The Challenge of Leading Multiracial Worship

Abstract

Worship leaders, music directors, and church musicians carry the burden of actualizing diversity through the design of liturgical processes. There is a deep similarity in the underlying structure of multiracial worship services. While the goal for worship leaders is to foster fuller worship experiences in their parishioners through the arrangement of musical structures, the pastoral and lay leadership of the church expect them to enhance the racial and ethnic diversity of the congregation. Worship leaders are expected to be “experts” in connecting race, music, and worship. Worship leaders therefore are subject to broad, “visionary” imperatives without specific direction on how to fulfill them. Mandated diversity through music is coupled with unclear standards of assessment. This leaves worship leaders scrambling to incorporate diverse musical styles in a way that others recognize as sounding “diverse.” To fulfill their mandate, worship leaders invoke stereotypical music styles that presume initiatives for diversity are being faithfully implemented—regardless of their eventual outcome. In the end, the demand for racial inclusion results in ill-conceived diversity efforts with little support, no training, and often only obligatory enthusiasm. Moreover, music invokes racial and ethnic stereotypes to satisfy the expectations of the congregation, which reinforces racial essentialism.