Sam O’Neil of the Out of Ur blog recently posted an little snippet of an interview from Leadership Journal with Daniel Hill, founder of River City Community Church. In it, they touch on some very important issues, including the expectations of modern U.S. church-goers and the challenge of small groups in different U.S. sub-cultures. This topic is highly valid and important, but I was frustrated to see it degenerate into simplistic stereotyping. Here’s an excerpt:

What assumptions do white people carry into the church?
Arloa Sutter (pastor of community life): When I came I said, “Let’s just start small groups! Everyone wants to be in a group, right?” The fact is small groups aren’t as important to other ethnicities as they are to white people.

Small groups are a white church thing?
Hill: White people rely on small groups to connect. Other ethnicities form community more organically, more relationally. Immigrant communities find fellowship within extended families. In the city a lot of community happens on the front porch or sidewalk. So non-whites aren’t as eager to set up structures and systems like small groups.

Carlos Ruiz (coordinator of community groups): I think whites really value efficiency.

Antoine Taylor (director of Sunday morning ministries): And releasing that value is really hard for a lot of them. They perceive other ways of operating as inefficient or disorganized.

Jennifer Idoma-Motzko (elder): They say it’s not the right way to do church. And I respond bluntly by saying, “You mean it’s not the white way to do church.”

I’m calling B.S. on that. All of it.

First, this is pure political (church politics, that is) cheap-shotting at its worst. There’s no better way these days, among certain Christian sub-groups (of which I am probably a member), to villify other people’s methods than to characterize those methods as “white.” Nobody wants to be white. It relegates you to an ethnically bland and racially domineering majority. In other words, being called white is it’s own indictment against which you really can’t defend yourself without looking like a White Supremacist sympathizer.

It’s a fallacious argument. There are very real challenges to small group ministry among differing ethnic groups – including differing white-shaded ethnic and regional groups – but dismissing the entire issue as merely “the white way” is intellectually dishonest at best, and a red herring at worst.

Second, small groups – also known as “cell groups” and “house churches” in other areas of the globe (ever heard of those?) – are on-fire in places like Latin America, Asia, and, yes, even Africa. Last time I checked these continents were all very non-white. I personally know many Brazilians near the mouth of the Amazon who literally travel miles on foot and by boat multiple times per week just to attend their cell group.

Third, since when is it more “efficient” to stick one or two teachers in a room with 10 or 20 people? Calling small groups “efficient” is just plain-old shameless spin-doctoring. Why? Because among certain Christian groups (again, groups I identify with) being Modern or efficiency-driven is just as bad as being white. So, rather than make an intelligent argument against a practice, just call it “Modern.”

Please. Welcome to the new politics of shame in the Western Church.

The true slave to Modern efficiency is one dynamic preacher standing in front of 1000 or 2000 people at a time. Better yet, transmit their digitized image into a half dozen other sanctuaries. Best of all, beam their image via satellite into a million homes on your own Christian cable television channel. One to a million…now THAT’s true efficiency!

Like I said, there are real issues here. Let’s talk about them. Let’s admit our challenges and struggles. But the cultural captivity of the church is a tough enough nut to crack without resorting to such flippantly easy answers.