Yes, We Live Here: Raising Cross Cultural Kids
Here’s an excerpt from my chapter in Hear Us Emmanuel: Another Call for Racial Reconciliation, Representation, and Unity in the Church.
When we committed to urban multiethnic ministry in 1981, we just wanted to follow Jesus. I didn't foresee the joy and sorrow, the sweet and bitter, or the delight and despair. Relocating meant raising our children in a multiethnic church in a low-income, Black community. By God's grace, it challenged and changed us all.
I recently asked our five adult children (four daughters and one son) to share their perspectives about this life we lived. I was relieved they didn't say we'd ruined them for life! They didn't say we were irresponsible parents. They didn't regret living in a community where their Whiteness stood out.
They are thankful - with some caveats.
Even with imperfect parents, my children see more gains than losses, and they can articulate their perspectives. Their daily, cross-cultural relationships with friends and neighbors in the Christian community and the community-at-large have been life-shaping in positive ways. They've had the privilege of knowing people from many races and backgrounds who live out their faith daily while pursuing justice and mercy. They've seen people transformed-but not crushed-by suffering. They've gained cross-cultural competence and a greater sensitivity to the poor, and this has impacted some of their career choices. They've learned about poverty and privilege, two issues that still plague America. They've experienced the richness of a church where people from all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds cherish each other and work together. They've seen a biblical ideal brought to life-imperfectly, messily, but at times, gloriously.
We had many reasons not to move into a struggling Baltimore neighborhood in 1981 to start a multiethnic church. Presbytery leaders had asked my husband, Craig, a twenty-six-year-old intern pastor, to lead an urban church startup that was little more than a handful of people, several of whom struggled with significant mental illness. We'd been married a little over a year. Craig hadn't finished seminary yet. Our first-born, Rebecca, was an infant. We had no urban or multiethnic experience.
Many churches, including several in our denomination, had followed their people to the suburbs, unable or unwilling to embrace changing demographics. What was facilitating this flight of middle-class Whites and Blacks? The post-1960s urban woes: a loss of manufacturing jobs, an accompanying increase in crime and, not coincidentally, the dramatic decline in the quality of a public school education.
We also arrived in time for the sordid introduction of crack cocaine. Baltimore, a largely Black/White city at the time, was historically hyper-segregated. People joked that a racially diverse neighborhood was one "where African Americans have moved in, and the last White person hasn't yet moved out." In church-growth circles, the homogeneous-unit principle held sway: "Birds of a feather flock together! White people attract White people. Let the Blacks reach the Blacks. Multiethnic churches don't grow. In fact, they will split along racial lines. And don't worry about reaching low-income people. The Pentecostals do a better job of reaching them."
We heard it all. So why…