Voices In My Head Podcast Episode 329: Nikki Lerner and Multicultural Worship Ministry

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With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. Visit podbean.com/voices to find out more. That's podbean.com/voices. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @voicesinmyhead. RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head.

My guest this week on Voices in My Head is Nikki Lerner. Nikki is an artist, a teacher, a speaker, an author, and a culture coach helping others to engage with each other relationally and across culture lines. Her passion is to see people come to an understanding of one another through music and conversation and to learn to remain human with each other. Now Nikki has also been a driving force behind the Multicultural Worship Leaders Network, and the MWLN's 2019 Leadership Conference One is happening this October 10th and 11th at Bridgeway Community Church. We're gonna catch up with Nikki today because this is her second time on the podcast, and I can't wait to hear more about this great conference that's coming up. So Nikki Lerner, welcome back to Voices in My Head.

Hello, thank you so much.

Well, it's so good to have you back again, and we talked about this very briefly, but how are you doing?

Oh, I am, I am blessed and taken care of and full of peace today.

Well, that's wonderful. If memory serves, I think that you have, have moved since we talked last. We talked about a year ago, I think, maybe right after the National Worship Leader Conference. But am I correct that you had had a move since then?

Somewhat. I had— I still live in the same state. I'm still here in Maryland, but I had, at that point, I had, I was moving from from my worship pastor position that I had been in for, gosh, 17 years in order to move into the work that I'm doing now. So that was a big move.

Yeah, I'm sure. So are you still doing worship leading as far as at the place where you're serving, or is that something you do kind of in addition to your current work?

Yeah, it's something I do in addition to my current work. It's been about, I guess, maybe 7 and a half months now since stepping out of my position. And so I've sort of been just taking a little bit of a hiatus, um, at least from serving at my church for a little bit, um, which oddly enough I've needed. Who knew? Uh, I've needed. So, um, I'm actually kind of excited. I don't have anything yet on the calendar to lead worship at my church, but, um, I will be preaching at my church, um, in December. So I'm excited about that.

Oh, that's terrific.

Yeah.

And The listeners should know that as wonderful a singer as you are— and by the way, everybody go to NikkiLerner.com because you can listen to her music there— you also are a very gifted speaker. And so it's wonderful that you're getting a chance to do that, and I'm so glad to hear of good things that are happening in your life. Just out of curiosity, only because it's been so in the news over the last few days, how closely do you live in proximity, I guess, to the Baltimore area?

Uh, well, I live— so where I live is I live in Columbia, and Columbia sits sort of in between Baltimore and DC, a little closer to Baltimore. So I, um, while I don't live in Baltimore City, I, I— it probably only takes me about 20, 25 minutes to get there. Okay. But my, um, uh, there are members of my family that live in Baltimore City, right in, right in the middle.

Right. So, well, you know, a certain leader in our country, of course, has been tweeting out some graceless things about Baltimore area. And so I thought you were probably very near there and would probably have a differing opinion of the situation and the people there.

Well, you know, the thing is, is that there is beauty everywhere.

Sure.

And no matter how much a city or a county or, you know, there are some, some issues issues that people, uh, that are louder than others potentially, or more visible than others that people can see and point at. And then there are other issues in other counties and cities and, um, and out in the suburbs that are quieter, but they're just as dangerous. And so the reality is there's brokenness everywhere. We know that. Um, but there's also a whole lot of beauty. Um, and I'm thankful for the beauty that I see, um, around here and around Baltimore. Uh, there's a lot of really beautiful people doing amazing work in Baltimore City. So, you know, um, I think you just kind of say, well, you know, that, that's, that's, uh, that person has that opinion, okay, and we'll just move in and keep doing the work that we're doing.

I, I hate that that kind of disparaging keeps coming, but you know, that's, I guess, politics these days, unfortunately. But that's why I so love the kingdom of God. Hopefully we can try to be a countercultural—

yes—

place here on Earth that could to be a place of grace. And, and you and your husband and those you work with and the people you live around are, um, are examples of, of lights in the world. And we're going to talk a bit about that today. And I'm so grateful that you approached me again about this conference. Um, let's, let's talk first before we get into the conference specifically, which I do want people to know about, and we are going to talk about, and that happens in October. But explain to us your work in the area of multicultural ministry and culture coaching, because I think that our listeners are I find that to be quite fascinating. Sure.

