White girl back home

Last week I visited the church my mom attends, not too dissimilar to the churches I grew up in.

I let my eyes wander around the sanctuary during the sermon and pretty quickly notice there were hardly any non-white people within my line of view. The only non-white person I could see was a young black girl, who was sitting on an elderly white man’s lap. Granted it was “low Sunday” after Christmas, when attendance is traditionally low, but there were probably still a good 300+ people in the vaulted sanctuary.

Leaving the service, I search and search, incredulous there really could not be any non-white people besides an adopted African American child at this church on this Sunday morning. In the coat hanger hall I see too young Chinese girls…with their white parents. I really start looking around hard now. I look into the fellowship hall with people of all ages and hair colors and sizes…but all pretty monochromatic skin color.

Finally, I see one older Asian couple as we are exiting.

I have made this realization before, it really wasn’t a big surprise: I am white and I am from white-dominated suburbs of Chicago that are less than perfect when it came to inviting, celebrating, and realizing diversity.

In the recent past, I would have been angrier: “Can’t these people see how white they are? How can they stand being with people just like them every Sunday? How are they going to find out about all the different theologies and interpretations out there, like feminist theology and liberation theology, when they only have one kind of person at their church?!?! How are they going to care about anyone’s reality except their own?!? Don’t they know Jesus wouldn’t go to an all white and all rich church!?!”

I felt out of place and missed my church back in LA where I get to say the Lord’s Prayer in Spanish and wonder at the delicacy of Nigerian headdresses on a weekly basis. I never felt quite right, like I belonged, in the churches growing up—maybe that’s why I ended up way out in a place that does not resemble Chicago suburbs one bit. But I did feel closer to the people at my mom’s church than I had before. I sincerely believe the leadership is searching for wisdom and truth and spirit and beauty. And so am I….

Some questions I would love to hash out with those in that church and others:
1) What does it mean for myself to be a product of a “monochromatic” church and to now spend my days in predominately African American, Latino, and Korean parts of Los Angeles?
2) What does the existence of monochromatic churches, of any color, mean for myself and others who are committed to addressing injustices and disparities among different ethnicities?
3) What does a monochromatic church, of any color, mean for the kind of faith that is nurtured in that environment? What does it mean for the entire Christ-following Christian faith to have pockets of people growing and disciple-ing in this way?
4) At times, white people have been charged with bringing back to our mostly white communities messages of how our privilege affects others. What would that look like in mom’s church or in my church growing up?