A lot has changed in churches throughout the years, but if you walk into most churches on their day of worship, you’ll see they bear an uncanny resemblance to churches decades ago — a church comfortable with its own music in its own part of town and with its own people.
Though diversity is a trending topic among churches these days, it can be quite messy since many of us aren’t quite sure what the first step is to increase diversity among our congregation and staff. It’s not until we start the conversation that we realize just how separated the church truly is.
In today’s episode of the Think Orange Podcast, we’ll hear from Reggie Joiner, Virginia Ward, Kara Powell, and Sam Collier about how to intentionally pursue diversity to help advance God’s kingdom.
Topic Timeline:
Dave introduces today’s guests, Reggie Joiner, founder and CEO at Orange; Virginia Ward, director of leadership and mentored ministries at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and associate pastor at Abundant Life Church; and Kara Powell, executive director at the Fuller Youth Institute and faculty member at Fuller Theological Seminary (1:33)
Dave also introduces Sam Collier, director of city strategy at Orange, who will also discuss today’s podcast topic (3:23)
Reggie introduces Virginia and Kara, who will talk about multiethnic relationships and what that means (6:30)
Virginia shares what is changing in today’s church (8:00)
The global church has become more than just black and white (8:18)
Virginia shares what it was like growing up in the African-American church (9:50)
Kara says young people are on the cutting edge of the multicultural experience (10:50)
What does the church need to be and do? (11:10)
The church needs to have a better understanding of what ethnicities are. Everyone has an ethnicity, not just people of color. (11:33)
If the church can’t talk about race and ethnicity in a John 17 way, there’s a problem, Virginia says (12:25)
Reggie shares how our churches are beginning to look differently than they did 20 and 30 years ago (13:31)
Kara talks about her church in Pasadena and how student ministry became a turning point for her church in becoming more ethnically diverse (14:28)
Student leaders can be a great place to start to help churches be more inclusive (15:02)
How do those who don’t live in an ethnically diverse area start a conversation about racial diversity? (15:54)
Virginia prays, asking God to increase diversity conversations around the globe (17:34)
Dave introduces Sam Collier (18:23)
Sam talks about his role at Orange (19:10)
Dave and Sam define what ‘multicultural’ is (20:59)
Sam says you know your church is diverse if it looks like the public school that’s closest to it (21:57)
Churches tend to stay within their comfort zones (22:28)
Sam gives advice to local leaders who want to reach other cultures (23:03)
Sam shares his experience attending a predominantly black church in the past (24:18)
Sam talks about the first time he visited Buckhead Church (24:56)
Empathy is the bridge to connection and to reaching out to people who are not like you (26:41)
Create a safe place to make mistakes (30:11)
How do you start to connect with people you don’t usually hang around? (30:39)
Sam shares some practical ways to invite someone new to the table (31:20)
How to have relationships and it not feel too forced or strategic (32:47)
Comfort is the enemy of innovation (35:42)
If we all get uncomfortable for the sake of the gospel, we’ll see this world come together like never before (36:17)
Dave shares how kids are much more open to people different from them (36:35)
Dave talks about how to start conversations with people different from us (37:48)
It’s hard to pursue diversity if you haven’t done your own work within yourself (39:37)
Sam and Dave talk about why the church is lagging behind in diversity (41:25)
How can church leaders catch up with culture? (43:40)
If we can come together, we can take the mission of the church further and faster (44:25)
God’s kingdom is multicultural (45:41)
Sam talks about where to learn more about City Strategy (46:00)
Dave and podcast producer, Kevin Jennings, share their final thoughts on the podcast topic (47:36)
