Work.
Good afternoon, everybody.
My name is Stu Williams.
I am the senior pastor of the Skyview
Community Church of the Nazarene, located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
I am originally from South Africa, born
and raised in Cape Town, and moved to Canada in 1998.
Um, did my studies at what is now known as Ambrose University and then
at our theological college in Manchester, England, and just recently completed a
doctoral program through our seminary in Kansas City.
I served as the senior pastor.
I am serving as the senior pastor of this
church and going into my 15th year of ministry here.
As the church has changed over the last five years.
In particular, I discerned the importance of responding to the change and wanting to
do so in a biblically and theologically informed way, and so pursued a doctoral
program to help me develop both the insights and the perspectives that I hope
would be helpful as I lead our church forward.
Thank you for joining me, and it's my
privilege to share some of my findings and research with you today.
I've titled this presentation The Promise of Difference and Intercultural Response
to Racial Diversity Within a Canadian Church.
As our Church has changed, a significant question emerged for me over the course of
the last several years, and that question is relevant given the diversity of race
that we have experienced as a local church.
Underlying my research is this question how can the local church embody a biblical
ecclesiology that is integrative, inclusive and honoring of diverse races
and cultures and serve as witness to the reconciling power of God?
The impetus for this research derives from three realities.
The first is that our church has changed
significantly over the last five years in 2018.
In the fall of 2018, we moved into our own
church facility, the first one that we have built as a local church.
The church has existed for 30 years prior to us actually building our own facility,
and for much of its 30 year existence met in rental facilities ranging from
school gymnasiums to college chapels to community centers.
But when we moved and built our own facility and moved in, we grew
significantly and quickly representative of the racial diversity
within the community in which the building is located.
A second reason why I pursued this
particular question is that my observation, and I'm sure it is true for
most of us listening here today, is that there seems to be a growing racial problem
within Western culture and society, certainly within the United States.
We can easily identify the racial
challenges that is present there with the rhetoric of building a wall to
keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States, to the fears and concerns
surrounding movements like Black Lives Matter and the racial profiling and
the challenges surrounding African Americans in the United States.
But as neighbors to the north, we too have our challenges.
The recent discovery of mass graves unearthing not only a history that many
Canadians don't fully know well, but also showing us the ways in which the Christian
church has been at times complicit in responding to diverse others in ways that
are not truly reflective of our Christian confession.
And so we see even today polarization
affecting Canadian society as it relates to immigrants and the concerns and the
fear surrounding certain people groups entering our communities even today.
And then there's a third and personal reason for why this research question
matters to me, and it has to do with my own upbringing in a racially segregated
South Africa and a racially segregated church.
The more I research, the more people I study and learn from, the more I recognize
that how their lives and their theological or their academic perspectives has
significantly been shaped by their lived experience and their context.
Then I am no different to being shaped
by my segregated upbringing, which birthed in within me a strong desire to be a part
of a church that reflected a diversity and inequality of people.
These three things, then, are the reasons why I pursued this particular research.
And it is my hope that in the brief time
together, what I have found might be of help and interest to you.
Underlying my approach is what Michael Goeyan defines as the primary task of
theology, which he says is to express faith in relationship to the relevant
issues of the day so that the church may fully and vividly take hold of the faith.
Really,
the reason I include this is because when I began my research,
I soon learned that some people were curious as to why I thought it necessary
to devote several years of my life to answering the question.
And while certain perspectives that perhaps are shaped more by fear of
engaging with the issues that often are divisive within our world
could keep us from engaging and responding appropriately as the church, it has been
my underlying conviction, if you will, that the responsibility of pastors
and communities of faith is to practice contextual theology.
That is, that we need to stand within our particular traditions.
I am nazarene.
I am Wesleyan in my thinking that it is important for me to stand
within those traditions, not in such a way as to say that our theology does not
empower us to think contextually about what the church ought.
To be and how the church can respond to issues such as systemic racism within our
prevailing culture, but must have the posture of engaging the world with the
hope of Christ and being faithful to who we are as the church.
My approach is fairly simple.
I first sought to analyze the demographic shifts within the surrounding communities
within which our church facility is now located.
This community comprises five
neighborhoods known as the Northern Hill Suburbs, about 60,000 people.
A community that is one of the most racially diverse communities in the
greater Calgary area, containing high levels of immigrants,
primarily from South Asia, but from a wide range of countries and nationalities also,
our local church began to reflect this diversity.
