I Want My Church to be Multi-Racial, Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Cultural.

Valerie Cullers 18 Comments

This past Sunday in church I sat next to a young Hispanic man. As I was thinking about our differences, I looked around at the people in our church, and I saw that each one of us is like a candle. The only difference was that each candle had a different color coating on the outside.

candles-2899921_640 photo by geralt – courtesy  of Pixabay

Years ago, I was watching Dr. A.R. Bernard, the Pastor of the Cultural Christian Center in Brooklyn, New York, on television. He was talking about how the leadership in his church purposely went after racial, ethnic and cultural diversity. They wanted their church to be representative of the city they were living in and be a microcosm of the world in general. I liked that idea and it stuck with me. He talked about how they would purposely seek out leaders from different backgrounds to be front and center in their church. He said that if you want your church to be a certain way, you must make an effort to make it happen.

That became a dream of mine. I don’t want to go to a church that is homogeneous racially, ethnically or culturally. We need people from different backgrounds in order to understand each other and not be afraid of our differences. Each race, ethnicity and culture can add an element to our church that would otherwise be missing. I, too, want to go to a church that is a microcosm of the city and world I live in.

I looked around at my church, and thankfully, it more than represents the community we live in racially. We exceed the percentages for our city as far as ethnic diversity. Culturally, I’m not sure how we are doing. I haven’t met many people from different countries around the world. That is still a dream of mine, that God would bring them to our church.

We have many churches in our area that represent their native countries and speak their languages, i.e…Greek, Russian, Ukrainian, Korean, etc. That is all well and good and I understand why people want to worship in a setting that they are familiar with and with people that speak their native languages. I’m just putting the word out, though. We need a few of them from each church to come to ours, so that we can get to know them and the gifts and insight they would bring to our body of believers.

So, if you’re new to the area, come on in. We don’t need people that look like we do or talk like we do. We need you, with your racial, ethnic and cultural differences. You will truly make our church representative of the world we live in and we will all be the better for it.

18 thoughts on “I Want My Church to be Multi-Racial, Multi-Ethnic and Multi-Cultural.”

    • So true Sister in Christ Jesus-Yeshua!! Amen-Amein!! 💜💕

      May our ONE TRUE GOD THE HEAVENLY FATHER who art in Heaven Above Bless all my Sisters and Brothers in Christ Jesus-Yeshua and Your Families and Friends!!

      Love 💕 Always and Shalom ( Peace ), YSIC \o/

      Kristi Ann

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  4. I admit to being a Western classicist. The high point of Western church music was during the Counter-Reformation. There is no way any form of Gospel music is on par with Gregorio Allegri’s “Miserere Mei, Deus.” The rhythms of the Book of Common Prayer (1979) are so much part of me that I almost never read any part of the liturgy during services. So, yes, there are many churches I have no interest in attending for purely liturgical reasons. That does not mean, however, that I fail to recognize other churches and mine as being on the same team.

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  9. This is beautiful. I am part of a small fellowship in Turkey. I don’t know if you know this, but it is a majority Muslim country so the options for church fellowships are VERY limited. I probably live in the most Christian city in the country (Izmir) and out of 5 million people we have about 10 church fellowships that range from 12-100 people. Maybe one church gets 100 people a week. All that to say… our churches are very ethnically diverse because the believers living in Turkey have very few options. I think my church has more than 5 nationalities and languages and there are only about 30 of us. I love it though and I feel it really reflects what heaven will be like. Many cultures, many tongues all worshiping together. Your heart is lovely, thanks for sharing!

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