Ethnic Minority Leaders in White Majority Churches (Part I: Cycle of Representation)
On the importance of diverse representation
When I first saw you, I thought, ‘Who’s the other Asian so involved?!’
If you hadn’t asked me to lead, I never would have. In fact, if you yourself weren’t leading, I never would have.
– so remarked my Singaporean and Indonesian friends who told me that if they hadn’t seen me leading at church, they would likely have remained on the fringes instead of participating more fully in church life.
Over the past decade, I’ve been involved in various ministries in the western church, but primarily in worship ministry where I’m often in a prominent position on stage, leading songs with an acoustic guitar in hand. These two off-the-cuff comments signalled to me that, despite often joking about how I was the token Asian (worship) leader at my white majority church, something deeper was at play.
In fact, in hindsight, I realised that I too had initially shared similar sentiments. When I first came to the UK, I had no intention of leading or even serving in the worship team of my church, despite having done so in Japan. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, but because I instinctively felt there was no room or space for me – simply because I didn’t see anyone like me up front.1 By contrast, seeing me was crucial for my Singaporean and Indonesian friends to step into community and leadership.
A lack of representation causes many to consciously or unconsciously self-disqualify themselves from serving or leading at church. Greg Scheer explains how churches are responsible for the message they send about who is welcome: ‘When people visit a church and don’t see anyone like themselves up front, they’ll likely think this church is for others but not for them.’2
I’d somehow unwittingly become a figure of representation for other ethnic minorities to feel welcomed and empowered, and I wanted to know why. It was only after doing some research about ethnic minority leaders in white majority churches that I realised the profound importance of diverse representation in visible leadership positions.
Social psychology helps to explain why this is so. John C. Turner and Henri Tajfel founded the social identity theory (SIT) in the 1970s, which posits that in certain social contexts, people think of themselves as group members more than as unique individuals – a shift from ‘I’ to ‘we’. Social categorisation occurs when individuals are grouped based on some defining feature, e.g. sex, religion, nationality, profession – and yes, ethnicity.
Turner further developed the self-categorisation theory (SCT) in the ‘80s and ‘90s, which showed that the tendency of these groups was not just to cluster around a similarity, but also to cluster because of differences.3 Groups form when ‘perceived differences between them are less than the perceived differences between them and other people’.4 This helps to explain why, even though my friend was Indonesian and I was Singaporean, a difference in nationality didn’t matter as much as the fact that we were both East Asian. In a markedly white context, ethnicity became the group-defining feature.
Another example that seemed to unite not just Asians but also other ethnic minorities: a church which I was at would create space during worship for congregants to shout out extemporary prayers and praises – but you had to be bold to raise your voice in the middle of a large hall of 300 people. One Sunday when I was leading worship, various Asian and Black congregants who rarely contributed in this way spoke out with gusto. In that moment, I did wonder if they all felt a solidarity with me based on the commonality of us being ethnic minorities.
Let’s talk quickly about relational demography, which explains how the more similar you are with others in demographic characteristics, the more positive your attitudes and behaviours. Unfortunately, the reverse can also be true: the greater the difference, the more negative.
The similarity-attraction paradigm posits that ‘individuals who are similar in attitudes or personal characteristics will be attracted to each other.’5 My Singaporean and Indonesian friends saw me – an East Asian like them – leading. Another Indonesian friend researched various churches’ websites before coming to the UK and decided to attend mine just because she saw my photo on the staff page – a similarly East Asian face. Shy Chinese students approached me after a service to ask about the songs I’d just sung, and even volunteered to serve in the worship team.
On the flip side, the tokenism hypothesis describes how someone who ‘is extremely different in a demographic characteristic […] is in a high visibility position. This high visibility position, in turn, often creates a negative situation for the “token” individual.’6 They can feel the pressure and burden of faithfully representing their group, whilst being in an environment that’s potentially uncomfortable, maybe even hostile. One of my friends initially felt confident leading a student group because there were other ethnic minority leaders present. But when many of them left, she ended up stepping back due to the pressures of being the token leader.
Brandon C. Martinez and Kevin D. Dougherty describe the cycle of participation and belonging that people get stuck in: ‘Congregants not in the largest racial group feel less connected to their congregation; therefore, they are less likely to participate in congregational groups, which in turn ensures that they continue to feel less connected. It is an unfortunate self-reinforcing cycle’.7
I want to extend and expand this cycle to include the important factor of leaders. From my experiences, we’ve seen how visible leaders play a vital role in representing and empowering members. Therefore, if there’s a lack of leaders, this leads to a lack of connection and empowerment of members, creating a lack of participation.
But let’s think of this cycle in positive terms: if there are leaders, this creates a sense of connection and a feeling of empowerment for members, allowing them to feel a sense of belonging; this leads to participation, including the possibility of stepping up into leadership roles. The process produces more leaders, and the cycle begins again. In other words, in a congregation in which ethnicity is such a defining categorising feature, ethnic minority leaders beget ethnic minority leaders.
What if we want to see long-term change? Well, the step of leaders in the cycle of representation needs to be expanded: long-term commitment. If more people like myself commit to stay, serve and lead, there’s an increased likelihood of contributing, influencing and shaping the majority culture. But this can only happen with an intentional structural revamp, i.e. having ethnic minority leaders whose voices are considered (alongside white majority leaders) in the decision-making processes right at the very top.
Sandra Maria Van Opstal warns: ‘Given the leadership pipelines that are in place, people of color tend to be younger and newer to the ministries, therefore they rarely occupy places of significant leadership.’8 How might we best provide pathways for ethnic minorities to positions of leadership and authority in our churches?
Stay tuned for Part II in which I’ll share an example of how I helped to diversify worship leaders at one of my churches.
It was only when a staff member heard I was an experienced worship leader that I was then invited to join the worship team.
Greg Scheer, Essential Worship: A Handbook for Leaders (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2016), p. 244.
SCT is distinct from SIT in two primary ways: 1) a person isn’t just a group member, but also an individual; 2) social categorisations are multi-levelled (e.g. I might categorise myself as a man, and as a Singaporean, and as a theologian).
John C. Turner and Katherine J. Reynolds, ‘Self-Categorization Theory’, in Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology, ed. by Paul A. M. Van Lange, Arie W. Kruglanski, and E. Tory Higgins (London: SAGE, 2012), vol. 2, p. 406.
Christine M. Riordan, ‘Relational Demography Within Groups: Past Developments, Contradictions, and New Directions’, Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, 19 (2000), p. 135.
Riordan, p. 137.
Brandon C. Martinez and Kevin D. Dougherty, ‘Race, Belonging, and Participation in Religious Congregations’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 52/4 (2013), p. 729.
Sandra Maria Van Opstal, The Next Worship: Glorifying God in a Diverse World (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2016), p. 92.