Our commitment to intentional diversity grows out of two things: the Story of God that unfolds in the Bible and a heart for our city. This dream began with a realization that every part of life in our community is integrated ethnically except our Sunday mornings. There’s natural diversity where we shop, where we work, where we send our kids to school. But when we gather to worship the God who loves us all the same, we are largely segregated. Historically, we all know WHY the American church is split along racial lines, but should we allow the most broken parts of America’s story to define the reality for Jesus’ Church? 

 While not every individual church has to be diverse, in a community like ours, where a diverse church is possible, we believe an intentionally diverse church should be an option! As we pursue the dream of a diverse family of faith, we aren’t chasing political correctness or diversity for its own sake- we’re striving to live out the vision God has always had for his Church to reflect the fullness of the Good News of Jesus! 

 We see this picture stretch across the Story of the Bible in three key ways: 

 1) A diverse church is the outcome of God’s promises to Abraham, that through him all nations would be blessed (Genesis 12:1-4). Abraham’s story flows out of the division that took place at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 10-11) when God confused human languages to prevent humanity’s attempt to replace him. The effects of the Tower were reversed on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) when God, through the arrival of the Holy Spirit, granted the Church the ability to understand one another despite their diverse languages. This shows powerfully that diversity can lead to division or reconciliation- the difference is whether that diversity is driven by the brokenness of human sin or by the grace of God’s love. 

 2) That means that a diverse church announces the fulfillment of those promises through the death and resurrection of Jesus, who united Jews and Gentiles into “one new humanity”, by “dismantling the dividing wall” and reconciling both to God by the cross (Ephesians 2:11-22 is key here). In the earliest days of the Church, there was no such thing as a diverse church- because the Church, by its very nature, was diverse! In Jesus, the long-promised Savior King (the Messiah, or Christ), God made a way for peoples of all nations to live in the same sort of relationship that he had previously called only Abraham’s descendent into. Diversity isn’t something that’s added on to the Church’s ministry, it flows out of the Good News of Jesus! 

 3) Lastly, a diverse church is a glimpse of heaven in the here and now. In John’s vision of the heavenly throne room, he saw what is known as “the Church Eternal,” the gathered people of God. What he describes there is a “multitude no one can count from every tribe, tongue and nation” (Revelation 7:9-10). Throughout Scripture, when we read the word “nations,” we tend to think about lines on a map. The first Christians better understood the word (which- to get all nerdy- is the Greek term ‘ethnos’ that we get our word ‘ethnic’ or ‘ethnicity’ from) to mean “peoples.” When the Kingdom comes in its fullness, all who place faith in Jesus are welcomed home to our Father’s house. Heaven isn’t segregated, and we want to trust God for a taste of that reality whenever we gather! 

A Diverse Family of Faith 

God intended it. 

Sin broke it. 

Jesus fixed it. 

The Kingdom renews it. 

 So let’s live it!