Daniel Hill pastors River City Community Church, located in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago. For years, he’s been drawn to racial reconciliation, which is one of River City’s core values. This adapted excerpt is from an internal document Hill created for his church’s members.

IT IS RARE THAT I meet someone who disagrees with the notion that a local church should, at minimum, embrace people of all cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds and, at maximum, embrace racial reconciliation as a core value of the church. However, despite the intellectual agreement with this concept, a church that is authentically embracing the value of racial reconciliation will quickly find itself in stormy waters filled with controversy and conflict. When this happens, it creates an inevitable soul-searching within each person as to whether the end goal is worth the storms that must be passed through on the way. The concepts, by nature, tend to feel less important in times of tranquility. Rather, it is when the storms come and you find yourself questioning the veracity of the call to racial reconciliation that they become vitally important.

The Personal Response

Here are some principles that each believer can apply in his or her own life. These principles, by extension, also apply to the Body as a whole. But if leadership is applying them at a corporate level without adoption by the membership at an individual level, then the vision can be undermined.

Find a Balance in Racial Identity

One of our desires at River City is that when people come, they do not have to check their cultural identity at the door. We want them to come fully Chinese, fully African American, fully Mexican, etc. At the same time, we don’t want people to cling to their racial identity as a spiritual life preserver that gives them their primary sense of identity.

Therefore, a balance must be struck in how we understand our cultural identity. On one hand, we celebrate our cultural identity, for the sovereign God of the universe meticulously choreographed everything about us. This should be embraced and cherished. River City is failing in its mission if it consistently causes people to assimilate into the dominant culture.

On the other hand, when we experience a Christian conversion, our racial identity is no longer the most important part of our self-understanding. The Gospel gradually transforms our identity so that Christ becomes the central-most part of who we are, and everything else emanates from that reality.

For example, consider an African-American woman who has worked hard, put herself through school and is now a doctor. In the natural world, our identity tends to be tied to our cultural heritage and what we have accomplished. Therefore her identity might be rooted primarily in her African-American heritage, her achievements as a doctor, etc.

But if this woman experiences a genuine Christian conversion, there begins to be a re-ordering of what identifies her. Her African-American heritage is still important – but it is no longer the bedrock layer of her identity. Who she is in Christ becomes the most important part of her self-understanding. The rest of who she is then begins to be formed by her identity in Christ.

This is the dynamic by which we find a balance in understanding our cultural and racial identity. We embrace who God has created us to be and stay true to our roots. But we also avoid going down the road of finding our identity exclusively in our racial or cultural upbringing. As our Christianity becomes the foundation of our identity, we actually become more comfortable in our own skin because we internalize that God created us this way, while also becoming more flexible in what we used to consider non-negotiable (i.e. racial prejudices, cultural expectations, politics, etc.).

In “The Dynamics of Spiritual Life,” Richard Lovelace says of this transformation: “Once faith is exercised, a Christian is free ... to wear his culture like a comfortable suit of clothes. He can shift to other cultural clothing temporarily if he wishes to do so, as Paul suggests in I Corinthians 9:19-23, and he is released to admire and appreciate the differing expressions of Christ shining out through other cultures.”

One of the most crucial ways that the Christian Church embodies the Gospel is in the unity of Christians who are different from one another – economically, culturally and racially. We become free by the power of the Gospel, while also demonstrating to the world that people who cannot live in love and unity outside of the Gospel can do so in Christ.

Foster a Sacrificial Spirit

James Forbes Jr. from The Riverside Church in New York City summarizes this point well when discussing compromise and the comfort level at a church: “A truly diverse congregation where anybody enjoys more than 75 percent of what’s going on is not thoroughly integrated. So if you’re going to be an integrated church, you have to be prepared to think, ‘Hey, this is great, I enjoyed at least 75 percent of it,’ because 25 percent you should grant for somebody’s precious liturgical expression that is probably odious to you; otherwise it’s not integrated. So an integrating church is characterized by the need to be content with less than total satisfaction with everything. You have to factor in a willingness to absorb some things that are not dear to you, but may be precious to some of those coming in.”