Well, so a couple things. A, I like to tell people that, you know, I grew up in a very bicultural family, even though we were all African American. The two sides of my family, one side, my mom's, being very diverse, and my stepfather's side of the family being not quite as diverse. And but they were just different cultures. In general. But anyway, so I grew up in this family that saw things very differently. And then I— when I, uh, David and I were engaged to be married, you know, the looming question of where do we go to church, you know, do I go to your church, do you come to my church? And we found it increasingly difficult. This was in 1997, '98. To try to find a church as an interracial couple. You know, I'm African American, my husband is white American, and, you know, we would try to find a church, particularly back then, where it kind of seemed like one of us had to check our culture at the door. You know, you kind of felt— I mean, our experience was, you know, you kind of felt a little too Black for the white church sometimes, not Black enough for the Black church at other times. You know, you didn't really feel like you fit in in an Asian American church, and you couldn't go to a Latin American church because you don't speak the language. So a couple like us, you know, where do— where would we go where we wouldn't have to be stared at? And where if we— if we had any children— I don't have any children, but if we had, you know, our children will be a mixture and kind of look like peanut butter caramel. That's what we call it. Hey, you know, peanut butter caramel children. And can— so then can they be in Sunday school class? And spend that time learning about Jesus, or do they have to spend that time in a small Sunday school class answering the question, "What are you?" Yeah. And so that really drove us to the church where we've been at for over 22 years, and where God really helped me develop my work in helping the church, the body of Christ, know how to become a place where all people really are welcome, and not just welcome, but are empowered and embraced. And so over my 20-plus years of ministry in the local church, you know, now the work that I do, I get to train others on the blueprint for multicultural leadership and ministry.

Well, that's terrific. You know, just as I was I was thinking about when you were talking about finding a place to worship. I think that can actually be applied to several different things because I think the way it's supposed to work in the Kingdom of God— I've never seen it fully lived out yet, but I think the way it's supposed to work is that we are a colony of heaven here on earth. And so all of our cultures are supposed to converge and to be conformed and transformed into the image of Jesus, not just as individuals, but as the body of Christ. And so often, isn't it interesting that we do have such a hard time so often trying to get over the culture that's in the now versus the culture that we are called to in the kingdom? I think at times we find this with, you know, some people with like different leanings, whether they feel more conservative or more liberal they kind of maybe feel that way in the context of certain congregations too, you know, like, can I worship here? Are these people, you know, do they feel the same way about things as me? And I think what you just said, there's a lot of different things that that will speak to at the same time, is how do we conform all of us together to the body of Christ in a way that all of us kind of have to check a little bit of who we are at the door and be conform together, but at the same time not losing who we were made in the image of God and the kind of people we were made to be. It's just fascinating to think about, and it's good for us to be reminded of these things often.

Yeah, and I also think that, you know, some of our leanings, um, I would say at least in the last 10 years or so, has been to our church gatherings, right, our main corporate gatherings, to be centered around the preference of a type of person. And I think if we could change the conversation a little bit to how do we celebrate when we get together, um, as a gathering, instead of how do we, uh, make everybody comfortable or, uh, kind of placate to a type of person, I think we start to have a different conversation because then the expectation of the believers when they are gathering together is when we come together, we celebrate us, not me.

Yeah.

And so then when it comes to music or preaching or whatever, you know, we live in this beautiful technology age where, you know, Monday through Saturday I could listen to any preacher I want, right? I could go online, find my favorite person, Rick Lee James, and listen to all of Rick Lee James's messages, right? To all of Rick Lee James's songs and hymns and be like, that's what Nikki Lerner loves, right? But when I come to my, you know, I don't know, church down the street, community church, right? Sure. It doesn't— then it doesn't have to be about, well, what do I want? Because I want these kinds of messages or these songs all the time. It becomes, I have been cultivating my soul all week by myself as a believer with the things I need, so that by the time I get to the gathering, now it's time for sharing and celebration. I don't need to be filled, so to speak, because I already show up full.

