Evaluating the Homogeneous Church Model

INTRODUCTION:

Context:

This is the final sermon in our series, What Kind of Church Are We To Be? When I first started thinking about this topic, I had thought to develop a workshop or Sunday school class for the material. After COVID struck and disrupted those plans. I decided that I would present the material as a sermon series so that more of our church family would participate. I want all of us to hear God’s thoughts on this topic—this is His church and we are here to serve Him by joyfully magnifying His Son, our Savior, in Sterling Heights and the surrounding cities. Throughout the series, I have been arguing that an ethnically integrated church in ethnically integrated cities matches what God has revealed, that such a church glorifies God and aids in effective evangelism.

Preview:

This evening I want to address one final aspect of this topic: whether all ethnic groups joined in the NT church overall necessarily require ethnically integrated local churches. It is possible to argue that the universal church—the body of Christ overall—should contain every ethnicity while still sustaining nonintegrated local churches. What I am saying is that we can agree that yes, the church—the Bride of Christ—will have every tribe and tongue and people and nation, as we see in Rev 5:9, without requiring ethnic integration in First Baptist Church of Sterling Heights. This evening I want us to investigate whether God gives us any insight about integration at the local level.

Transition from introduction to body:

To begin the investigation, I want to start by …

BODY:

I. Introducing the Homogeneous Church Model

I would expect that this a term that most of you have never heard before, the homogeneous church. But just because you have never heard of it doesn’t mean that you have not been affected by the idea that it describes. Pretty much all of us who have been Christians and members of American churches have been affected by this idea. We are quite likely more influenced by this concept than we realize.

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Let me give just one direct example from our own church. I am sure that some of you remember that there was a time when our church started talking about moving from this location. The conversation never became serious but there was some discussion. It was apparent that the neighborhoods around the church building were changing. Many eastern European refugees had arrived in the area in the 1990s from Croatia and Serbia and Kosovo. Then, after the gulf war of the following decade, Iraqi immigrants began to arrive. Our church at the time was pretty much 100 percent white Americans, though, so the question arose as to whether it was time to move to the outer suburbs where the church would fit the community better.

That is the idea is the homogeneous church model. Homogeneous simply means alike or the same. At the time our church was discussing relocating, we rightly could have been called a homogeneous church from an ethnic perspective. We were very nearly 100 percent white.

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Now, being homogeneous is not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve mentioned my home church in North Dakota before in this series. My home church is ethnically a homogeneous church. Of course, the town of Munich where it is located is a homogeneous town in a very homogeneous county. It is completely unsurprising that my home church is homogeneous. It would be impossible for it to be anything else; there is nowhere to draw ethnic diversity from.

The homogeneous church model is slightly different, though than a homogeneous church. The homogeneous church model argues that churches should intentionally strive for such a situation, for homogeneous churches. The homogeneous church model seeks to intentionally establish churches that reach a niche of some kind within society. The model is a conscious rejection of any attempt to create a multiethnic local church. Frankly, we see the homogeneous church model all around us in ethnic-specific churches such as Korean churches, Romanian churches, Arabic churches, and so on.

The model was conceived by an American missionary and became virtually synonymous with the church growth movement in the 80s and 90s. In the movement, the ‘homogeneous unit principle’ of church growth has been assumed as the most effective way to plant and grow churches. Particular niches of society are chosen to target with “strategic” churches. The originator of the idea asserted that people like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers. He suggested that enabling unbelievers to become Christians without crossing ethnic barriers is more effective than placing barriers in their way. The church growth movement grabbed this idea and implemented it as an evangelistic strategy. If unbelievers are accommodated in a church that matches up to how they see themselves, then they will avoid discomfort created by crossing culture, ethnicity, or other boundaries to begin coming to church.

The result is churches of greater and greater specificity: latte-drinking urbanites, hip-hop loving millennials, or southern-gospel loving conservative fundamentalists. Whenever a church becomes defined by several ethnic-type characteristics, the homogeneous church model has likely been an influential component in the church’s development.

Transition:

Now that I have introduced the homogeneous church model, I want us to open our Bibles and turn to our passage for the evening; a passage that speaks, albeit indirectly, to this model. I want us to turn to Galatians chapter 2. Here we will be …

II. Listening to Paul Regarding the Homogeneous Church Model

Let’s begin by reading our verses, Galatians 2:11–21…<read>.

