Editor's note: Tom Holmes, who covers religion for Wednesday Journal, has worked locally as a pastor and a writer since 1982. In the last three years, he has visited 32 of Oak Park's 50 congregations.

Sunday morning is the most segregated time of the week in America. And for the most part, that's completely voluntary. Is the same true for Oak Park, especially when part of the village's self-image is that it's multicultural?

Virtually all faith communities in Oak Park declare that everyone is welcome, and many say they are multicultural. But the reality is that people from one racial group make up more than 90 percent of the membership in most congregations. Among the members at predominantly white congregations, about 5 percent black, plus a few Hispanics or Asians. Among black congregations, only a few members can trace their family heritage back to Europe.

There are exceptions, though. Here are the stories of two of them.

Judson Baptist Church

The Sunday morning mix at Judson Baptist Church on Austin Boulevard is nearly 60 percent black, 30 percent white, and the rest Asians and Hispanics. The senior pastor, Rodney Lara, is black; the assistant pastor is white. The same balance is evident in the rest of the ministerial team and the support staff.

What's more, the diversity extends beyond race. "We have people who don't have a GED and those who have a PhD," Lara says. "We have doctors, lawyers and steel workers. The more affluent members tend to vote Republican, while middle- and lower-class members favor Democrats. Half come from Chicago and half live west of Austin. We are all over the place. This is not a social club."

Lara uses the term "multiracial homogeneity" to describe congregations whose members have different complexions but culturally are very similar: that is, they've all graduated from college, are professionals and drive a Prius. According to Lara, this is a big improvement over what was the norm only a few decades ago, but it's questionable if it really deserves the label of multicultural.

To understand how Judson achieved such diversity, Lara says, you have to know something about the congregation's history. Until 1978, Judson Baptist Church was all white, while right across Austin Boulevard the neighborhood was going through radical demographic change. It was at that point that the congregation reached down deep to its core values.

"The neighborhood was changing in the 1970s," Lara explains, "and this church made the decision that we're not going to sell our building and move to Bolingbrook or Aurora. What we're going to do is stay here and minister to the folks who come to this area."

Judson's members followed through on their commitment by canvassing the neighborhood - on both sides of Austin Boulevard - and inviting everyone they met to come to church. That was a time when people around here were beginning to buy into the vision of integration - in theory - but were at best uncertain about how it could work out in their own concrete lives.

Lara says that a black woman answered a knock on her door one day by two Judson canvassers, invited them in, and accepted their invitation to send her six children to the congregation's youth ministry. The accepted invitation broke the ice. During the next 16 years, the percentage of blacks at Judson grew to about 10 percent. At that time, the congregation voted to call its first black pastor, Arthur Jackson.

From 1994 to 2007, Jackson helped create the present racial balance in the congregation and left the congregation with Sunday worship attendance at about 150. Since 2007, when Lara arrived, attendance Sunday mornings has grown to about 250.

Those statistics are impressive, because sociological research concludes that, in most cases, church growth is possible only when the congregation 1) is homogeneous, 2) is on a main thoroughfare and 3) has a parking lot. Homogeneity is the most important. Judson has a parking lot and a visible location, but the communities surrounding it are anything but homogeneous.

All the literature on multicultural ministry concludes that healthy church dynamics are more difficult in the midst of diversity than in churches at which everyone looks the same. A study by the Alban Institute, a nondenominational research group, found that in multicultural congregations "interaction is hampered; integration of members is undermined; the plurality of ways of viewing the world can be unattractive to visitors; and there tends to be a lack of focus on mission because members are so preoccupied with just making it work." ("How to Live with Diversity in the Local Church," Stephen Kliewer, 1987)

Lara put it much more simply. He quoted Raleigh Washington, who said that multicultural ministry is "like plowing concrete."

So why is Judson Baptist Church not only thriving but growing? Lara points to several factors.

Intentionality: "It's easy to love someone who looks like me," Lara says, "but if you're talking about someone who doesn't talk the same language that I talk, eats different food and has different customs, then I have to be intentional and do some work to make that happen."

God's model: Judson's pastor acknowledges that what is called The Church Growth Model requires homogeneity. The problem for Lara is that "when you look at the Bible, that model clearly goes against Scripture."

Pastoral leadership: Rodney Lara embodies diversity. His Hispanic surname comes from his grandfather, who was Mexican. Lara has worked in congregations that were entirely black and has helped an all-white congregation outside of Dallas become 7 percent nonwhite. He has a college degree in business, and lived in Germany while serving in the Army. "I'm kind of like this gumbo," he says. "A multicultural church is the right setting for me."

Lay leadership: Lara says he works with five elders elected from the congregation who share the responsibility to "rule, shepherd and guide the church." One person can't do it all, he says. "When you have capable people as leaders who look like the members of the congregation, it resonates with the members." He points to Sammy and Alicia Morrison, a white couple living in the Austin neighborhood, who Lara says are "touching the lives of students" in Judson's youth ministry.

