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Reid: I'm still trying to discover the principles for making it work. I'm trying to figure out principles that I can take back to Bethel, sit down with our leaders and say, "This is what God is calling us to." And I know it's going to be hell, because the other side of having Asians and Hispanics and whites and African Americans and various ethnic groups worshiping together is sharing power in leadership. As long as you're sitting in the pew, it's fine. But as soon as you begin to grow and seek to use your gifts in positions of leadership and power, that's when the real challenge of the multiracial congregation begins.

Is such a vision so hard that we're never going to see anything but mere glimpses of true multiculturalism?

Hybels: I like C. S. Lewis's thinking in Mere Christianity. You have to weigh the progress of our sanctification against how miserable and cantankerous, funky, and depraved people were before they met Christ. I believe what the authors have finally crystallized is something that the average pastor can wrap his or her brain around, and I think it's way too early to declare victory or defeat on this.

Castellanos: We can talk about this and write books about it until we're blue in the face, but ultimately the churches have to accept the challenge. We must create a movement of multiracial churches that is so compelling that people are going to say, "We cannot ignore this." The challenge for the church is this: Do you teach people the principles, or do you teach them to long for the reality of what God wants to see happen? Talking about it all the time can make the process methodical and taxing and burdensome. But when people are able to discover the biblical truth of multiracial churches for themselves, it becomes this contagious and liberating passion.

Rah: My 3-year-old daughter is just at that age where she's starting to recognize different ethnicities, and I'm so excited because she now thinks it's normal to have a Haitian auntie, a Jamaican uncle, a Caucasian big sister, to have half of her friends be biracial. That is the kind of environment that I want for my kids, and this is a part of what the church is all about. That vision keeps me going.

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April 2005, Vol. 49, No. 4