We looked at this passage during our series through Galatians a year and a half ago. Within the early church in Antioch, the place where believers were first called Christian, Paul and Barnabas’ sending church for their missionary journeys, there were apparently common meals between Jewish and Gentile Christians. The most natural reading of the text is that Peter was eating with the Gentiles at these meals without observing OT food laws before some Jewish believers from Jerusalem arrived. After their arrival, Peter ceased eating with the Gentles. Furthermore, Peter’s actions influenced other Jewish Christians to do likewise, including Barnabas who had been a supporter of Gentile evangelism. Paul observed this behavior and rebuked Peter for his actions.

This is a fascinating event. From our perspective after 2,000 years of church history, it is almost impossible to picture this scene: not the eating food part, we can picture that quite easily; no, the rebuke part. The foundation upon which we stand as a NT Christian church was largely laid by the two main men in this event—Peter and Paul. The history of Acts that we looked at this morning largely divides itself by tracing the ministry of these two men. Paul wrote most of the NT epistles. Of course, Peter wrote his two as well, along with being the generally assumed source for the material recorded in Mark. Peter was appointed by God to lead the effort of communicating the gospel message of Christ to the Jewish world of the day. Paul was commissioned to take the same message to the Gentiles. But, as we saw last week from Eph 2 and 3, the gospel message broke down the historical wall between these two groups with a common saving message for all. For all these reasons, the image of these two men having a public dispute is rather hard for us to wrap our minds around.

And yet, it probably shouldn’t be. We need to remember that the apostles were real-life, flesh-and-blood men. In other words, they were sinners just like you and me. They had their faults and failings, their insecurities, and their human mistakes. They were called by God to fulfill a special mission—to lay the foundation for the NT church. They were called and empowered by God’s Spirit, but they were not endued with perfection. It was only when the Holy Spirit was inspiring them to write Scripture that they were flawless and faultless. Scripture is perfect; its writers were not.

Transition:

Here we are, with this event recorded in the inspired pages of Scripture. That means that it is profitable for us to consider what it teaches us. I want us to notice two things tonight from the verses that we just read. First, really the main point of what Paul is teaching in this section, …

A. Gospel error creates heresy.

Paul did not record this argument with Peter for the purpose of a game of one-upmanship. Rather, the event with Peter provides a perfect backdrop for Paul to make a crucial point, really the main point of this letter. We see this point clearly in verse 16. In many ways, verse 16 is the theological center of the entire letter. Paul must communicate this point clearly to the Galatians to protect them from an error which will destroy the gospel itself.

nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.

The Jews loved their Law. They prided themselves on having received it from God which set them apart from all the other peoples of the world. Their pride led them to develop numerous ways to apply the legal instructions given by God to their lives. Yet, Paul reminds Peter … and the Galatians … that they know that the Law was not able to save them. In fact, all it did was to show them with great clarity that they were sinners. Throughout their history, the more they attempted to keep the details of the Law, the more their inability to do so was revealed because their sinful nature always came through. The Law showed their sin clearly.

The specific idea that Paul addressed through this encounter was whether Jews needed to follow the requirements of the Law to be fully saved by Christ. This seemed right to many of the Jewish Christians. The Law was from God so of course, they needed to follow it. To forsake the Law and live as the Gentiles lived would seem to lead them to sin. It was logical that rejecting the Law would make Christ a “minister of sin,” as Paul says in v. 17 because Christ was leading the Jews to a sinful life that rejected the Law.

Paul’s short response to this idea is a phrase that he uses repeatedly to express extreme disagreement with an idea. The NASB translates it as “May it never be!” The KJV gives a very non-literal translation, but one that carries the emotion of the expression well, “God forbid!” The idea is that such a thought should never even exist, let alone become a matter of reality. The truth of the matter is, reverting back to the Law after justification in Christ is what is actually sinful. Such teaching is a gospel error that creates heresy, a heresy that actually makes the death of Christ meaningless and nullifies the grace of God.

