Journal: Journal of Ministry and Theology
Volume: JMAT 20:2 (Fall 2016)
Article: Majority World Theology In An Urban, Multiethnic North American Church Plant
Author: Stephen Stallard

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JMAT 20:2 (Fall 2016) p. 106

Majority World Theology In An Urban, Multiethnic North American Church Plant

Stephen Stallard

Pastor
Mosaic Baptist Church
Brooklyn, New York

Introduction

Should theology from the Majority World be utilized in the planting of multiethnic churches in urban North America? Or should multiethnic North American churches merely contextualize their methodology, but not their theology? This article argues that North American church planters should use majority world theology when planting urban, multiethnic churches. Furthermore, this article briefly explores how that contextualization might take place.

Urban North America is characterized by diversity. In an analysis of census data from 1990, 2000 and 2010, the Brookings Institution has detailed how America’s major cities (and their surrounding suburbs) have become increasingly diverse. The report, authored by William Frey and released in 2011, reveals that “well over half” of American cities are “majority minority” and that minorities make up at least 48% of the urban population, while comprising only 35% of the suburban population.1 The increase in diversity across the three censuses studied by Brookings is unmistakable. This is why an American Demographics writer in 1990 could predict, “You’ll know it’s the twenty-first century when everyone belongs to a minority

JMAT 20:2 (Fall 2016) p. 107

group.”2This diversity is at once both beautiful and dizzying. For urban church planters, it is a fact of life, one that must be addressed in church planting strategies. As Conn and Ortiz declare, “All of our ministries will have to contend with this demographic situation, a pluralism impossible to escape. Our ministries, seminaries and churches will encounter a multiethnic, multisocioeconomic, multi-religious challenge. …”3

Many (including this writer) have responded to this diversity by seeking to plant multiethnic churches in major North American cities. Yet many efforts to plant multiethnic churches have resulted in churches that are methodologically diverse, yet theologically Western. For instance, multiethnic churches in North America might utilize music styles from the majority world, while using theology derived only from American seminaries.

This article argues evangelicals must plant churches that are not only methodologically but also theologically contextualized if they wish to respond fully and appropriately to the ethnic diversity present in North American cities, and that in order to do so, they are best served ...

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