Jesus and When Minorities Should Leave

If I were pressed on a short list of questions I regularly get from people of color serving on staff in majority white spaces, it’s the question of when is it time for them to leave? 

I surprise them when I say that Jesus actually spoke to this. In fact, his answer was so compelling (as if any of his answers weren’t), it’s recorded in all of the gospels except John. 

Jesus said we should never put new wine in old wineskins. 

Jesus isn’t speaking about age; he’s actually after something else. When one puts wine in new wineskins, over time the wineskin would expand to house the new wine and the gasses it was emitting. The reason you never put new wine in old wineskins is there’s no room to expand. No elasticity. And when there is no elasticity, the new wine would just burst the old wineskins creating a huge mess. 

The principle Jesus is establishing is crucial: A fresh vision housed in an environment that refuses to grow and expand will cause a huge mess.

For so many existing homogenous churches, their leadership is articulating a fresh vision of being multiethnic. I rejoice over this. We all should. And, I know many of these churches whose culture is exhibiting a willingness to grow, churches like the one I’m currently serving. 

But a new vision, with new looking leadership is not enough. There must be elasticity in the culture of the church or organization. Of course we get these things don’t happen overnight, so we need to have patience, not passivity. Being a new wineskin church will require courage as new initiatives are introduced, programs established and changes take place. It will require constant teaching, many emails and conversations with the constituents who in their own way will push back or question the culture shift. And in some cases it will necessitate saying, “God bless you, but this is the direction we are headed in, and while we’d love to have you with us, we understand if you can’t continue on the journey.” If you don’t say these things to some from one crowd, you will end up saying them to many of the new crowd you’re trying to reach.

So, when should minorities leave majority spaces? At whatever point the elasticity has maxed out, the growth has stopped and the change has ceased is when one should look for the exits.