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As the first black manager at a major parachurch organization based in the western United States, Clarence Shuler didn't feel like a "golden boy" the way he had in other ministries where he had been the "first black." This time, he repeatedly ran into brick walls as he sought to usher in a culture of real diversity. He left afer three years.

"It honestly was a battle all the way," he says, "but my interactions did help some of those very conservative people adopt a more biblical view of God's perspective on diversity, and that was worth some of the pain."

In 2003, five years after leaving the ministry, Shuler met with the group's president to discuss his ordeal at the organization. That emotional meeting concluded with the president apologizing to Shuler for the unchristian attitudes he had encountered while employed by the company. And Shuler, in turn, apologized for not always responding to the adversity in a Christlike manner. But not all endings are as tidy.

"Listen. You could not pay me to be the head, or even on the board, of another evangelical organization." That's Darrell Davis (not his real name; some identifying details have also been changed). Before moving to the East Coast to become senior pastor of a large African American church, he was a youth pastor and ministry leader in California and then, most notably, the director of a large parachurch ministry in the Dallas–Fort Worth area, a position he took in the early '90s. Davis stayed at that organization four years before bolting.

Davis, a firm yet soft-spoken preacher, told me he hadn't been looking for a job when that large ministry called. "They had interviewed over a hundred people, but more than one person told them about me. I fit all their descriptions." After Davis interviewed for the position, "the Lord spoke to my heart and said, 'This is going to be your job.' And as my wife was praying, she got the same message."

For a while, things at the new position were fine. "I was the flavor of the month," he says. But over time, Davis began to sense tension between himself and his colleagues as he tried to implement new ideas. "I wasn't trying to make trouble," he says. "I was just there to do my job. But people will read into what you do out of their own fears and insecurities."

One strange encounter typified the underlying racial tension Davis faced.

It was my third year with the ministry. I got a call from a prominent white Christian leader, asking me to go to lunch with him. As we're sitting down to eat, all of a sudden this guy starts crying. … He explained that God had blessed him, his children were healthy, he was known throughout the country. But, he said, "I've had a hard time sleeping throughout the night." And I was thinking to myself, Why is he telling me this? I'm not a therapist.

"I just came back from an annual conference on the other side of the country," the man told me. "A bunch of us got together to discuss reconciliation and cross-cultural ministry. Usually, when black leaders come into the meeting, we make them feel right at home and let them be part of the decision-making process. But to be honest with you, Darrell, the decisions are made before your leaders ever get there. I'm used to hearing the jokes and the use of the N-word. But this time, when the jokes were going on and people were saying things, it didn't sound right to me."

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February 2007, Vol. 51, No. 2