And so it was important for me to not only
understand the demographic reality of the surrounding
neighborhood, but to also look at our local church and to see what our
constituency was as far as race and cultural diversity is concerned.
I would add that as I try to get a clearer
sense of who we are as a local church, it became very clear to me that as a part
of our particular denomination, the church of the Nazarene,
who is known for statistical recording that significantly we do not track racial
demographic representation within our local churches.
And I think that's a significant and
telling reality because we often reveal what matters to us by what we count.
And so, as I analyzed our local church and its growth, I did not have a history
of statistics to go back to to look at racial change and demographic shifts and
had to do a lot of that work myself based upon our time in this new community.
I also was interested in analyzing the
denomination configuration or constituency as far as racialized people are concerned.
And so I studied what our Nazarene church
on the USA Canada region has engaged in as far as cross cultural engagement and what
the realities are that we can take from how our denomination has postured itself
historically and presently to include racialized others.
And then I engaged in a historical review
of Christian engagement with racialized peoples.
In particular, I was interested in
learning from our own context and history here in Canada as it pertains to
indigenous people and church engagement, Christian engagement with indigenous
people, and also with how our church responded to the exclusion often of
African Americans or American blacks in the United States.
All of this are held in conversation with
key biblical texts to help formulate a theological perspective on what has
historically been viewed as the problem of difference.
And I eventually presented as a framework an intercultural approach to the church.
And it's really important to stress that
while multicultural churches have become something that many denominations pursue,
the research that has produced recently by Christina Edmondson and Brennan show that
multicultural churches often fail to address the racial inequality
that still persists not only outside the church, but within the church, and that
more ought to be sought than representation.
Hence the pursuit of an intercultural church in which racial diversity, cultural
diversity, becomes assets to the formation and the mission of the church, and not
simply the pursuit of diverse representation.
Looking at our social context, then, our
local church began to reflect the racial diversity of the surrounding community.
Our physical location and the aesthetic of
our building certainly was appealing to newcomers.
We are also located on a significant bus route, and it isn't
anticipated in the next ten to 15 years that the light rail transit
called Sea Train here in Calgary will come right by our current church property.
We grew by 85% in worship attendance in
less than twelve months since we moved into the NHS, and the majority of the
people that started to attend our worship services are racialized people, many
immigrants, first and second generation that started to attend our church.
Interestingly, as we grew, we also started
to experience the loss of existing families.
We recognized that it is hard to know why people truly leave,
but sociological studies have shown that when neighborhoods change demographically,
when they become more diverse, there is often what has been called white flight,
where people from European descent who primarily have lived in these communities,
move out of these communities because of the growing diversity.
Church congregational studies also show
that the same phenomenon takes place within local churches, that when local
churches become diverse, they also experience what is called white flight.
Despite the steady growth through
immigration within the NHS, of the eleven registered churches present within these
communities, only two identify as multicultural.
Now, when we say multicultural, we generally mean that no one specific racial
group constitutes more than 80% of the church or the congregation.
And as I looked into the social realities
as far as the demographic makeup of the churches are concerned, within the NHS, I
found that three were Eurocanadian majority churches and eight were and
Sorry, and seven were immigrant specific churches.
And this shows that within multicultural
or multicultural neighborhoods that churches don't necessarily reflect such
diversity, but can still maintain fairly homogeneous gatherings, whether it be
immigrant specific, language specific or cultural specific churches.
Edmondson and Brennan
has alerted us most recently through their study of evangelical churches in the
United States that multicultural churches can often become a hindrance to churches
addressing the systemic issues of racial injustice in our world.
Because representation does not allow, as has been already stated so far,
for addressing the social inequalities that often accompanies some of the
systemic issues that racialized people deal with to this day, and hence the fact
that there is a need as I did my research and listened to what has been done and
read what present studies show about multicultural churches to think more
integratively about culture and race within the local church.
I also looked at our denomination and as I
look back to when the church was first formed in the early 19 hundreds, our
denomination was birthed with a holiness ethic that held personal transformation
and social change together as two sides of the same coin.
This happened primarily because those who
formed what will become known as the Nazarene Church were drawn to the least of
these in the cities, in the slums, the ministry of the early Nazarenes were
to those people who others perhaps would exclude.
And within the founding ethos
there was a strong emphasis on salvation and coming to faith in Jesus Christ and
addressing the social ills that kept people in poverty and kept people from
opportunities for living full and healthy lives.
