"Our kind of people"

Who is The Episcopal Church for?

A common phrase in my denomination is “all are welcome.” In my years as a church planter, and during the time I spent on the Presiding Bishop’s Staff supporting church planters across the wider Episcopal Church, I noticed some patterns that have me questioning just how true this is.

While I was church planting in Birmingham, I also did a three year stint on Diocesan Council. Though I started my church in an urban storefront, the “traditional” pattern was for the Diocese to purchase land in a place where they hoped to one day build a new church. Typically, these were in up and coming suburbs showing demographic growth.

At one meeting, someone mentioned that our Diocese owned a nice piece of property in a suburb of a growing city. The land had been purchased a decade or two ago for the possibility of a church plant that had never happened. It had increased significantly in value since then and now had a couple of potential buyers. The question on the table was whether we ought to sell the property for just under a million dollars or hold onto it in case some talented church planter came along to plop down a new Episcopal parish.

“I almost hesitate to say it,” this someone began. Their face contorted in that way humans do when we really want to say something we know we shouldn’t, yet fully intend to say anyway. They continued: “But the neighborhood surrounding this property is primarily made up of our kind of people.”

My heart stopped when he said that. Our kind of people? I couldn’t believe they’d said it out loud. What kind of people are our kind of people?

I could ask, but I already know. In The Episcopal Church, “our kind of people” are upwardly moving professionals with college degrees. They are “Establishment Republicans” and the “Liberal Elite.” They can tell a whiskey from a bourbon and then journal about it in a Moleskine notebook. They are majority-culture people with time, talent and treasure to offer the church. They can read music and spreadsheets. They can arrange flowers and a cheese tray and know that funeral sandwiches are much better without crusts.

“Our kind of people” are NOT bad people, I want to be crystal clear. Many of “our kind of people” stand against all kinds of injustice. They provide resources for the church and for the greater Kingdom. Like Joseph of Arimathea, often they’re the ones left at the end with Jesus, bringing the right gift at the right time. Many of them are saints.

But “our kind of people” is a small minority the U.S. (not to mention God’s wider world) and The Episcopal Church is less when we fail to fully appreciate how we might be transformed and uplifted when we both offer full belonging and ownership to… other kinds of people.

The average Episcopalian does NOT want to live and worship this way - in which the words of MLK feel more true than ever, that “We must face the sad fact that at the eleven o'clock hour on Sunday morning, when we stand to sing, we stand in the most segregated hour in America.” But our systems and traditions are clogged and they hold us back from the beautiful diversity our hearts long for.

My experience - which is both personal and from working with leaders across The Episcopal Church - is that when faithful leaders say, “I want to plant a non-dominant culture, or multicultural expression of The Episcopal Church” they are often punished for it.

They are often compensated only part-time, if at all. They are punished in retirement by our pension system. They are looked at with suspicion when their music and liturgy doesn’t look like the Anglo ideal. They are shamed when their church plants appear less financially “successful” than established white suburban congregations - even though we can show mathematically that on average it takes many times more people of color to support a full time clergy person than it takes white people. They are dismissed by their clergy colleagues as being “the one that asks for money all the time.”

I know a South Asian American church planter who works two secular jobs so that they can afford to pastor their congregation. They are constantly overworked and exhausted.

I know a non-dominant race/culture church planter whose funding was completely cut off by their local diocese, because their church didn’t “feel Episcopalian enough.” When I visited, it was one of the most powerful experiences of worship I’ve ever had - African, Black, White, Asian and Latino people all singing together and praying from the Book of Common Prayer.

I know a Korean American priest whose ministry with her community is not only uncompensated, but also never discussed by or shared with the wider Diocese.

These are only a few of what I assume may be hundreds of examples.

The “Our kind of people” mindset has helped bring this denomination into steep decline and out of alignment with the neighbors around us. The mega churches we love to “not be like” are often more diverse than The Episcopal Church. We say big words about diversity and reconciliation, but we have a hard time seeing how this applies at home and are unwilling to adjust our traditions and systems.

When I bring up these injustices with church leaders, there’s always a logical excuse for their mistreatment of minority church planters. Some I’ve heard are:

“Well, they want to be non stipendiary because they already have a secular job.”

“They just don’t know how to raise money.”

“We’re just pausing their funding until they send us a realistic budget and business plan.”

“Their accent is so heavy I can’t understand what they’re asking of me.”

But logical excuses in this case only reveal the assumptions our denomination is subconsciously making about who “our kind of people” really are, and how much/little we desire to engage folks outside that norm.

The question I have for my denomination is, when you say you want diversity, how much do you really want it? What risks are you willing to take for the sake of engaging other kinds of people? What are you willing to give up for the sake of more fully reflecting God’s Kingdom?

For me, the answer to these questions is the beginning of the path to a thriving future.