Wow, those are some, some good insights for us to think about today. Well, you've already been mentioning some of the, the things that you work with in in the area of multicultural and cross-cultural ministries. But I wonder if you could talk to us a bit about what are some of the biggest opportunities that you see for growth in ministry and discipleship cross-culturally? And I like to use the word opportunities more than challenges.

Yes, absolutely.

So talk to us a little bit about that.

Yeah, I love that word too, Rick. And let me tell you, the opportunities are many, and the cool thing about where we are in 2019 as people of God is we are so inundated with where needs are that we almost don't need to pray about them. You know, we don't— there's not much I would tell people don't pray about, but honestly, you and I would not have to sit here together and pray for an hour and ask the Lord, "God, would you show us where the bridging, unifying love of Jesus needs to be?" That is the truth. You know what I mean? Like, it is the, the need for the unifying love of Christ is so obvious to all of us who are believers and obvious to an unbelieving world that this is what we pray for, right? I mean, it's go time. It's like, okay, we've been in training camp this time, right? We've been training. We're learning how to do what we need to do. We know how to catch, we know how to toss, we know how to work as a team. Maybe. Me, but we're learning, right? But, but this is the time to say, you know, Jesus Christ is the unifier. We as believers— I still believe this— hold the key to the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. And so every single one of us— Bible says we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. Like, we can assume that we already have that ministry given to us because we've been reconciled to God. And now we get to be reconciled to one another. So if that's the case, the opportunities right now are limitless, limitless. And if anybody or any group of people has a reason or is compelled, is the people of God. It's a great opportunity. What a beautiful time to be alive.

Yeah, for sure. And that doesn't mean it's easy, but it's there. Like, it's a—

oh no, this will kick your Exactly.

It's— but it's a good opportunity. And when we talk about, you know, I almost can hear the words of the Lord being spoken to us, you know, the harvest is great, but the workers are few, you know. And it does feel like sometimes maybe if we're not careful, we'll spin our wheels doing important ministry but not essential ministry, and doing important things but maybe not the things that are essential. And I think some of these cross-cultural areas of bridge building, these are some essential things that if we're not careful, we'll ignore them because they're hard, but they really are essential things. And I think it's, it's the work of the kingdom that we're talking about when we talk about doing this. That's why I so appreciate you and, and the conference that you have coming up that's going to help us to be able to, as leaders, have some of these conversations. So let's talk about that a bit, because you are hosting this conference again in, in October. Is this the third time you've done this conference? I think I'm trying to remember in my mind how many times you've done it so far. If I'm misspeaking, I apologize, but—

Oh no, this is the third time in the past 3 years. We did one, gosh, I don't know, 5 or 6 years ago. We did one, it was great, and then we just didn't do one anymore. I don't know why. We just didn't do it again. And so then we picked it back up a few years ago. So this The third year, yes.

All right, well, I was right. Well, very good. All right, so what— every now and then I get something right, so that's good. Um, but you have this conference coming up at Bridgeway Community Church in Owings Mills, Maryland, and it's going to be on October 10th and 11th, and I'm excited about this. I'm going to try to, to come and be a part if I can this year.

I—

at this point on the calendar, it's open, so I'm going to do my very best to, to be there. Um, so talk to us a little bit about this conference because it's the kind of work that excites me. And maybe explain to us some of the focus and the intention of this gathering. And it's called ONE this year, ONE the conference.

