Multicultural Leader
Nine months into a newly created multicultural ministries position, the Rev. Leah Burns spends less time in her Alcoa office and more time in the churches of Holston. (Photo by Ben Smith)
April 5, 2024
ALCOA, Tenn. -- When the Rev. Leah Burns moved into her office in the Holston Conference headquarters in July 2023, she moved into a quiet building that was still in the throes of disaffiliation and a pandemic. She moved into the center of a United Methodist network that was trying to figure out how to shift into new ways of doing ministry with fewer churches and with fewer people willing to attend church on Sunday morning.
Nine months after her arrival, Burns has adapted to the situation while learning a thing or two about the Holston Conference multicultural landscape, or lack thereof. She's eager to move forward with that knowledge, even though sometimes she feels alone.
Burns is Holston Conference’s first-ever director of multicultural ministries. She recently spoke to The Call in her office on the connectional ministries floor of the Alcoa Conference Center.
“When I came on board last July, it was like a barren wasteland. There was nothing. No form. It was almost Biblical except I’m not God,” Burns said, explaining what it was like to walk into a job that had never existed before. “It was exciting but daunting. So the challenge for me was how to form this ministry, and how to get my work done using volunteers and conference resources in creative ways.”
Burns was selected by a search team last year after Holston Conference leadership recognized a desperate need to strengthen existing Black and Hispanic churches, develop ministries with Native Americans, and perhaps in the future, create new ministries with Asian and Pacific Islanders. Burns previously served as pastor of Lennon-Seney United Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.
A big part of her job in the past year has been talking with church members about what multicultural ministries is in the first place, Burns said. She spoke to all nine Holston districts when Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett did her “District Days” tour and has appeared at numerous other events and meetings throughout Holston and the denomination. She’s currently leading a “cultural competency” training with the Holston Conference cabinet.
“I just really want to live into the Gospel of Jesus and make the church a diverse area,” she said, “and we do that by empowering the various ministry areas that exist and growing new ones that perhaps are not organized yet.”
The “vision of Pentecost” is foremost on her mind when she’s trying to empower church members to see and find creative ways to support the communities around them.
At Pentecost, she said, people of different languages and cultures came together and worshipped as told in Acts 2 of the New Testament. “They all came from different places, but they all felt the Holy Spirit, even if they didn’t understand each other. That’s what I want everyone to feel.”
Studies of demographics and trends show that developing multicultural ministries and diverse congregations is a path to developing the church of the future, Burns said.
“Our churches are still -- as Martin Luther King said in 1963 -- very separate, and that can’t be the future,” she said. “When you talk to young adults and youth, that’s not their view of church.”
Anxious to tap into how young people envision the church and how multicultural ministries can be advanced through young people in Holston, Burns has begun working with fellow staff member Laura McLean, associate director of connectional ministries for youth and young adults. Their hope is to begin studies with the Conference Council on Youth Ministries (CCYM) and the five Wesley Foundation groups of college students in Holston.
Through meetings and conversations with Holston’s 29 churches with predominantly Black memberships, Burns has also nailed down the priorities those churches most want Holston Conference leaders to help them locate and achieve. Number one is resources, such as grants, funding and technology, to help Black churches develop ministries and grow. Number two (“and probably tied with number one,” Burns said) is to attract and retain youth and young adults in the church.
“It’s common across many churches that [the younger] generation is missing, but it’s particularly noticeable in Black churches,” Burns said. “If you go to worship services, you’re going to see people of a certain generation and you’re going to see very young people. But there’s a big gap missing, and that’s the gap that grows the church, right?”
After getting acquainted with leaders of Holston’s seven Hispanic churches, Burns said she has learned something else in the past nine months:
“Our Hispanic ministries have been quietly working really, really hard,” she said. “Those ministries have done so much with so little. They are so creative and innovative with what they have. Most of the Hispanic churches are already out in the communities and gathering people in and worshipping with them wherever they are. And my hope is that we can resource them further so that they can grow even more.”
In the year ahead, Burns aims to help the Black and Hispanic churches identify and access resources to help them multiply, so there are more persons of color represented within Holston’s 545 current churches. The Hispanic churches also want to create a mission and vision statement and to pursue more clergy training.
Burns also hopes to find ways to develop Native American ministries in Holston. “I just really want to reach out to help them feel included and loved,” she said.
She also hopes leaders of predominantly white churches will contact her so that she can help them reach the communities beyond their walls.
“One of things I hear often is, ‘Well, our community is not diverse,’” she said. “But have we really looked? Just because we may not have folks in the church right now doesn’t mean they don’t exist in the community. I want to be helpful to congregations and pastors to help them do that.”
Similarly, the next phase of Burns’ work will be spent less within the walls of the Alcoa Conference Center and more in the churches of Holston, leading anti-racism training and helping districts envision opportunities for cultural growth. As she traverses unchartered territory in Holston, Burns says she feels encouraged by a monthly online community that cheers her on and helps her feel less alone. The online group is comprised of about 30 multicultural directors and diversity staff from other United Methodist conferences.
Many of her counterparts have served in their roles longer or have had multicultural ministries in their annual conferences for several years.
“We get together and there are so many things that we have in common – so many things that their conferences are going through, that we are just starting,” Burns said with a big smile. “I have learned so much and gained so much from colleagues in other annual conferences. There is a lot to look forward to.”
Annette Spence is editor of The Call, the Holston Conference newsletter. Holston Conference includes 545 United Methodist churches in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and North Georgia, with main offices in Alcoa, Tennessee.