“We were blown away,” says Jon Kramka, conference director of mission development, noting that organizers would have been excited if they had between 75-100 attending.
The daylong conference focused on bringing together people doing or interested in multiethnic ministry. Other sponsors included the Greater Minnesota Association of Evangelicals and Mosaix Global Network.
“We wanted it to be inspirational as well as affirming to those who find themselves in that arena,” Kramka says. “We also wanted it to be engaging to those who are exploring this area of ministry, just to dive deeper into their commitment as well as the practical and theological insights on how we do this effectively.”
Conference attendees represented generational, economic, and ethnic diversity, Kramka says. They met for two plenary sessions led by Cheryl Sanders, pastor of Third Street Church of God in Washington D.C., and professor of Christian ethics at Howard University School of Divinity; and Michael Emerson, professor and the director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and author of United by Faith: the Multiracial Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race. Visit Covenant Bookstore for another book, Divided by Faith, relating to the topic.
The conference also featured workshops that focused on how developing multiethnic churches impacts areas of church life, including worship, preaching styles, leadership, and youth ministry.
Attendance at the conference was representative of what is developing elsewhere, says Efrem Smith, pastor of Sanctuary Covenant and one of the event’s hosts. “Around the country, there is a groundswell of pastors who want the church to more resemble heaven.”
Smith adds, “There’s a social mandate, but more importantly, there’s a biblical mandate to be multiethnic.”
Not every church will be able to be multiethnic within its walls,” Smith says. However, he emphasizes that every church can engage in significant activities that lead to compassion, mercy, and justice. Those activities might include partnering with a church that is different from it or being sure to include people of different ethnicities to speak at services and retreats.
Churches cannot be “guilted” into becoming multiethnic, Smith says. Borrowing from author David Anderson, he explains, “Gracism must trump racism.”
It was fostering that kind of grace that led Smith and Kramka to team with area pastors from an Asian American church and an African American congregation, as well as a professor from Bethel University, to explore how they can advance multiethnic ministry among themselves and others. They met with a cohort of roughly 15 other pastors of multiethnic churches every other month for 18 months.
The decision to open their discussion for others led to the conference, Kramka says. The original five operated as the steering committee.
Despite the enthusiasm, developing multiethnic ministry can be difficult for any leader or church member, organizers say. “Selfishness will always appear somewhere along the road, but that’s an opportunity for reconciliation,” Kramka says.
Attendees at the conference included David Olson, ECC director of church planting; Luke Swanson, pastor of Community Covenant Church; John Foley, Living Stones Covenant Church; Terrance Rollerson, Compass Covenant Church; and John Jacobi, Crosstown Covenant Church.
Organizers will meet Monday to discuss holding a second conference next year, Kramka says.
