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The changes were not easy. "People did not understand why we were doing it, and I think my wife was wondering if I'd lost it," Emerson says.

But they made the choice out of a sense of conviction.

Paige Pitts, a former teacher and urban ministry director at Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, a mostly white Nashville suburb, believes that racial reconciliation won't happen unless we're intentional. "I grew up in a predominantly white world and never perceived a racial problem because I had no relationships that allowed me to see through black skin. Most families are not just going to fall into a natural, integrated, multicultural situation; we're going to live pretty isolated within the subculture."

Now a stay-at-home mother of two, Pitts developed a heart for reaching out to those in need while teaching in Nashville's metro school system. Her church, Christ Community, asked her to come on staff and develop an outreach to the underserved neighborhoods in Franklin. It was during her tenure there that Pitts met many of her close African American friends.

"I literally began to walk the streets and develop relationships with these women and youth," Pitts explains. "And I realized God has already planted faithful men and women in those communities. Instead of us coming in and leading the programs, we need to assist the leaders who are already there."

Pitts helped to start adult literacy programs, tutoring programs, a ministry for unwed mothers, and even an independent non-profit elementary school called New Hope Academy (which serves families from both the lower-income and middle-class Franklin communities and boasts a diverse student and faculty population).

Although she loved her church, Pitts and her husband, Dan, wanted to be involved in an integrated body of believers. Strong Tower Bible Church in Franklin offered the perfect setting to strengthen their multicultural relationships in a congregation made up of people from different racial and social backgrounds. Now, families from all different walks of life share dinner and fellowship with the Pitts family each week.

"We want our children to begin at an early age to see the world as bigger than a subculture of Christian white suburbia," Pitts says. "From the books we read to the places we go with them to the schools we'll choose for them—it will be a part of all our decision making."

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