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Men of Integrity, March/April 2007
Who Died?
Theme of the Week: Showing Our True Colors
Wednesday, March 7
Key Bible Verse: "Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples" (John 13:35). Bonus Reading: 2 Corinthians 5:14-18
A dozen years ago, my wife and I parachuted into Columbia, Maryland, to start a multicultural church. This community of 95,000 is racially diverse; we hoped that would increase our odds for success. But you can count on one hand the churches there with significant integration. Planting Bridgeway Community Church proved difficult.
What church consultants were saying was no help. One told me, "David, I've never seen a racially mixed church grow without one culture having to die. If there were blacks and whites in the church, then one of the cultures died."
This statement perturbed me. I went back to my congregation of 50, composed mainly of whites and blacks at the time. After repeating the consultant's statement, I threw my hands in the air and bellowed, "Why can't we both die? Let's all make a pact to die to ourselves to build a new culture, a multicultural army of devoted followers of Christ!"
The inspiration and resolve from that Sunday lives on. Today Bridgeway is 60 percent African-American; 13 percent Asian, Latino, or other ethnicity; and 27 percent Caucasian. We celebrate the beauty in the body of Christ within our congregation. And it's rich!
—David A. Anderson in Multicultural Ministry
My Response: What cultural preferences might I have to forego in a diverse fellowship?
Thought to Apply: Racial reconciliation is one of the best roads to humility we can take because of the opportunity to die to self.—GLEN KEHREIN (Chicago ministry leader)
Adapted from Multicultural Ministry (Zondervan, 2004) by permission.
Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
March/April 2007, Vol. 10, No. 2
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Prayer for the Week |
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Lord, Your Church should be validating Christ's reconciling power. Help me to do my part.
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