christians who are retreating to fortress/enclave churches want. So, if you have seen a church grow, the sad fact is, it is hardly a church, because the mission of the Church is to go into all nations making disciples, not sit around providing a place for us to relax.

Add to that the pathetic excuse mainline churches give for their decline: educated people have fewer children, so therefore, there are not as many people in the churches. This is a subset of my “This-Is-Why-There-Are-Nazis” theory: there are some people who are not good enough to come to our churches! If they aren't white, college-educated homeowners, then the Assemblies of God can have them...

And finally, the coup de tache: the last time the mainline churches' growth kept pace with the rate of U.S. Population growth was 1896. This is really tough news; it mean the rot spans generations. In fact, there is no one alive who has a functioning knowledge of the work it took (and will take again) to grow.

My take on this (not that anyone listens) comes down to two issues. First, the mainline churches were very well established before the U.S. became an urban nation (1920). So, we weren't really prepared for the shift the nation was undergoing. Second, the immigrants of the early 20th century were predominantly Southern and Eastern European, who were mainly Roman Catholic. Previously, we did not have much trouble assimilating the various Northern Europeans who made up the wave of immigration in the second half of the nineteenth century. And we had become Anglicized Americans. So these boisterous large family Catholics were not quite what we wanted to deal with.

I know that we are comfortable with monocultural (homogenous) churches to the extent that we believe they are the Gospel way. And yet even a cursory read of the New Testament reveals a very diverse mix of languages, races, classes, etc. They were united in a very clear understanding of Jesus as Lord. The irony today is that our monocultural churches can't even agree on the authority of Scripture, the divinity of Jesus, or appropriate moral standards regarding the controversial issues of their times (two of which were homosexuality and abortion). The early Christians fought and died for these issues (among many others crucial to what we call “orthodoxy”).

I guess in the end, this is just personal to me. It's not just the business of ministry. As one old school preacher used to say, “If I wasn't a Methodist, I'd be A-Shamed.” I get sick when I see us continuing to decline, and comforting ourselves when some churches grow, as if they have done anything to bring new converts to the faith! Or how we get excited by a church like The Rock/La Roca. It shouldn't be an exception!

The population continues to grow. New immigrants come to our cities every day. There are close to 9,000 people from the former Yugoslavia in Louisville, 5500 Russians, maybe 1500 Ukrainians. Don't be fooled; they are not all, or even many, members of the Orthodox Church, or Muslims. They lived for 70 years under enforced atheism. We, it seems, are under something worse. I am not sure of the immigrant demographics in Lexington yet. But I will find out. Then again, I don't really need to. I have the names and addresses of some of the Congolese immigrants already here. And with 26 more coming just this month, I see a new church meeting at The Rock/La Roca/La Roche.