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Racial Diversity in Churches More Dream Than Reality, Study Shows

Having a racially diverse church remains more dream than reality for most Protestant pastors. More than eight in ten (85 percent) say every church should strive for racial diversity, according to a survey from Nashville-based LifeWay Research. But most (86 percent) say their congregation is predominately one racial or ethnic group.

Today, diverse churches remain rare, said Ed Stetzer, president of LifeWay Research, partly because of human nature. “Everybody wants diversity,” said Stetzer. “But many don’t want to be around people who are different.”

The research study also found 91 percent say “churches should reflect the racial diversity in their community,” and 79 percent believe their congregations look very similar to the people in their neighborhood.

But Mark DeYmaz, pastor of Mosiac Church, a multi-ethnic church in Little Rock, Ark., said pastors aren’t always aware of how diverse their communities have become. DeYmaz, who also helped found the Mosaix network of multi-ethnic churches, said, “Pastors would do well to look into the diversity of nearby public schools and gauge this against the diversity of their church to really understand their context. They might, too, spend one hour sitting at the front of the nearby Walmart or other local grocery to see if in fact their church reflects the community.”

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows America is becoming increasingly diverse.

About 17 percent of Americans identify as Hispanic. African Americans make up 13 percent of the population, followed by Asian Americans (5 percent), and one percent Native American or Native Alaskan. Another 2.4 percent identify with more than one racial group.