Leading a Multiethnic Fellowship

A conflict that arose during a time of transition for the fellowship was a shaping experience for the leadership team. One African-American woman, raised in a relatively homogeneous fellowship of Eritrean believers in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in Chicago, was invited to be part of the fellowship’s student leadership team. This student got involved in the fellowship at the beginning of her freshman year at Amherst, co-founding a group called B.A.S.I.C. (Brothers And Sisters In Christ), an accountability group geared toward African and African-American believers on campus. She was dedicated to the ministry of students of color from the very beginning, as demonstrated by her efforts. She loved the Lord and actively served in the fellowship where help was needed. Her conviction and commitment, therefore, made her an easy and desirable candidate for the leadership team.

As the current African-American student on the leadership team, Sarah chose to talk to this student about the leadership position invitation. When approached, this student met the offer with a great deal of hesitation. She told Sarah that despite her involvement in the fellowship she did not feel entirely comfortable around the white members of the community. Not only did they worship differently, but she found they made little effort to reach out to racial minority students. She said racial minorities already feel significant discomfort walking into the weekly service or a fellowship Bible study and being in the minority. That discomfort is intensified by the discomfort of feeling forced to have to keep to themselves because members of the white majority could hide in their numbers, choosing neither to compromise nor confront the discomfort racial minorities felt in a cultural setting so decidedly different from their own. No African-American student wants to take that on, she explained.

In spite of her reservations, this student eventually agreed to join the leadership team on a trial basis. Not long into the transition, however, she decided to leave. Her sudden resignation upset many of the other leaders, including Paul Sorrentino, the team advisor. Everyone sensed there was an issue at hand; but no one knew how to go about fixing it, and this student offered no explanation for her decision. Paul eventually asked Sarah if she would be willing to talk to this student about her concerns and ask what needed to be changed and whether a resolution could be reached that would bring her back to the leadership team. Sarah agreed, and when she sat down with her and got into conversation, this student began to reiterate many of the initial concerns she had when contemplating the position.

Her concerns troubled Paul. He felt they needed to be addressed promptly in front of the whole fellowship. Rather than ask this student to articulate her personal frustrations, however, he asked Sarah to take the time at a large group meeting to share her own experience with the community and to talk about the real challenges facing many students of color. The goal was to communicate to members of the fellowship the importance of cultural sensitivity in a society established on racial and ethnic divisions. The hope was that every member would therefore be compelled to avoid replicating those divisions and move instead toward reconciliation.

Sarah shared her background with the college fellowship and spoke frankly about the anger and hurt associated with exclusion, especially in the body of Christ where Christians are called to a different way of life. She explained that racial reconciliation called for everyone to give a little of themselves and take a little discomfort for the sake of unity. Believers truly committed to the kingdom of God will recognize the importance of being to others as was Jesus of Nazareth and also Simon of Cyrene, in not only taking up their daily crosses, but also helping their brothers and sisters shoulder theirs.

This was not an easy shift for white student leaders for a number of reasons, despite their willingness and commitment to creating and sustaining a multiethnic Christian community. White students, as students of color, do not always share the same cultural experiences.

One student admitted to struggling with the issue of race as a member and leader of a multiethnic fellowship, acknowledging her own initial lack of desire to compromise her comfort for the sake of others, despite recognizing the fact students with different cultures and traditions often do it regularly. Only later did she begin to come to terms with the fact one cannot be an effective leader in a diverse fellowship by simply doing what feels most comfortable for the individual.

One of the greatest challenges was how to make different aspects of the fellowship more accessible to people from different backgrounds. She describes feeling as though she had nothing to say as a white student, having a racial background that was practically homogeneous, and having no real experiences of multiracial interaction until arriving at college. She explained, however, that serving on the leadership team and listening to others debate various topics, such as how to enhance individuals’ ability to worship, taught her to respect different backgrounds as part of the individual and engage in these important issues, for the wholeness of a community is established in the coming together of its unique parts.

That meeting was a turning point for the fellowship. Out of it came one of the most genuine conversations Christians of different racial and ethnic backgrounds had ever had with each other at Amherst. Members talked about their backgrounds and perspectives on the role of racial diversity and reconciliation within a fellowship; and out of those conversations, visible efforts began to be made by all towards greater unity. The student who had initially expressed her discomfort ended up rejoining the leadership team that semester and found the atmosphere improved.

The fellowship’s struggle to become one in the body of Christ did not end there. Unity is dynamic and requires committed engagement for the long term. The challenge continues, as it did before, and as it will hereafter. Anything worth having requires sacrifice. The struggle, however, is necessary for the beauty of what comes of it: compassion, mercy, and ready forgiveness. It is hard, it is painful, and it is frustrating. It is what Jesus meant when he said, “Follow Me.”

Being effective leaders in a multiethnic fellowship required individuals to keep the experiences of others in mind while being aware of the significance of their own experience in the shaping of their identities. This is not always easy. To form a family out of any group of people is difficult enough, let alone when one adds the variables of background, ethnicity and tradition.

All individuals must question themselves and come to terms with their own biases and prejudices during the process, evaluating and openly sharing the ways in which background and ethnicity shape perspectives and worldviews. A community of trust, however, is required for everyone in a fellowship to feel greater freedom in exchanging personal sentiments for the sake of working through concerns, growing closer as individuals and edifying the collective body. The dialogues that unfold in a fellowship community of trust prove fruitful, for members can constructively be made aware of the neglect they can unwittingly impose on each other, and be challenged to readily forgive offenses and love fellow believers through their mistakes and imperfections. Believers learn firsthand the burdens of one become the burden of all in a truly Christ-centered community of mercy and love.

Serving as leaders in a multiethnic fellowship has had enduring influence on the personal and professional lives of many of the students after college. Many graduated having adopted participation in multiethnic, multidenominational community as a personal value. Several of the former leaders have gone on to do missions and volunteer work in diverse areas; some continued to intentionally seek out friendships and communities of individuals with ethnicities from all walks of life; others chose to marry individuals from different cultural backgrounds; one former leader celebrates having served on a pastoral search committee that has led to the calling of the church’s first African-American pastor in the church’s 370-year history.

Most leaders give credit to the experiences they had in an intentionally multiethnic fellowship for opening their minds to these possibilities and committing them to service and social justice as outflows of their faith in the gospel. Yet while the lessons learned as leaders in the Amherst Christian Fellowship have led individuals to actively seek out intentionally multiethnic faith communities and labor on behalf of the marginalized, they recognized that multiethnic fellowship demands lifelong commitment, engagement, participation and compassion. Everyone has blind spots, making community with brothers and sisters from every tribe, language, people and nation necessary to the embodiment of the kingdom of God, united by a common Savior and King.

Although believers display many external differences, from skin color to denominational background, all are the beloved adopted children of the heavenly Father; the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Catholic biology major who only prays in Korean, also dwells in the warm-hearted Haitian who bursts into song in the middle of her speech, the straight-up white athlete from West Virginia, the mischievous Puerto Rican from the Bronx, the jazz-loving Mexican Indian who dances like a fiend, and the sassy Ghanaian whose response to every misfortune in life is “Hey, at least I’m not dead.” In multiethnic fellowship, whether on a college campus on in a church community, one learns it is not external determinants such as skin color, that bind us together, but rather the internal, eternal truth that we are all running the race together. We can have unity in diversity because regardless of where we come from, it is in God we trust. Indeed.

Adapted with permission from A Transforming Vision: Multiethnic Fellowship in College and in the Church by Paul Sorrentino (IVP). The book is available at leading book stores including Amazon.

YouthWorker

YouthWorker

Leading a Multiethnic Fellowship

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