Become a Student

A clear sign of a second conversion experience is when you become incurably fascinated with other cultures. You long to know more about their history, their experience, their values, their customs, etc. This is an area where we can all grow. We have already established that, in America, whites tend to know the least about other racial groups, but cultural ignorance is certainly not limited to us. In River City, there are already more than 20 nationalities represented, each with its own colorful history. Because God created each of those cultural groups uniquely and with its own “splendor” according to Revelation 21 there is an almost unlimited resource at your disposal for learning about God and His majesty.

In addition to drawing upon the experiences of those already present at River City, each of us would be wise to become voracious readers on this topic. On our Web site, www.rivercity.cc, we have a whole list of suggested reading on everything from the theology of racial reconciliation to historical books on different cultural traditions. If you are white and new to this journey, start with “Being White” by InterVarsity. It is a great primer for what lies ahead.

Acknowledge the Beauty along the Way

Beyond the difficulty and tensions that arise during the racial reconciliation journey, there’s an incomparable realm of beauty and transformation. Nothing will get you to your true self faster; nothing will speed up your learning process more; and nothing will turn you into a more nuanced and complete person than a healthy, God-centered journey around racial and cultural righteousness and healing. God is transforming your heart!

The Congregational Response

The aforementioned principles apply on a congregational level, as well as a personal one. In fact, for you to be able to implement those principles at an individual level largely depends on the vision, teaching and overall atmosphere at your church being conducive to their actualization. But there are a couple of additional principles that must be implemented at a congregational level:

Power Sharing

1. It is essential that church leadership intentionally seeks out power sharing at every level and rank among all the cultural groups it seeks to reach. This means that each of our leadership structures – elder overseers, financial overseers, pastors, staff members, volunteer ministry leaders – must have legitimate multicultural representation. This cannot be just an abstract ideal. Church leadership must seek to develop emerging leaders from each grouping and grow them into mature, gifted, culturally sensitive leaders that reflect the heart and character of God.

2. Within each ministry, be mindful of the “dominant note” of the leadership. This phrase alludes to the fact that no one communicates or leads in a culturally neutral way – someone’s ethnic identity will create a dominant note in whatever he or she is leading. For instance, because I am the dominant preaching presence on Sunday mornings, our church leadership is mindful that there is a Eurocentric dominant note in our communication style. I can be (and hopefully am) as mindful as possible to cultural diversity through my preaching style, but based on my cultural identity, I will always tilt the Sunday experience towards a Eurocentric style. Therefore, it is important to balance that out as much as possible to avoid becoming culturally imbalanced. For us, that means our Sunday worship leader is almost always someone culturally different from me.

Formation & Protection of the Environment

Those in leadership at River City must be constantly evaluating the discrepancy between our vision and the degree to which our overall environment is conducive to that vision becoming a reality. Questions need to be regularly asked such as:

• How well are we reaching the residents of the geographical community?
• Which cultural groups are most comfortable at River City? Which are most uncomfortable?
• How can we stretch people more? What teachings do they need to grow in this area?
• Are people able to participate without checking their cultural identity at the door? If not, why?

I remember in our early days that a woman who had grown up in an African-American church became a member. She was very expressive during worship for the first few Sundays and could always be counted on for an “Amen” during the service. But after a couple months, she quit doing both. I eventually asked her why. She responded, “No one else does it, so I feel silly.” The truth of the situation was that there were other members that came from that cultural tradition, but they also had stopped being expressive during the service because it did not match the ethos of the dominant culture of River City. This is an example of checking your cultural identity at the door. It is important that our churches foster an environment and ethos that is as embracing as possible of all the various cultural backgrounds in our communities. It is only then that true racial reconciliation can occur.