Historically, we now know that as Jim Crow ended this era in which blacks were
intentionally marginalized and excluded from opportunities economically and were
treated as less than equal to others in the United States, that when that era
ended, it led to what sociologists call the great reverse.
All of a sudden, as blacks were free to
travel in the United States and to move beyond the restricted areas,
they often ended up in cities where they were seeking economic opportunity.
And as blacks began to
head to the cities, the predominantly white church, including our own
denomination, began to withdraw from the cities.
This withdrawal was costly.
And the very tension that held together
personal change with social change was bifurcated into what we now
historically look at as a denomination, as producing two kinds of nazarene people
those who promoted holy living, defined by personal piety and evangelism, with a
suspicion to those who were socially conscious and socially engaged.
At our best.
Historically, the Nazarene church held these two realities together as a part of
a holistic, soteriology that God did not just seek to save us for heaven, but
sought to transform us so that we may live and bring heaven to earth.
And these two very strong
and important aspects of Christian faith were unfortunately detached as the church
withdrew from the places of need and ministry.
I also found that in contemporary studies, congregational studies, that white
normativity, that is, that Western thinking and thought both organizationally
and structurally about the church as well as in terms of its worship practices, et
cetera, and so on, still operates out of the primary cultural
lens of European culture as superior to all other types of cultures.
When I looked at what has been done recently in the area of research, I
stumbled across people like Vince Bontu, who,
along with Sam Churra has painted a picture for us that historically since the
era of Constantine, where christianity was made the official religion of the Western
world, that it has taken captive the imagination of many.
That Christianity is so much associated with European culture that it actually
becomes exclusive to other cultures or other racialized people.
From looking to Christianity as a viable and relevant expression of religion.
Bantu says that the primary stumbling block to racialized people in the west
engaging with Christian faith is not theological but racial.
And this is borne out through
congregational studies that show that even within churches that have a representation
of racialized others, that essentially the cultural perspectives and diversity of
others are often viewed as being extraordinary or viewed with suspicion.
And there is no room made for diversity within these existing congregations.
The two primary historical responses to cultural others has been either to seek
the assimilation of people or to segregate them from the common life of the church.
And in many cases, the Bible was used as
justification for both these approaches to cultural others.
The slave Bible that was
a Bible that was stripped of all the passages and scriptures in the Old
Testament and in the New that had a prophetic
word or perspective on justice, on equality, was a Bible that was used by
British missionaries and stripped from all these passages as a means to engage and
teach African slaves the Bible without letting them see parts of the Bible that
might invigorate their desires for equity, equality and justice.
And while the Slave Bible historically we look at and look at it today as
something that is just not something the present church would ever do.
Studies show that in evangelical churches
in both Canada and the United States, that matters of justice, which the Bible speaks
about inequality, which the Bible addresses, is often
excluded or held as less significant to other aspects of Scripture and today.
Still, the Bible can be used selectively
to posture communities towards non engagement with the relevant issues, in
particular as a means of excluding people from the life and the community of faith.
In my research there were several implications.
I'll just list a few that I think are
perhaps important limiting ourselves to the time we have before us.
First is that who does theology sets the parameters.
It is interesting to look at the historical development of the church and
to look at its engagement with non Western culture.
One soon realizes that those who determine the interest of theology,
who it serves, often could do theology that is exclusive of others and not
reflective of the dignity of cultural difference.
Second, withdrawal shapes theological perspectives.
When the church moved away from racialized
others, it was easy to define theology that did not include and did not meet,
reach out and was not required to respond to the challenges of other people groups.
And with that said, the commitment to place matters.
So as we as a local church moved into this
community, it would be incongruent with the witness of the early church for us to
think of our theology apart from our context.
But we had to respond to the realities of the racial diversity within the community
and various other forms of diversity also, such as socioeconomic as a local church in
order to embody the Christian hope in our particular context.
And a commitment to place requires that
churches decide to stay and be planted and rooted within their communities,
irrespective of the social changes surrounding them.
For to leave is not a Christian response when it comes to viewing the opportunity
and the people around us as those created in the image of God and also those whom
God desires to have a personal relationship with.
And then finally, as I reflected upon the place of Scripture in shaping these
perspectives, I was invited to consider, through the scriptural analysis idea the
significance of reading Scripture together in community.
