The Diversity Project

Stories of Multicultural Churches: Varied Origins

Recent Mennonite efforts (categories from The Church Planter’s Tool Kit)

During the 1990s the number of multicultural Mennonite congregations grew significantly. Some of these came into existence as multicultural congregations (Living Love Ministries in Illinois, Norristown in Pennsylvania), but more of them result from existing congregations which responded to a changed environment and a new sense of calling. The origins are quite varied. Here we describe some of them (using categories from The Church Planter’s Tool Kit) in the approximate order of frequency with which they seem to appear:

Revitalizing: Congregations which transform themselves

Community Mennonite Church of Markham, Illinois (Chuck and Bonnie Neufeld, pastors, 708-333-1358; chuckneufeld@compuserve.com), began in 1955 as a church plant of the Middle (now Central) District Conference of the General Conference Mennonite Church. By the 1960s the community was becoming African-American. Pastor Larry Voth invited the new neighbors to participate. Over several years of struggles and with many departures and many new families, a 20-30 person core of the Markham congregation continued throughout, and by the 1980s and 1990s the congregation was a firmly established integrated church of around 80 worshipers, about 60 percent African-American and 40 percent white and other. At present both pastors are white, and the congregation is looking for an African-American youth pastor. At other times the pastors have been African-American or both white and African-American.

Oxford Circle Mennonite Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Leonard Dow, pastor, 215-288-5330; leonarddow@aol.com), was an Anglo congregation for several decades. In about 1990 a black banker, Leonard Dow, joined as a member, gradually came into leadership, and was called as pastor in 1998. Prior to his call the congregation, under pastor Jim Leaman, had made significant changes toward greater informality in the style of music and worship. At present the worshiping community is around 55-60 persons, of whom about 50 percent are white, 25-35 percent Hispanic, and 15-25 percent African-American.

Reba Place Church in Evanston, Illinois (Virgil Vogt, pastor, 847-869-4599; vvvogt@ameritech.net), began in 1957 as a Christian intentional community. By the end of the 1980s, the church had a worshiping community of around 300. During the 1990s the congregation worked hard to implement a vision for evangelism and racial reconciliation in an integrated neighborhood. Both advice and experience pointed to the importance of African-American pastoral leadership if the shift from a predominantly white to a genuinely interracial congregation was to be accomplished. Jim Offutt and currently George Providence have served as full-time African-American pastors at Reba. In the interest of outreach to African-Americans, major changes were made in worship, music, small group design, and other aspects of church life. There was extensive teaching and dialogue on racism and race relations. By the end of the 1990s, Reba had a worshiping community of about 150, of whom about 20 percent were African-American.

Multinational Hispanic congregations like Centro Cristiana and Sonido De Alabanza in Cicero, Illinois, have been able to join Christians and converts from more than a dozen Latin nations into large and growing evangelical congregations. Their pastors are very deliberate about how they recognize "independence days" like El Cinco de Mayo and other distinctives of different nationalities among their members. Both of these congregations have grown from small remnants of earlier Hispanic Mennonite congregations which split during the 1980s. Crucial to their growth has been stability under strong pastoral leadership.

Branching: A group "hives off" to realize a vision

Immanuel Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, Virginia (Basil Marin, pastor, 540-432-0711; also Gerald Shenk, shenkng@emu.edu). In the late 1980s a group of members of Broad St. Mennonite Church in a working-class neighborhood of Harrisonburg decided that the time had come to step out and launch a congregation with a multicultural vision. That group (which included one Black family) met on the Eastern Mennonite Seminary campus for two or three years and maintained an active vision to return to the Kelly St. neighborhood they had left. Sara Wenger Shenk served as pastor, along with Linford Stutzman.

During those years they actively recruited Hispanic and other minority leaders (notably Jose Ortiz, who had joined the EMS faculty) and received many international students as members. To deal with their difficulty finding African-American leadership, they arranged for Stan Maclin to preach to the congregation once a month. Their search for available Black leadership took two years before Basil Marin moved from Los Angeles to Harrisonburg to become the pastor of Immanuel and a student at EMS.

