Congregational Diversity and Expository Preaching-Part 1

By Tim Raymond.

Congregational diversity is a hot topic in the evangelical church today, and for good reason. Evangelical churches in general, and Baptist congregations in particular, do not exactly have a reputation for being rainbow families. We’ve all heard the unfortunate truism, “Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.” That reality seems so widespread and universal it hardly needs proving. I happened to grow up in a very large traditional Baptist church, and looking back, in a congregation of around 1,000 people, perhaps 90% of us were white, Anglo-Saxon, upper middle class, social conservatives. That scenario seems the norm for evangelicals. In addition to the obvious racial segregation that plagues the church, there’s also a large degree of cultural segregation. So we have cowboy church, biker church, Saddleback Sam church, indie rocker church, church for starving artists, and so forth. For some reason Bible-believing Christians in America tend to group themselves together on the basis of earthly commonalities, be it race, class, socio-economic status, education, or even taste in culture.

Such realities rightly grate against our Christian conscience. We teach our children to sing, “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world,” and yet, our children rarely see most of these colors sitting in the pews around them. Theologically we know that Abraham’s Seed took on human flesh to bless all the families of the earth (Gen 12:3), that through His death, Jesus paid for the sins of people from every nation (Rev 7:9), and that after His resurrection, our Lord commanded His church to take the Gospel to every tribe (Matt 28:19-20). And yet for some reason, our congregations are as varied and diverse as plain yogurt.

The ways in which evangelicals have responded to this odd inconsistency are (no pun intended) diverse. Some churches, feeling the need to diversify, attempt to plant multiple campuses comprised of different ethnicities. So, for example, a church might have an Anglo congregation, a Chinese congregation, a Latino congregation, and so forth, all under the authority of one church leadership. Other churches utilize multi-ethnic music styles, intentionally appoint diverse individuals to their leadership team, or target those sectors of their community wherein diverse people live. Unfortunately, it seems that many churches, due either to laziness, confusion, or frustration, resign themselves to the idea that nothing can be done to diversify the American church this side of the New Heavens and the New Earth.

While there are many useful and commendable strategies for diversifying the American church, including ones that I should be encouraging more in my own congregation, in this and my next blog post I’d like to meditate with you on a method for facilitating congregational diversity that I don’t see receiving much press. Up front I want to say clearly that this is not the only strategy for creating congregational diversity or perhaps even the most effective. But I do think it is a neglected method that all churches can employ with relative simplicity. It is the method of simple expositional preaching.

In the last five years, the congregation I am privileged to pastor has essentially doubled in regular attendance. Not only have we grown numerically, but, more surprisingly, at least to me, these newcomers are strikingly diverse. Some are septuagenarians while others are college students; some have earned doctorates while others dropped out of high school; some are white-collar professionals while others are blue-collar laborers; some grew up in rather strict Sabbatarian homes while others spent time in prison; some were in church nine months before their birth while others had not attended a Christian church until fairly recently. Though not as great as we’d like, we have seen a bit of ethnic diversification as a result of parents taking adoption more seriously and through serving internationals temporarily in the States from countries including Kenya and the Dominican Republic. Over time, I am seeing more and more of a kaleidoscope looking out from the pulpit. This is all the more surprising when you consider that Muncie, Indiana (read “Indy-an-ER”) is not a particularly diverse community.

Perhaps the most interesting form of diversification we’ve observed is theological diversification. Make no mistake, I am a confessional Baptist and am on a mission to see everyone in my congregation become likewise. I unashamedly preach historic Baptist theology. But in recent years we’ve attracted both Fundamentalists and those from Liberal Protestantism, both credo-baptists and paedobaptists, both mild Pentecostals and convinced cessationists, both semi-Arminians and consistent Calvinists, both the theologically educated and those who have never heard the word “adiaphora.” While we were not able to adopt all of these individuals into membership, needless to say, this makes for some very interesting (and lively) Sunday school discussions.

If you were to ask some of these newcomers what attracted them to our particular congregation, I’m fairly certain you’d hear a consistent answer: expositional preaching (though most would probably not use that terminology). In many ways we are a fairly traditional American church. We sing classic hymns and theologically sound contemporary choruses, read a good bit of Scripture, I wear a suit, pray a few times during the service and preach for about 50 minutes. We don’t have a coffee shop or a rock band, we don’t do drama, and I don’t have any tattoos. Yet, in all humility, our congregation has acquired a reputation in our community for consistently providing clear, thought-provoking, practical Bible-centered sermons. This has just become part of our church’s DNA. And for those looking for such sermons in our area, we’re apparently the place to go.

Theologically, the connection between congregational diversity and expositional preaching simply makes sense. Jesus died for sheep from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation (Rev 5:9). These sheep listen to Jesus’ voice when and where they hear it and then follow Him (John 10:27). Therefore it stands to reason that if a congregation will faithfully proclaim Jesus’ words, that will inevitably result in at least a degree of congregational diversity.

Looking back to that big Baptist church I attended growing up, it doesn’t surprise me that the pastors did not, for the most part, practice expositional preaching, where the point of the text of Scripture is the point of the sermon. Most of the sermons were bland, doctrinally-shallow, storied talks that often got around to addressing some contemporary issue in American politics. And bland sermons, not centered on the point of the passage, do not create a diverse congregation.

Now if what I’m arguing for is true, the obvious question we’re forced to ask is, “What about all of those faithful pastors who do practice expositional preaching but who are not experiencing congregational diversification? What if I’m doing my best to preach God’s word but my congregation remains monolithic? Does that contradict what you’re saying?” We’ll address these questions tomorrow in part 2 of this mini-series.

 

Tim Raymond has been the pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Muncie, Indiana since April 2006. He received his MDiv from the Baptist Bible Seminary of Pennsylvania in 2004 and has pursued further education through the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation. Tim grew up outside Syracuse, NY and previously served at Berean Baptist Church, Nicholson, PA (member and teacher during college and seminary) and Calvary Baptist Church, Sandusky, Ohio (seminary internship location). Tim met his wife Bethany at college, and they were married in May 2001. Tim enjoys reading, camping, wrestling with his three sons, and attempting to sleep.