Our Diversity Journey

This article was written by senior pastor Tim Chilvers and church member Karamat Iqbal. It was originally published in The Oxford Journal for Intercultural Mission for the Summer 2024 issue.

At Riverside we are on a journey to help people get to know Jesus and grow as his followers across Birmingham and beyond. We are a church made up of people from a diversity of backgrounds and experiences with one thing in common: our discovery of God and his amazing love.

We are making plans to celebrate our fortieth anniversary as a church. We began in 1984, founded by Nick and Lois Cuthbert and others with a vision to reach out to people with the gospel. In 1982 our founders began meeting with another couple in their house on Sunday afternoons. Within two years the church had grown to 50–70 members. It was later to be named Riverside Church, after the river of life flowing out from the temple, bringing life wherever it went (Ezek. 47).

Within ten years the church grew dramatically. It is difficult to put a current figure on our size as we do not have a formal membership. Our Sunday gatherings are thriving, and we have many other people who participate the rest of the week or access the church online.

As Riverside impacted the community it grew quickly, bringing people from a diversity of backgrounds into a discovery of God’s amazing love. We continue to reach out to our communities and places of work in every way we can. From those early days when we met for praise and worship, now in addition we have a variety of community programmes: Riverside Performing Arts; Sunday lunch for anyone in the community; Riverside Money Advice; Riverside Food Pantry; Riverside Café; Riverside Academy; The Well, a women’s gathering, attended mainly by the Muslim community; Real Riverside Football Club – open to non-Christians; Riverside Stay & Play; Pineapple Estate Youth Project.

We are a very diverse community of communities. The city is more religious and less Christian than before. Our immediate neighbourhood is 80% Muslim. We believe that we have a responsibility to be as diverse as we can be, as a reflection of the city. So, addressing diversity has been a conscious decision; to reflect our community, to look different because of our particular geographical community with all its uniqueness.

Over the years our community has become ethnically diverse. Around 20% of our members are from ethnic minorities. We have taken steps to make sure that this is reflected in our staff and leadership. We have over a hundred people in various leadership roles. Around 10% are from ethnic minorities. We also make sure that those who lead services reflect our ethnic diversity. If everyone on the platform on a Sunday morning looks like me (white, male), that’s not good. We have to do something about it. We decided to have two people to lead the Sunday services so that it gave us more scope for diversity.

We organise training on diversity for our leaders, such as Friendship First, a course that will help us to connect with the Muslim community that surrounds us.

We celebrate diversity in our services. For example, following Pentecost Sunday we celebrated our linguistic diversity. A number of our congregation recorded brief messages in their mother tongue. These were broadcast during Sunday services.

When we recruit new staff, we ask:

• What do we expect them to know?

• What cultural or diversity competence might we expect from them?

• What is their understanding of inclusion that might be required in our church community with its super-diverse context?

We also consider what they are expected to learn in order to fill gaps in their knowledge, and how we might go about it. We have done that before for gaps in people’s theological understanding but we’ve never, formally, done that for a lack of multicultural understanding or even understanding about Birmingham. We also make sure we are employing someone who is teachable.

A UKME member of our staff gave us some helpful feedback. We had made a two- minute video. Her feedback was: ‘I don’t see anyone like me until about a minute and a half into the video, by which time I had switched off, having decided it was not for me.’ For me as a white male, who very much saw himself in the video, that feedback was very telling.

We do service reviews. Periodically we ask about the illustrations we use. We might discover they’re very white middle-class or not diverse enough. We try to be a little less monocultural in the framing of our language and presentation. How is this sounding or looking to those in the congregation or looking and listening in from the wider community on the internet?

Racial Justice

A gospel community should not think of certain people groups as inferior or others as superior; we’re all made in God’s image. We try to remove ‘us versus them’ thinking. In my view such prejudices are anti-gospel.

We ask ourselves whether we prepare our congregations with race, diversity and multicultural literacies. Discipling people includes those literacies.

Let us say Jo/Joe Bloggs knows nothing about diversity. Where do we want them to be in five years’ time? How can we equip them to be witnesses for Christ in a diverse city and world? We are a big church. So, we are a ‘sending’ church, sending people into the wider world. How do we equip people to be a witness for Christ in their diverse workplace, in the gym, at the school gate, at the bus stop, in the back of a taxi, in a balti restaurant, etc.?

We have taken a biblical approach to celebrating ethnic diversity, reminding people that all are made in the image of God, all are to be treated as equal beings, and that heaven is diverse: ‘…from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb’ (Rev. 7:9). Wherever we can we try to put the message of the Bible in celebrating diversity and ‘bringing the outsiders in’.