Yeah, so let me be very clear and very specific about why, why we even hold this every year, and that is that we believe that we are those of us who have been practitioners in the field of intentional multicultural ministry, that we are passing on and responsible to pass on the tools, the equipping, the strategic planning, the strategic thinking around how do you do this. We are taking these ideas that seem to float around and saying, you know, they don't have to stay ideas and theories. There is an actual way to do ministry like this. Just like if we were going to, you know, start a new building campaign as a church, or launch a new ministry, or, you know, launch a new campus, there is a way, right? There is a way. There is a way to do multicultural, intentional, diverse ministry. What I'll tell you what this conference is not. This conference is not so that we can gather so one or two people groups can feel like they share all the burden. It's not that. It is not a town hall meeting for two days, where people kind of air grievances, and then you leave, you feel worse than you did. You know, you're like, what did I just sign up for? Right?

I just think of Festivus when you said that from Seinfeld. I've got a lot of problems with you people.

Yeah, we should just call— we could call something else the Festivus Leadership Summit. Use air of the grievances. Yeah, it is not that. It is kind of what I was talking about before. It is a celebration of who, or what does the diverse body of Christ already look like? And then how, you know, what are the strategies? What are the— what's the blueprint for making our ministries more diverse? Who do we need to be as leaders? You know, we believe, my core team, that one of our strengths in this conference is, you know, sometimes you go to a conference and you just get sort of firehosed with information.

Yes.

You're like, great, I know 75 ways to do whatever I need to do, not gonna do any of them. Um, you know, we, we really want this to feel like a pastoring, shepherding time together, as well as an informational time. We boast in the Lord, in the Spirit of Jesus, but we also boast in the fact that every year all people from different backgrounds can come together, ask the questions they've wanted to ask but maybe never had the safety to ask them, to learn from other cultures, to learn things such as is, this year in particular, what is the sacrifice of unity that believers need to make when they choose to worship together? What does community look like in different ethnic culture groups? Because, you know, we love that term in church, right? Community, community, community. But community means different things to different ethnic groups.

Groups.

And so if you're a monocultural environment, you may not even realize that, you know, your particular people group is different than the people group that might be a small minority in your church. You just never know. So this is the place for 2 days. We are equipping leaders in the body of Christ who are saying, "I want to do this work. God has called us to do this work.

Help me know how to do it." Yeah, no, and what, what it sounds like a really great conference. And I, I'm with you, I, I get kind of tired of the fire hose approach at conferences. Sometimes I have been the fire hose, I felt like, when I've been asked to actually speak or play music. And it does, at times you feel like there, there is so much coming at you. So I really love, I love your intentionality and I love your focus that it sounds like this event is really bringing together, especially in this area of ministry. I wonder if you could kind of create a picture for us of what kind of impact that you feel like this annual gathering has had. And have you had some good reports of people that have been there that maybe have said, this has really helped us and made a difference in where we're ministering?

Yes, we get reports after every conference we do, and the cool thing about it is they span so many different areas of life and ministry and work. So for instance, people usually come, the main thing they usually say is, you know, "Thank you for reminding me that we're on the right track and we can do this. It's just gonna take some time." That's huge impact because again, culturally speaking here in our country, it's It's hard to find that. Yeah, um, it's either because everything is very binary right now, and so we're trying to take things out of the binary, make them a bit more in the middle. So, so the encouragement factor is high. All of us as, as leaders, particularly church leaders, we need somebody to look at us, give us a hug, and push us right back out.

Yeah, right.

And so we feel like this is the yearly hug. Our leaders get. So, so there's that. There are personal things that happen. Um, there was a young African-American girl that, uh, was serving as part of my team last year. She's a friend of mine, she's in her 20s, and, um, she was her first year at the conference, and she said that hearing non-African-American people talk so deeply about how much they care about the unity of the believers and the unity of those we're called to changed how she thought about non-African American people. She hadn't been exposed to anything like that before, and it reinvigorated her own personal journey to say, let me try again trusting people. So there was a personal— there's a personal side. There was a— there's a church part of our network in Colorado. And they used our network to ask a large group of different kinds of ethnicities, "When you walk into a physical building space, what would minister to you?" And over the course of, oh gosh, maybe a year, this church in Colorado— I can't remember the name of it off top of my head, but they're actually going to be one of the pastors is going to speak about their building project. He showed us pictures of the building project that they did, and their whole building, Rick, is intentionally designed so that people from as many cultures as possible see themselves when they walk in the place. Wow. And, and that— I mean, according to the pastor, that was a direct result of coming to our conference and also being connected to the network. Lastly, one of the biggest pieces of impact is the network. People network with each other, particularly if people are coming from monocultural churches that are transitioning to multicultural. They run into and find people who end up being part of what they're doing in the most beautiful of ways, whereas before they wouldn't have had access. To people, or they wouldn't even know where to hire or where to find ministry leaders or that sort of thing. So just the network of having like-minded people who are saying, "Our churches need to reflect the diversity of the body of Christ." We cannot have this anymore. We cannot have— we just can't be okay with only worshiping with people who are like us.