So much of the Western approach to
christian church and congregation focuses on the individual.
And it is very hard for us to understand
that even when it comes to the way in which the Bible is read historically in
the early church, and certainly within Israel's view of the Torah and Scripture,
it is a practice that was done in conversation with others.
And recovering the significance of a communal understanding of Scripture or
approach to Scripture certainly will present us with more voices and
challenges, but it can certainly also guard against myopia and selective
interpretation that often leads to theologies of exclusion or ignorance.
As I brought some of my implications to bear for our local church, I developed
what I called an intercultural framework for ministry.
Very simple practices that I think can
help churches to begin to think about reflecting the diversity within our world
in a way that avoids assimilationist or segregationist approaches and honors the
diverse cultures representative within our neighborhoods.
Diversity of race presents the local church with the opportunity to incarnate
something needed, something beautiful and authentically Christian.
And here's what I came up with.
I don't have time to speak through all this.
I think my time is almost up for the presentation.
But because of the significant challenges
that we still struggle with today as far as equality and inclusion of diverse
people within the church, one cannot begin apart from recognizing that any
significant transformation within the church, apart from God's help, apart from
the Spirit's movement within communities of faith, probably will not be successful.
And so prayer is a subversive action.
I talk about the corporate nature of prayer.
I talk about the importance of learning how to listen in prayer, not only to God,
but to the other, as a significant starting point to birthing something new
and needed within many of our existing congregations.
I talk about the significance of cross cultural friendship.
Leslie New begin, a significant
theological voice for many, experienced what he called
a decentring from his own perspectives that was shaped by his own British
upbringing when he lived and worked amongst people in India.
It is only when Leslie was in a different culture, learning and seeing and
discerning what God was doing in the lives and through the lives of others, that he
became aware of his own egocentrism and the need to expand his perspective of the
expression of the Christian faith beyond that which he knew and understood.
As our local church became more diverse, the opportunities are here.
Many of our people won't leave and travel and be missionaries in different cultural
contexts, as I view myself today as a South African in Canada.
But with the diversity present within our neighborhood and within our local church,
the opportunity to develop friendships that can broaden our perspective, confront
our bias, and help us to see beyond our own preferences presents each one of us
with the opportunity for reformation and transformation.
The Significance of Catalyst for Change
those who already embody cross cultural engagement in honoring ways within the
church is an important aspect of helping the church to grow and change.
Learning together and listening together, surrounding ourselves with others in the
pursuit of the spiritual life becomes important in practices of prayer, in
practice of scripture, in practices of listening to one another and then, of
course sanctifying cultural practices as cultural practices.
Non European cultural practices are often viewed with suspicion.
Could it be an opportunity for us to
develop a perspective of culture that is redeemable?
That there are things that you need to
different cultures that can be used and utilized in the service of God to enrich
our prayer life and our life of corporate worship and so forth?
I talked about the significant place or
the significant power of the table of fellowship.
Both the Eucharist, as in the ability to
form us for relationship where we stand before God as equals, all in need of
grace, the importance of hospitality around tables, learning to eat and
receive, learning to be a guest as well as host within other communities.
And I spoke about the importance of learning to speak in such a way that
people understand no, not necessarily as in Acts Two or as in the instances where
people are inspired with holy speech such as Glossal Alia.
But the church can do the work of learning how to speak and interpret the word of God
so that it would be understood amongst a diverse community of people.
Here the work of Eric Law on how to communicate better and how to communicate
in different ways other than through the primary way in which the western world
communicates, which is language to think more creatively about the way we can
communicate the message in a changing culture and in a changing church.
And then finally spoke about liminal formation.
Here I have in mind the way in which life
often puts us in positions where things have changed, where it is difficult.
The experience of loss or the experience of change that we have not sought often
enables people to see others in that liminal space as equals.
Those who experience loss can often become friends, can often become
empathetic, can often let go of some of the ways in which difference has kept them
from relationship with others in order to discern the shared humanity and
to be able to reach out in ways that they would not have done before.
These practices of course, have a context here within the local church.
They stem from some of the things we are
already doing and some of the things we are aspiring to do.
But as we embrace the opportunity that diversity presents the local church, I
believe that we have the opportunity as a local congregation in this wonderful city
that we are privileged to live in, to incarnate diversity in a Christian way
that honors the cultures and the unique differences of people while maintaining
the strong bond of Christian unity and love.
Thank you again for allowing me to present to you today.