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What do Christian conferences reveal about what we REALLY value?
We’ve probably all heard the quote a million times: The most segregated place and time of the week is Sunday morning church services.
But I want to push it a bit further. We value what we celebrate and we celebrate what we value. And perhaps the biggest, most aggressive way the evangelical church celebrates things is through conferences. Who gets put on the main stage? But time after time, to almost every conference I’ve ever been to, all I see us celebrating is the hero (male) pastor of churches reaching white, middle-to-upper-middle-class people.
This isn’t 100% true (because all conferences do their best to throw in some racial diversity if they can), but by-and-large, I think this is a hard thing to argue. Almost all the people we highlight on stages are white males reaching mostly white people in an upscale hipster urban context or posh suburbia.
Yet I know of a number of really successful leaders who aren’t white and who are able to and are reaching the last and the least. They are doing unbelievably innovative things, are thinking outside of the Sunday-centric church box and have arguably as many people (or more) as some of the people we celebrate on main stage. I’d even say they are providing a glimpse into the church of the future: More de-centralized, more diverse, less Sunday-centric, more laity-driven.
Are we so segregated even in the leadership of the evangelical church, on such distantly remote islands, that we have no way to connect to what the other is doing? Or is evangelicalism, as it currently stands, really just a bunch of white people?
I guess here is my not-so-subtle question: Is there an undercurrent of racism happening even in who we choose to celebrate for conferences?
Basically…is there some sort of subversive point system that is buried deep within our subconscious where we think reaching white, middle-to-upper-middle-class is more valuable, more worthwhile (like somehow they are Ahab’s great white whale) and we think these people are worth celebrating more than those we’re reaching others who don’t fit into this box?
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2 Responses to What do Christian conferences reveal about what we REALLY value?
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You pose a very interesting question, and I believe that it is more of a factor than most people realize. Ultimately,the question of racism is one that must be answered individually and acted on publicly to be overcome.
At the same time, I think there is another factor that comes into play which also perpetuates this subconscious point system. Just a quick look at census data reveals, (in the USA) that men average more across the board, and whites make more than nearly every other ethnic group for doing the same job. The white, male is where the money is.
hey Dave! you beat me to the same point! but i would even minimalize the racism argument more. it isn’t that i don’t think it’s a factor, but i think it is more a symptom than chasing the money.
ultimately i think we’ve created such a corporate consumerism culture (and then let that bleed into and now direct our church culture) that even in our ‘church planting’ we seek out the most sustainable and (dare i say) profitable markets… which typically are white suburbia.
in david platt’s book, Radical Together, it suggests that churches put EVERYTHING they have and do on the table and then begin to prioritize what our resources go toward. i think our annual conferences lead us to do just the opposite by always presenting the new, best, awesomest ways to do all the things that, when we get down to it, probably shouldn’t have made the cut to begin with. the things that become resource burdens more than discipleship support.