Diversity = Gospel Apologetic

As a Pastor in phoenix, I am amazed to see our city so diverse. There are hundreds of young professionals from India working with American Express, living right here in my own community, there are said to be 100-200K Eastern Europeans in the North Valley.  What is God doing? Why are so many people from around the world here?

I believe God is at work, bringing the nations to our cities. The people of the world have taken refuge in our city, so why have so few found refuge in our churches? 

I look up to leaders of vision such as Martin Luther King Jr. who saw beyond the skin tones, and eye colors of men. A man who saw a day coming when our cities and churches would no be longer segregated. He believed in our constitution that every man was born with sovereign rights, for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

At Imago Dei, we  are pursuing cross cultural competence, because the peoples of the earth are loved by God and created in His image (Gen 1:26). In fact, they live in our community! 
I believe one of the greatest apologetics (defenses) for the gospel, is diversity in the church.It was this way from the beginning, when the church was first born, ( Acts 2). Ethnic groups found common ground, people of different races shared life with one another in the church and community of believers. My prayer is, that our white Pastoral Leadership Team would help lead our people in the days to come to develop a congregation that is cross culturally competent.

Here are a few suggestions for growing in cross cultural competence.

1) Take Intentional Steps – What intentional steps do you think church leadership should take to move towards embracing the nations among them?

2) Empower Diverse Leadership – How have you gone about empowering diverse leadership and what has been the outcome?
3) Develop Cross-Cultural Relationships – What and how should ministry leaders develop cross-cultural relationships?
4) Pursue Cross-Cultural Competence – How would you ensure that all those leading and serving within your organization are cross-culturally competent?

The great commandments (Mt 22:36-40) and commission (Mt 28:19) ought to call us out, to love people who are not like us! People of every tribe and nation. To love like God loved.  I am convinced that the church can only gain a stronger gospel witness when it reflects and reaches the community in which she resides.

Resources: If you would like to grow more in your understanding of cross cultural ministry, I encourage you to look to the expert Mark DeyMaz and his church planting, coaching network mosaix.

Additional Resources about People Migrations as a Movement of God, and Globalization, see Dr. Pococks work, on The Changing Face of World Missions.

Purpose & Philosophy Part 3. more words to describe us...

Attractional Church. We are also a “Come and See” church; inviting people to experience corporate worship on Sunday. We believe that the church in the New Testament was clearly organized for the sake of ministry and should hold to a centralized structure enough to maintain a high quality of ministry to her members. So in this sense we see ourselves as church that is attractional, gathering for the proclamation of God’s word and the worship of God’s people. The church’s contemporary worship style and relevant preaching messages will hopefully not only attract people from all backgrounds but equip them so that they can be sent out to establish other communities of faith!

Pursuing Diversity: We are a church that is seeking to be ethnically diverse not only in our congregation but in our leadership as well. We believe in order to reach a broader people group in our city and world we will need a diverse team. Predominately, the diversity in Phoenix is the Hispanic population. But there is also a great need for the gospel to penetrate tribal groups of Native Americans, and Refugees in the Phoenix area as well. Although our initial leadership team is all Caucasian and likely will be for sometime we hope to build a more diverse team to best bring the gospel to our increasingly diverse city.

Equipping/Sending: We are a church that if focused on equipping the church to be the church in our city. The church will function much like church in Antioch we read about in the book of Acts chapter 11 in the New Testament of our Bible. We will strive to reach various cultural tribes within our city by equipping and sending Christians within cultures to declare and demonstrate the gospel. We will equip and send out missional leaders to establish gospel centered communities. We will in time gather for Sunday morning for worship as we develop a leadership team and are ready to assimilate people into works of service etc.