More.

I mean, it's 2019.

Well, and you know what, you're right, and I'm hungry for that. I'll just— just to be really personal about it again, it's been a struggle for me over the years. And you know, I've been in the same ministry context in one form or another for 18 years now here in Ohio, and, and I'm, and I'm grieved more all the time. Not that I don't have friends who are non-white or come from different backgrounds, but the place I worship is still, I would say, 99% white, you know. And so I really appreciate this, and I long for this, and sometimes I think that we need that kind of a push. And I think a lot of us would find in our hearts, if we're honest, we We would say, "You know what? This is something that I thirst for and I hunger for." I think it is something the Holy Spirit is putting in us to hunger and thirst for because the people of Heaven, it is so much more vast. We will experience new parts of God that we maybe had not even thought we would ever experience before if we are only with people like us, you know, sometimes. I think God just reveals Himself yourself in different ways and through different people and through different backgrounds. And so I just can't tell you how much I appreciate this and you're creating a space like this. And it's so unique. As I think about it now, I can't think of too many conferences I've been to unless, you know, I've been invited to a few conferences to speak or to play, and it ended up being again the opposite, 99% non-whites but very few whites. I kind of felt like I was the only one there. I'm sure that you felt that way at times in many conferences. Yeah, where you go and it's like, it's like, am I the one Black person here in the midst of, you know?

Well, you know, interesting, Rick, is when I go places like that, I think my heart says, why doesn't anybody else see that people are missing?

Yeah. Yes.

And I think, you know, my heart I was just telling a friend of mine the other day that sometimes I feel like the crazier things get, the more compassionate my heart gets. And I can't explain that. But it's that. It's particularly when you come from doing the work I do and the ministry that I've been a part of, you realize how much life there is when people from different cultures, ethnic cultures, come together and share their love for Jesus. And expression and worship and food and dance and preaching. So, but I think right now, even in Christian circle, which is interesting to me, you know, there's a lot of things that are very fear-based. And I think you have many, many things where people even are curious about, okay, what might this look like for, you know, First Baptist Church of Cedarville, Ohio, you know, like, right, what is, what is, what does multicultural ministry look like, um, in a cornfield in Pennsylvania, you know? Um, and the thing is, is that we're creating a space each year, um, that is safe to ask questions, uh, safe to experience, uh, safe to not know. Yeah. And those, I'm learning over the years, you know, those, those spaces have to be created and oftentimes have to be facilitated and cultivated by people who, whose greatest goal is the heart of Jesus more than anything else. And for all of us involved, it takes a sacrifice, it takes a laying down It requires entering into the sufferings of Christ, but we can find rest and safety there with him.

Well, I'm gonna be reflecting on that for a while. The sacrifice of unity that you mentioned, that's something that's, that's gonna be burned into my brain for a little bit as I, as I think and pray. And I think that's really good. Well, I think it's, it's fairly obvious that this is a good conference for leaders to go to, but I want to ask you as well, if, if a person is not necessarily a leader in their church, is this going to be a conference you feel like they would still find a lot of benefit from coming to? If they're maybe just a layperson or they just want to find out more, is it kind of open to anybody?

