Four reasons we don’t want to plant homogeneous churches

May 12, 2020 by

by Stephen Kneale:

Our context has a very high proportion of First generation South Asian, and British South Asian-heritage, Muslims. Our council ward of St Mary’s has c. 70% S. Asian population but if you limit the boundaries to our immediate area of Glodwick, that figure would jump up into the high 90s. Many would want to insist that the best way to reach our area would be to pull in some South Asian Christians and to get them to plant a church and reach their own people.

Likewise, within our church, we have a significant number of Iranian and Afghan Farsi-speakers. It has always been our intention to integrate our Farsi-speaking brothers and sisters as best we’re able, with a long term plan to raise them up to positions of leadership within our church. But there is no denying that translating everything makes life considerably harder. Some would argue that it is best, surely, to simply plant a Farsi-speaking church and allow folk to reach their own.

There are several reasons we disagree with that view. Today, I want to outline some of those reasons. Tomorrow, I want to offer some problems that transpire as a result of this position. I may well, after that, tell you where our intent as a church to avoid homogeneity is not expressed well in our practice i.e. where are we not doing so well on achieving that goal.

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