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An easy illustration of this error today is the system for salvation that the Roman Catholic church has developed over the centuries. The church rightly holds that grace flows from the death of Jesus Christ alone; grace that is accepted by faith. It has that aspect of the gospel right. But the Roman Catholic Church also teaches that believers must do certain things—specifically the seven sacraments—to receive that grace. The grace of God is obtained by Christ’s death, but it is distributed by the church based on the proper actions of people. Such teaching destroys the gospel itself, as Martin Luther and the other Reformers saw so clearly.

Application

This is the main teaching of this passage. Gospel error creates heresy. We must understand that clearly and hold tenaciously to Gospel truth: salvation comes by grace alone in Christ alone through faith alone as taught by the Scripture alone for the glory of God alone. Remember those five Reformation tenants that we looked at a few years ago?

Transition:

Gospel error creates heresy. As we consider what this passage has to do with the homogeneous church model this evening, I don’t want us to lose sight of this core truth. This is what Paul is centering on in this text. Paul was not addressing the homogeneous church in this text; he was addressing gospel truth, gospel purity. Indirectly, though, he does speak to the homogeneous church model, because not only does gospel error create heresy, he also shows us that…

B. Gospel error creates hypocrisy

Peter’s actions could have created a split within the church along ethnic lines. Remember, I mentioned Peter’s rooftop vision this morning. God had taught Peter directly that Jewish food laws did not save back in Acts 10 through the vision of the descending sheet with all the unclean animals that he was told to eat. This was immediately followed by Peter’s experience in Cornelius’ house where God accepted Cornelius, a Gentile, into full salvation. Yet here we find Peter succumbing to the old Jewish policy of separating from unclean Gentiles. We don’t have a record that Peter actually said anything, but pretty soon all the Jewish Christians were also reverting back to the observance of the Jewish scruples. This would suggest to the Gentile Christians that their salvation status was somehow second-rate, that they were second-rate Christians, or maybe even non-Christians unless they followed the Jewish law too.

Such an idea was completely contrary to the gospel and had to be addressed immediately so Paul called Peter on it in a public confrontation; Peter was being a hypocrite by communicating through actions that observance of Jewish practices had to go alongside faith for salvation.

Illustration

We may find it hard to understand how Peter could be so blind to such hypocrisy. Yet our own country’s history is filled with the sordid record of American slavery. Men and women treated other men and women as property, owning and abusing them at will. At yet many of these slave owners were professing Christians. In fact, it is clear from reading their writings that many of them were Christians, Christians with a terrible blind spot to a gospel error that leads to gross hypocrisy. They failed to understand that the gospel demands the recognition of the inherent value of all image-bearers. The fact that Christ died equally for all ethnicities and all races means that all are equal.

These Jewish believers had their cultural blind spots that generated hypocrisy. Peter and Barnabas succumbed to the gospel error and shared in the hypocrisy through their actions. Countless American Christian slave owners had cultural blind spots that generated hypocrisy. Numerous other Christians succumbed to the gospel error and shared in the hypocrisy through their actions.

Now, you may be thinking that there is no comparison between a break in table fellowship in Antioch and the atrocities that were committed against black slaves. While the results of the different errors may lead to different levels of consequences in life, we should be able to see from Paul’s reaction that anything that imports error into the gospel message is of the utmost severity; it can produce eternal damnation by destroying the gospel itself.

Application

What I believe that we need to be asking ourselves is where might our blind spots be to similar hypocrisy? What might we be doing that is allowing error to creep into the gospel? How might we be succumbing to gospel error and sharing in hypocrisy through our actions? Surely, we are not immune to the weaknesses of other generations.

To help answer those questions, let’s notice what Paul’s actions accomplished. The hypocrisy was destroying the ethnic integration of the church in Antioch. Paul’s actions preserved the multiethnic unity. His actions ensured that the unity generated by the gospel’s power would remain on display through visible unifying actions. Although unity was not his driving motivation, gospel preservation was. Unity was a byproduct of Paul’s actions. The ethnically integrated dining symbolized the unity and fellowship inherent in the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. Gospel error created hypocrisy. Gospel purity created unity. Paul did not allow the church to split into separate ethnically distinct churches in Antioch.