In a sermon on racial justice, delivered with the full involvement of ethnic minority members, we reminded ourselves that the diversity celebrated in the Bible is not experienced equally by everybody: ‘

Friends, it shouldn’t be the case that someone in Riverside, in our church family, simply has to accept that there are certain parts of the UK where they don’t go on holiday because people stare at them as though they don’t belong there.

‘Friends, it shouldn’t be the case that someone in Riverside, in our church family, has to think very carefully when filling in job applications, because if they put their full, real name they know full well that they are far less likely to be invited to interview than someone with a name like John or Tim or Sophie or Jessica.

‘Friends, it shouldn’t be the case that someone in Riverside, in our church family, has to worry about her children growing up because of stereotypes leading to those children being far more likely to be stopped and suspected of causing trouble. This shouldn’t be, but it is.’

We believe in such a situation there are three things we are called to do:

1. We are called to listen

To be like Christ, you step into suffering rather than observe from a slight distance. We must listen to the stories of racial discrimination, systemic racism, opposition, or simply being sidelined, from people in our church family.

2. After we have listened, we need to lament

As we listen, we will discover there is much to lament and repent of. There are sins we have actively committed but also we’ve not done things that we could have done. Racism is personal, institutional, structural.

3. We are called to lead

So often we in the church react to what is going on in society. The church has to model a different way and lead society.

We have an opportunity to reflect our city and model a different way. We are thrilled that we have such diversity in Riverside but we long for more in every area of church life, in the leadership team, in the trustees, in the bands…we long for every tribe, every nation, every tongue.

We are ordinary people all made in God’s image, precious beyond our wildest dreams. Yes, we are flawed, we are cracked, we are sinful, but loved by God, and one day we will gather round the throne of the King above all kings as sisters and brothers. Our task is to see God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

We have signed up to the Birmingham Churches Charter for racial justice. This commits churches to challenge racism and champion justice and equality across Birmingham; to love our neighbour and bless our city. The Charter declares that:

• We, the churches, Christian organisations and followers of Jesus acknowledge the issue of racial injustice and its systemic and institutional nature.

• We commit to see racism removed from the church and society.

• We commit to an honest and open look at ourselves.

The Charter commits us all to bridge the knowledge gap, building a shared understanding of what it is like to be black or of other UKME ethnicity in Birmingham today, understanding the historical context and the damage to the psyche caused by sustained and systemic racism.

We are to speak up for racial equality and equity in the church and the city:

‘We will inspire Christians engaged in business, health, education, arts and media and other spheres to be champions for equity, equality and builders of unity.’

We will do this so that justice flows like water, and righteousness like a never-ending stream in our church and the city.

Inclusion and belonging

Some of our diversity has come about by chance. People from different backgrounds have just turned up and decided to stay. Others have come because of what they heard about us or because of the impression they formed from our website or the services we have presented, in both their content and also who was leading them. We realised we could not take diversity for granted, nor assume that inclusion and belonging would just happen. So that we can go on becoming a church for everyone, we listened to minority voices:

‘Firstly, Riverside welcomes people in well and, secondly, Riverside keeps people well. I have had situations elsewhere where the initial welcome was all great and then it falls off and you don’t hear from anybody. During my time here the church have been consistent in reaching out to me in lots of ways.’

‘We actually have people who look like us who are leading. It’s not just white men who are leading but there is x and y.’

‘Our kids are happy at the church. Nothing comes to mind in particular…maybe we need more BAME teachers in Children’s Church.’

‘It’s good to have ethnic diversity in leadership and upfront roles as long as it’s not artificial but real, i.e. people are there because they are the right people with the necessary gifts and it’s because we are hearing God. It shouldn’t be forced, and it shouldn’t be because it makes us look good. We shouldn’t put certain people in leadership roles for the sake of doing it. But if it’s a situation like Acts 6:1–7, then we should appoint the necessary people.’

‘Leadership behaviours are very important. The leader mentioning that we want to stamp out racism and that we are a multicultural church…the leader having the acknowledgment [of challenging racism and representation] is wonderful. He is a white male; that’s who he is. He gets it. He understands that it’s important.’

‘It’s not just about racism, it’s about difference too. It’s important to have difference too, others who are “different” so you don’t stick out being “different”.’

‘In terms of diversity, I think it’s important to have people from all backgrounds to be trained for leadership roles. It’s a way to accept…the church isn’t always going to be this one particular way. It’s going to change.’

‘Right from the start, I have had people coming to me and saying: hey there, welcome. I’ve never seen you before, and asking where I’m from. I’m amazed how people who I’ve only spoken to once or twice will remember my name. So, they have made me feel welcome.’