In about 1990 they bought a piece of land in the Kelly St. neighborhood and began work on a church building. Mark and Pauline Lehman relocated into the immediate neighborhood and began active outreach to the community. At the end of the 1990s, Immanuel has a worshiping community of about 150, of whom perhaps 20-30 percent are people of color (a mix of internationals and African-Americans). [Source: Gerald Shenk, 12/23/99]

Reba Place Church of Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois (Sally Schreiner, pastor, 773-764-5872; Sallyrpc2@aol.com), began in the late 1980s when several young people in Reba Place Church in south Evanston felt God wanted to establish an outpost of the congregation a few miles to the south in the crowded multicultural Chicago neighborhood known as east Rogers Park. A growing number of members of the Evanston congregation associated themselves with the new venture, and many moved into the neighborhood. This daughter congregation had the full blessing of the parent group, and by about 1996 it began its own separate worship services. The Cambodian group at Reba became part of it, as did a growing and diverse number of residents of Rogers Park. Karl McKinney, an African-American pastor, joined Sally in leadership. By the end of the 1990s, the congregation of about 100 was about 70 percent Anglo and 30 percent Cambodian, African-American, Hispanic and other.

Pioneering: A church planter starts with wider support

Living Love Ministries in Peoria, Illinois (Maria Hatfield, pastor, 309-676-2772), began in 1995 when Ed King, pastor of Calvary Mennonite in Washington near Peoria, felt a call to establish a bilingual and multicultural congregation in an inner-city neighborhood of Peoria. With support from two conferences (MBM and Amor Viviente), he and his wife, Gloria, moved to Peoria and began vigorous outreach efforts toward African-Americans and Hispanics. A number of Anglos from Calvary and elsewhere were active members during the first several years. By the end of the 1990s, Living Love had a worshiping community of about 70, perhaps 80 percent of whom were Hispanic. Services are conducted in both Spanish and English. To date, few African-Americans have joined Living Love.

Partnering: The joining of monocultural congregations

Norristown New Life Mennonite Church, Norristown, Pennsylvania (Luke Beidler, pastor, 610-279-5433; lukdot@juno.com), began in 1990 when three small Mennonite congregations in the Norristown area—one African-American, one European-American, one Hispanic—concluded that their witness would be better if they combined into one congregation. They agreed on ways to have both united and separate church events and retain part-time pastors from each of the three original congregations. By late 1999 the worshiping community at Norristown was about 120. The ethnic composition of the congregation was 40-50 percent African-American, 20 percent Hispanic, the remainder Anglo, with gradually less and less ethnic Mennonites.

Norristown currently worships in English and Spanish, alternating weekly between the two with translation provided. The congregation is economically diverse, with a healthy mix of poor, working class, retired, and middle-class professionals. Many young families have moved into the neighborhood. They use a diverse array of worship music: black gospel and spirituals, hymns, praise choruses, and Spanish-language songs. The congregation intentionally faces the temptation to be racially or ethnically exclusive. Pastor Luke Beidler says, "We emphasize telling the truth in love concerning prejudice, racism, and ethnocentricity. We discourage the use of language such as they or we."

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For further information or feedback on this study, contact Rocky Kidd, 4331 Carey, East Chicago, IN 46312, 219-677-4112 (RockyKidd@usa.net) or Allan Howe, 723 Seward St., Evanston, IL 60202, 847-475-5041 (AHHowe@aol.com)

Taken from A New Humanity: Anabaptist Ministry Among Many Peoples (© 2000 New Life Ministries). Permission to reproduce for local church use only is granted. Provided by New Life Ministries, 6404 S Calhoun St, Fort Wayne, IN 46807, through its web site at www.NewLifeMinistries-NLM.org