I was listening to a Geneva Push podcast earlier this week from their recent Multiply conference. It was a brief interview with Andrew Reid and his wife about their experiences in church planting. Andrew and his wife moved from WA to Melbourne to plant a church many years ago. He shared two challenges he and his wife have experienced in church planting.

Firstly, while Melbourne is the fastest growing city in Australia, particular through Chinese immigration, the church is ‘thoroughly unprepared.’ He says, ‘[the church] has not touched the sub-cultures of Melbourne very well for the gospel at all. The challenge is related to multicultural ministry, which we have not done as well as we could have.’

Secondly, he says that ‘Aussies are incredibly hard-hearted. For every ten Chinese people that are converted at Holy Trinity Doncaster, one Aussie is converted, and we put in ten times as much effort for that one Aussie.’

While Andrew is just sharing some of his observations and challenges in his particular ministry context, it made me ask: how multicultural is my church? Jesus commanded us to ‘make disciples of all nations. (Mt 28:19)’ And in Revelation John hears the heavenly choir singing to Jesus, ‘Worthy are you… for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. (Rev 5:9)’ And later John sees, ‘a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (Rev 7:9)’ God’s kingdom is multicultural, but are our churches?

Does your church represent the ethnic makeup of your community? Our community is mostly Caucasian, but to be truly representative we should have at least 6 New Zealanders, 3 Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islanders, 2 Vietnamese and 2 Samoans, and maybe a Pilipino, South African and someone from another African nation. We have some of those, but the truth is we don’t do very well assimilating people from different cultures. It’s too easy to say they prefer churches that are predominately of their own ethnic background. The truth is it isn’t easy, and I know I’m often not willing to put in the effort required.  

I don’t have the answers on how to do multicultural ministry better, but I do know God is calling people into his Kingdom from every tribe and language and people and nation, but is he using us to do that? How can you encourage your church to think through these issues? How can you encourage your church to reach out to people from different ethnic backgrounds? How can your church move towards reflecting your community in all its ethnic diversity? Just something to think and pray about.

[1]  Andrew Reid is was a lecturer at Ridley College and is currently a pastor at Holy Trinity Doncaster in Melbourne. He’s written a number of commentaries, and was the guest speaker at the Ministers and Wives conference in 2017.