Transition:

Gospel error creates hypocrisy. That is the second thing that we learn listening to Paul. If we listen to him regarding the homogenous church model, it seems he would not have supported it, at least not in Antioch

III. Critiquing the Homogeneous Church Model

Biblical critique is certainly the most important critique. Our passage in Galatians should give us great pause regarding the validity of the homogeneous church model. In fact, the model has had much evaluation over the past three decades that has identified several theological and practical problems. For example, the model is rightly accused of an overemphasis on numerical growth rather than on people becoming growing disciples of Christ. The model has even been accused of aiding in the segregation of American churches throughout the twentieth century. As it has encouraged the creation of separate churches, one writer that I read feels that the model has hindered some believers from moving beyond their own homogeneous groups. It has said that the right way to do church is to do it with others like you. Even one of the early chief proponents of the model acknowledges that the homogeneous model is not the ideal model for a church in a multiethnic community, that it should only be a step toward helping believers manifest the integrated body of Christ in a more tangible way.

Unique circumstances may demand a homogeneous local church. For example, a homogeneous community will create a homogeneous church. Similarly, when language creates an obstacle that concessions cannot overcome, a homogeneous church may result. I am convinced, though, that a homogeneous church in a multiethnic community will not highlight the uniting work of Jesus Christ in the community like a multiethnic church will. I further believe that another writer has it correct when he cautions, “It is naive and far too hopeful to assume that sinful people who have an inherent disposition toward ethnocentric prejudice will somehow grow out of it without being called to live in community with those who are different from them.” The homogeneous church model should be rejected as an intentional ministry model.

So where does all this lead? It leads to the main idea that I have been trying to develop this entire series: We should embrace ethnic diversity in our church.

Transition from body to conclusion:

We should embrace ethnic diversity in our church.

CONCLUSION

We are responsible to display to the world around us that God has sent His Son, our Savior, to die for their sins. It doesn’t matter what ethnicity a person is, he or she needs Jesus. In fact, one of the greatest displays of that desperate need is the ethnic splintering that we see in our world. One of the problems that mankind has carried in our depraved breasts is this disposition toward ethnocentric prejudice.

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In America, especially white America, we have this in spades. We instinctively think that our way of doing things is superior to all other places in the world—Merica! Our American culture is the best and thus, we are the best. I remember one time when I was working on a project in Brazil. I came down for breakfast in the hotel where I was staying and ran into another company employee who I knew slightly. He was there working on a different project. I sat with him for breakfast and he immediately started to complain about how backward things were in Brazil. He wasn’t able to have the food he wanted for breakfast. In fact, the previous day had been unproductive because the people he was working with on the plant floor would rather speak Portuguese than English. He was appalled. I reminded him that we were in their country, not ours. I also chose not to eat breakfast with him again for the rest of the week.

Application

Friends, I asked earlier where our blind spots might be. We are not immune to American arrogance. Yet arrogance of any kind is unbecoming for a Christian; it reflects our old sin nature. How might we, as the white majority in our church, be displaying it such arrogance. Chances are rather good that we are blind to our own hypocrisy. We will others to point it out to us. We need to ask those who can see it clearly to point it out: our ethnic minority members. Of course, before they will be comfortable enough to do so, they must be convinced that we genuinely want to hear. We must demonstrate humility and love. We also must demonstrate an interest in cultures and ideas that come from beyond our cultural context.

How do we begin to develop this type of church? Well, we need to become a church that interacts with each other beyond the formal assembling for a service. Have people into your home. Spend time playing games together. Spend time talking about life together. Spend time praying together. Do this independent of ethnicity. I mentioned that we are currently about 85% white in this church. So, if you are part of the ethnic-majority, 85% of the time you will probably have other ethnic-majority people into your home. But don’t neglect the 15% of minority members. Intentionally, build relationships across ethnic lines. The same is true for those of you who are ethnic minorities. Reach out to the majority members, don’t hide in an ethnic bubble.

We also need to work to build redemptive relationships with people around us. In fact, one of the ways that we can be smart about reaching across ethnic lines is to use the diversity that we have in our church to reach the diverse neighbors God has placed around us. We can have an ethnic minority neighbor over with an ethnic minority church family. As an ethnic majority, I can make myself available to the minority members to join them when they invite a majority neighbor to their house. We can work together to have picnics in our backyards. We can work together to initiate Exchange Bible studies. We can work together to display Christ to our community.

We should embrace ethnic diversity in our church. I pray that we will embrace this vision for our church. We should embrace ethnic diversity in our church.