by Sandy » Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:14 am
I've always believed that church leadership was selected by evidence of a spiritual calling, and not with regard to a "representative" ratio of the presence of similar backgrounds in the congregation. Of course, in a Baptist church it is the Deacons who do the kind of leadership that most churches call "Elders" to do, but from a Biblical perspective, this is based on the individual's sense of calling, and ability to meet the Biblical qualifications, and not on the percentage of racially or culturally similar people in the church.
At our former church in Houston, about 40% of the congregation was Hispanic. The Deacons included two Asians (one Chinese, one Indian), one African American who served as chair the last two years I was there. Of the remaining men, mostly past 50, mostly caucasians, one was German, one was born and raised on Guernsey Island off the British coast, and one was an MK who was raised in Brazil. Attempts to ordain a "representative" number of Hispanics came up short because none of the Hispanic men in the church felt called to serve as Deacons.
Royal Lane doesn't have to seek the approval of any other Baptists with regard to the choices they made regarding Deacons, nor is the "diversity" of their Deacon body anything more than the lack of diversity is in any other church. It's the end result of their process of selection. If it is intended to make some kind of "statement" about how other Baptists should be doing it, then they have done it for the wrong reason, and if it is lauded as such, it is being praised for the wrong reason. The real question is whether they followed Biblical qualifications in choosing their Deacons. If they did, then that is to be praised and celebrated more than the achieving of some false standard called "diversity." If they didn't, well, that's between them and God.