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Martin Camroux on some of the joys of a Multi-Ethnic Church
I had a marvellous moment during our Christmas Nativity this year. Mary and Joseph came down the aisle arm in arm. Mary was Ghanaian. Joseph was English. They took their place in a tableau, which included children from Korea, Nigeria, Uganda, the Caribbean, and white Afrikaner children from South Africa. And I thought this is the gospel lived out – a paradigm for the kind of world we dream of.
Ministering to Trinity in the last six years has been the most exciting time of my ministerial life. Trinity is the very centre of the London Borough of Sutton, its crown and lantern spire the town's most visible landmark. It is known for its ecumenical commitment, liberal theology and choral music but otherwise it was much like many white suburban churches. However both the social and racial composition of the area around the church is changing as flats replace many of the very large houses. Central Sutton is now very cosmopolitan – around one third of the children at my daughter's school are now Asian.
The exciting thing is that as the area has changed so has the Church. From an overwhelmingly white British Church we have moved to a situation in which the Church is now 72% white, 18% black African and Caribbean with others from all around the world. At the latest count we have 31 nationalities at Trinity and at the last newcomers evening of the 23 people present only two were British.
I claim nothing special about this. The same is true of many churches in London and many are far more ethnically mixed than we are. I have no expertise in multicultural ministry – no-one when I was called to Trinity spotted this as a key quality in a new minister. This is just how one suburban church reacted to change.
The first thing I think we did right was to recognise we needed help. I went to see a South African Minister in Tooting and read up everything I could find on the subject. Out of that we took a key decision to visibly demonstrate our commitment by making our leadership multi-ethnic. We committed ourselves to making sure there were black people on the Deacons meeting, doing Bible readings, welcoming at the door etc. I was so delighted when a new Nigerian Deacon told me that on his first visit he knew we welcomed black people when he saw a Ghanaian acting as a communion steward.
A second positive factor was a by-product of something else. A number of our Ghanaians came from Wesley Methodist Cathedral in Accra. Because the gospel is never just parochial but world wide it seemed good to develop a twinning relationship. A group from Trinity (including four of our young people) went out to Ghana and we have twice had return visits from Wesley. In its own terms this was marvellous – all that history, beauty, vitality and spirituality. But more than that it was an introduction to African culture. Confounding stereotypes it was interesting to find myself in a Church where the choir sang the 'Fe Deum! I was taken aback by the authority and respect given to ministers and realised I needed to start wearing a dog-collar a bit more! On the other hand drawn by the sound I went out at night to a back street charismatic service – a fascinating mix of speaking in tongues, exorcism, miracles and American style prosperity theology.
I feel at least a little more qualified to minister to a multi-ethnic congregation because of this. What do you say for example when a member of your congregation tells you that his sister has been attacked by witchcraft and has left the hospital to go to the shrine of a fetish priest? No-one prepared me for that in theological college! At least I had the chance in Ghana to discuss witchcraft so I knew to say that she should call in the minister to pray because Christ was stronger than any fetish.
A third thing we got right is that our theology and preaching is political and social. As a Church we are strongly committed to Commitment to Life, to the Jubilee debt campaign and to Make Poverty History. In Commitment for Life we are currently highlighting Silveria House in Zimbabwe and the appalling inhumanity of the Mugabe regime. Since we have a number of Zimbabweans in the congregation (some of whom are here for political reasons) this is not just a theoretical concern to them. It's just another sign that if you preach a non-political gospel you've surrendered the gospel because you can't preach to the needs of people.
This is just one example of how a multi-ethnic congregation changes the context of preaching. The racism of the BNP becomes more personal. When I said the war in Iraq was unwise, dishonest and immoral I knew that not only was a son of one of our members in the British army in Iraq but that another was in the US army. When the tsunami struck I knew we had Sri Lankan members with families directly involved. When I triumph in an England cricket victory it is all the sweeter for knowing there is an Australian present!
Churches live by their theological vision and Trinity is a strongly liberal church. Our Mission statement begins `Trinity is an open minded, inclusive, ecumenical church.' Since for us ecumenical means a commitment to the unity of all humankind, not just church unity, creating an inclusive multi-ethnic community is part of our core value system. When we sing All are welcome in this place we mean it. At the same time liberal theology developed in a secularised western society – its context therefore is very different from that from which some of our new members come. Ecumenism, critical biblical study, gender and sexual equality may be quite new concepts. `What do you mean by ordaining women' I was challenged last week – something that hasn't happened to me in a URC church for some time! I guess some degree of friction is probably inevitable.
It is important to grasp that what we are committed to being is a multi-ethnic church. We are not seeking to become an African congregation. That would hardly suit our Korean, Fijian or Japanese members. Nor would it help our Marcus Borg reading members who believe that `The heart cannot finally worship what the mind has rejected' (John Spong) and for whom it is a matter of basic intellectual and spiritual integrity to try to state the abiding principles of Christian faith in cogent and contemporary terms. Nor would it help our new younger British members who are completely new to the Christian faith and for whom much of Christian tradition is a foreign county. Offering a church for any of those groups individually might be easier than trying to create an inclusive congregation where they can all belong but it would be much less fun. Whether we shall succeed in this attempt I really do not know.
What I do know is that I believe in a Gospel which declares that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew, male nor female, black, nor white. That is what we are trying to live out at Trinity.
Martin Camroux ministers at Trinity Church, Sutton
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