Should Your Church Be Diverse?

I participated in an urban ministry luncheon the other day at a Denny's in Milwaukee. In order to get there, I drove by a bustling bistro full of white people and past neighborhoods of detached homes with well-manicured lawns. Soon after passing under the highway, I was met by endless arrays of small apartment buildings and fast food restaurants. The luncheon took me from one side of the tracks to the other in what is reputed to be the most segregated city in the country.

Is this a problem? Don't most people naturally congregate with those who have the most culturally in common with them? If we took socio-economic factors out of the equation and the inner city was not the economically-ensnared hellhole that it has become, would the separation be that big of a deal?

For the church, it should be a big deal. The church is a culture primarily defined by Christ, not by race. We do not call people "brother" or "sister" because they share our race, but because they share our grace. We see in our diversity a foretaste of the heavenly wedding feast, where all tribes and tongues will have a place at the table. And we long to show a watching world that the Gospel is not a white man's religion (the fact that most Christians lives outside the West should attest to that).

At the same time, diversity should not be the primary focus of the Church. I have seen many a church lift up multi-racial hands of unity but not lift up the Lord and Savior of sinners. This is where we confuse our heavenly imagery. The tribes and tongues do not sit upon the throne, but before the throne. It is Jesus Christ, and Him alone, who draws sinners from every place unto Himself.

This is the tragedy of  most of what has been called "social justice" over the past couple of years. It has focused on horizontal reconciliation between men and not vertical reconciliation between man and God. The same Christ who reconciles man to God is the same Christ who then enables men to reconcile with one another!

As Christians, we should work to break down social barriers that have no place within the Church, where there is neither Greek nor Hebrew. Is should not be our governing cause, which is the glory of God in Christ, but it should be a cause nonetheless. This will not come through working in soup kitchen, where predominantly one race is behind the counter and one race on the side of the counter. This will not come through service projects that go to help needy blacks and Hispanics.

While such things are worthy tasks in and of themselves, they perpetuate the lie that one race is always on the giving end of grace and the others on the receiving end. The best thing we can do is initiate friendships, share table fellowship, and seek to learn rather than instruct. Love is not primarily material, but spiritual, and in that way, the most impoverished person has as much to give as the suburbanite. We are ALL needy for God's grace in Christ!

I met a 68 year old black pastor who has devoted much of the last 50 years of his life to ministering the Gospel in the worst neighborhood in Milwaukee. My theological education might be more robust than his and my doctrine a bit more precise, but I do not deserve to tie the man's shoes. All that I could teach about the Gospel are things already embedded heart-deep in this father in the faith.

If you are saved by God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ--if your heart's renewed desire is to see God glorified--then you will desire to see the Gospel drawing all peoples into your particular corner of His Church.

I remember leaving suburban California one summer for Malawi, Africa. In Escondido, I often felt like an alien. In Josophat Mwale Theological Institute, I felt like family. Few things will show you the grace and glory of God in this world more than how He draws the most diverse people into the most precious unity in Christ.