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VOL. 14, NO. 22

NEWS

History and Definition

The Baltimore-Washington Conference initiated education, planning and support for cross-racial appointments in 1981. The conference Commission on Religion and Race conducted annual forums on the subject from 1998 to 2001, with support from Bishop Felton Edwin May and the Cabinet. The 2003 forum was the fifth. In 1998 the commission, the Cabinet and the conference Council on Ministries agreed on a definition of a cross-racial appointment as one in which a pastors ethnicity is different from the majority ethnicity of the congregation he or she is appointed to serve.

Forum examines cross-racial appointments

by JOHN W. COLEMAN JR.UMCONNECTION Staff

The Rev. Dellyne Del Hinton, an African American, has been an associate pastor for seven years in predominantly white churches. Trying to bridge the racial and cultural divide between the person she is and the people she serves can be lonely, painful, confusing, even exhausting, she said.

Ive come to see it as a mission field, said the clergywoman who serves Catonsville UMC. My white staff have no clue about what a struggle it is.

Hinton lamented being constrained to preaching quiet, 10-minute sermons and having to tailor her self-expression, leadership style and theology to fit the expectations of her congregation. But I want to be their pastor. That means I have to meet them where they are and sacrifice part of who I am.

At a Baltimore-Washington Conference forum on cross-racial appointments Oct. 30, Hinton and other pastors shared their experiences, insights and questions on that subject.

Cultural anthropologist Lucia Ann McSpadden stimulated dialogue based on research she conducted on cross-racial and cross-cultural appointments for the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. The board published her findings this year in a book titled, Meeting God at the Boundaries.

These appointments are so intense for clergy, but most lay people just dont get it, McSpadden told the interracial forums 25 lay and clergy participants, including three district superintendents. Both sides see it as the pastors sole responsibility to make it work, but it isnt.

She stressed the need for both pastors and church leaders to receive ample preparation for cross-racial or cross-cultural appointments to avoid some of the fears, presumptions, prejudices and misunderstandings that seem almost inevitable.

The goals, she explained, are to achieve open communication, cultural awareness, mutual respect and integration of values so that both pastor and congregation grow from the experience.

The forums purpose was to bolster commitment to those goals and to foster sensitivity to the challenges cross-racial appointments present. For some, it was a chance to vent emotions and find encouragement.

Having cross-racial appointments is a genuine expression of our commitment to open itinerancy in The United Methodist Church, said the Rev. Hi Rho Park, chairwoman of the conference Commission on Religion and Race, which sponsored the event.

Yet, Parks own research for her doctoral thesis revealed that many churches are unfamiliar with that commitment and with the concept of open itinerancy, the practice of appointing pastors to churches without racial discrimination.

Each of us here needs to examine ourselves and the institutions we belong to, said the Rev. Marcus Matthews, superintendent of the Washington West District, to see if we are helping to erect or maintain barriers in churches and communities that separate people.

McSpadden, who works with international students at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif., shared insights from three years of conducting interviews and focus groups in five United Methodist annual conferences.

She said a lack of adequate preparation for cross-racial appointments often leads to reluctance to talk about race, an unhealthy tendency to minimize cultural differences rather than understand them and the eventual denial of conflict when it occurs.

We have to figure out a way for people in the church to get beyond their fears and stop shutting up, McSpadden said, especially white people who are afraid of being called prejudiced because of what they might say.

Forum participants discussed cultural differences relating to time, decision-making, handling disagreements and the use or non-use of titles to show respect to pastors.

The Rev. John Warren, pastor of multiracial Oxon Hill UMC in Oxon Hill, reflected on racial implications of the occasional confusion of roles, responsibilities and authority he finds among his members. But I have to pick my battles to avoid becoming exhausted, he said.

McSpadden cited exhaustion as a prevalent concern among clergy in cross-racial appointments, but she ended the day with words of hope and a challenge for more pastors and congregations to consider such appointments.

There are tremendous successes happening, she said, offering examples from her research. One of the greatest gifts we have is the courage and deep spiritual witness of clergy in these appointments. They are walking in faith in places where few people in this country have gone because they know Jesus has walked there before them.