Commitment to unity: Because the members of multicultural congregation think, talk and act differently, "You gotta be committed to unity," says Lara, "and that means I'm going to be committed to reconciliation. Conflicts are inevitable. You've got to work that stuff out."

Kingdom Hall, Jehovah's Witnesses

In Sunday worship services at Kingdom Hall on Chicago Avenue, local Jehovah's Witnesses also approach a 50-50 racial mix. In fact, not only do the North Oak Park and the South Oak Park congregations use the building, but a signing congregation worships there as well.

In many ways, there's much in common with Judson Baptist. First, the diversity at Kingdom Hall comprises more than race. "We have doctors, lawyers and other high-educated people," says Billy Hall, an elder in the congregation. "I myself only went to school through the eighth grade. We have quite a few people who are not real educated and some who are unfortunate enough to be on food stamps."

Second, like Judson, Jehovah's Witnesses are growing partly because they knock on doors. They, of course, are famous for doing so. "I became a Jehovah's Witness in 1976," Hall says. "I was a Southern Baptist, but when some Witnesses knocked on my door, I invited them in. They showed me in the Bible [about hellfire doctrine]. I became interested in what the Bible was teaching, which was so much better than what I had learned."

Third, the Jehovah's Witnesses contend that what they are doing is simply being faithful to God's plan and program. "The reason we are so mixed," Hall says, "is that the Scripture emphasizes there will be one God, one faith, one baptism. Jehovah's Witnesses believe that God is not partial or prejudiced. So we follow Scripture to the best of our ability. We don't let racial overtones to become a part of us." Judson's pastor could have said that.

Fourth, visitors will notice a lot of strong lay leadership in Oak Park's Kingdom Hall. In fact, lay leadership is all that you'll see. There are no paid clergy among the Jehovah's Witnesses. Instead, groups of elders "shepherd" the various Jehovah's Witnesses congregations.

All Witnesses are expected to come prepared to worship on Sunday by having studied the lesson for the week from the Watchtower magazine.

Fifth, the local Kingdom Hall and Judson Baptist are both east of Ridgeland Avenue in Oak Park.

Finally, both Judson's Lara and Pete Madix, another elder at Oak Park's Kingdom Hall, quoted John 13:34-35 - "Love one another as I have loved you" - to explain how they were able to maintain unity amid diversity. "That's one of the things all Jehovah's Witnesses strive to do," says Madix, "and that's one of the reasons you see the multicultural, multifaceted congregations in Jehovah's Witnesses."

Billy Hall added, "Because we're dedicated servants of God, we don't allow things like the world in general to create problems for us. If there's a problem, we talk about it, work it out, and move forward."

The differences between the Baptists on Austin Boulevard and the Witnesses on Chicago Avenue are as striking as the similarities. The Jehovah's Witnesses thrive without the leadership of paid clergy. The sermons are delivered by elders who often come from other Kingdom Halls.

Another difference is the regimentation among the Jehovah's Witnesses. Whereas Baptists tend to jealously guard their independence, the Witnesses glory in their uniformity. Madix described a hierarchical chain of command in which his group of elders is under the supervision of a circuit overseer, who is under a district overseer, who answers to what they call the Branch Committee in Brooklyn.

What's more, the same topic will be covered every Sunday in every Kingdom Hall around the world, because the content is taken from the Watchtower magazine. "One of the things that allows us to be so diverse," Madix explains, "is a unified teaching. On Sunday, the same material from Watchtower is covered by all Jehovah's Witnesses around the world."

A final difference is that the Jehovah's Witnesses totally lack an intentional strategy for becoming a multicultural faith community. When questioned about how they have become so diverse, they simply say that they follow God's way of doing things.

The runners-up

Two congregations - St. Catherine/St. Lucy Catholic Church at Austin and Washington boulevards, where the Rev. Dan Whiteside is the pastor, and New Life Christian Fellowship on North Avenue, where the Rev. Nick Bitakis leads the congregation - both have a 70-30 mix in terms of race.

Conclusions

Why, when so many congregations in Oak Park proclaim diversity as a primary value, do so few exhibit it in significant ways? Following are some conclusions gained from visits to 32 of Oak Park's 50 congregations over the last three years.

Location seems to matter. All four of the most diverse churches in Oak Park are east of Ridgeland Boulevard. As you move westward and into River Forest, the racial/socio-economic/cultural homogeneity increases. That's true for both white and black congregations.

Doctrine doesn't matter. Among the top four multicultural congregations, it would be hard to find churches which differ more in terms of theology and liturgical practice.

Leadership matters. Whether the leadership is all lay or a team of the ordained and lay members, leadership seems to be an essential component in the recipe for cooking up an ecclesiastical gumbo with a lot of diversity. Locating on Austin guarantees neither diversity nor growth.

Half full or half empty? Most congregations in Oak Park are significantly more multiracial if not multicultural than they were when Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. Forty years ago, Oak Park in general was a whole different place. Not being at the top of the diversity list is not automatically an indication of lack of effort.