Yes, it is open to anybody, and we have designed our schedule for both days for learning to take place as well as what we're having, uh, panel discussions in every single one of our main sessions, uh, so that we can learn from each other. And these aren't just like, you know, learn from Dr. So-and-so, you know, this is literally learn from my Ethiopian friend, um, you know, who can explain to you about her culture, um, some of those types of panels. Then our, our small learning groups each day break down into pastoral, practical, and personal. And so people can find wherever they are and whatever they want to learn about at this conference. We have designed it to be very inclusive. So if you're a pastor, you'll get it. If you're, you know, somebody that attends a church and is curious, you'll get it. Yeah, the conference is for people.

That's great. If you could, and you may not, if you're like me, I almost have to have it written down in front of me to remember everything, but if possible, are you able to give us kind of a quick rundown of what the schedule would be as far as like when the event starts and when it ends and sort of a breakdown of what happens in between?

Oh, absolutely. So the event is, uh, October the 10th and 11th, which is a Thursday and Friday. Thursday, our day begins around 9 o'clock, and I say around because this is a multicultural worship leader conference, which means some of our cultural friends may not show up until 9:30. Gotcha. That's your first learning, Rick. Yeah, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock.

One of the things I learned very fast when I was in Africa a few years ago, it was like, "Well, if it starts at 9, we'll get going about 11." Yeah, so, yeah, it's one thing I love about white culture, man.

They are on time. Anyway, we will start it at 9. We will have worship each day that is reflective and hopefully stretches a lot of people on what worship could look like. Having diverse cultures. So we'll start there. Then we talk about the diversity in unity. What does that actually mean? When God, when Jesus prays that we would be one, what does that look like? And then from a theological standpoint, and then practically, what could that look like within our liturgies, within our programs? And then we give people each day a response time collectively in the large group. To share ideas or to share insights or ask questions right there. The middle of the day— this is for both days— the middle of the day, we have our small learning groups, workshops if you will, pastoral, practical, and personal. And the back end of the day, we start to talk about the sacrifice of unity. And then at the end of the day, we go into some real practices based on what we've heard of prayer, repentance if need be, care for one another, and worship. And then the next day we start talking about things such as the witness of unity. What does it mean when, again, when Jesus asks us to be one so that the world would know? We talk about diverse definitions of community later that day, and then another response time. So those are what our days kind of look like. They're two pretty packed days, but again, our goal is to create a space where people can be together, they can experience one another, and really continue to search their own heart in this work as well.

Well, it sounds like it's going to be a wonderful conference, and I'm gonna be looking at my schedule this week and hoping I can arrange rearrange it to be there because I really want to be up here. You had said it—

you—

when we talked about it last year, I had something already on, on the counter. I thought, oh man, I wish I could, wish I could rearrange it. Um, but I do think this is important and good work, and I want to thank you for coming on to talk to us about it today. And I— for everybody listening, I want to encourage you first to, to go to nickylearner.com and And I want to spell that for them so they'll know. It's, it's www.nikkilerner.com. And if you go to NikkiLerner.com, not only can you find out more about the great music and ministry of Nikki Lerner, but you'll also see a link on that website about the MWLN1 conference for 2019. And you can click on that. It'll take you to an event browser. Link, and you can find much more about the conference, things that we even probably haven't covered today in our conversation. But I did want to make sure everybody had that link, and I'm going to put all that in the show notes on, on the podcast website as well. So if you listen to this show, just kind of make sure and go to the show notes, and, and you'll be able to find out more. Well, Nikki, is there anything else that we haven't talked about today that you want to before we end our time together?

Well, thank you again for letting me talk to your audience, and just, it's always good to talk to you. I would say this, and that is, in this work we all need training. And make no mistake about it, if you try to jump into this work thinking you got it just because you know how to run a church, you'll get discouraged real fast. And so let us help you not be discouraged, but to really have some solid tools that you can cultivate in your organization, in your church community, big, small, no matter what, these things are proven and they work. And so I would just say, this is doable. We have the answer. As the body of Christ to the division in our world. So let's do it.

Amen.

Well, Nikki Lerner, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Thank you, Rick.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl my channel and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at RickLeeJames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now, for the benediction. Benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.