· It’s Biblical · It Works · It’s Hard
- My first year, we drafted a church vision statement which said, “We will seek to reach all ethnic groups without distinction or separation.”
- In the next few years, we were surprised to see some from other ethnicities coming and joining our church.
- As the numbers from other ethnicities increased and some moved into leadership, the criticism increased from all sides.
- After six years of difficult struggles and limited success, I nearly left the church.
- We turned the corner during my seventh year when our people began to accept the multi-cultural mix, criticism began to diminish somewhat and the number of minorities grew significantly.
- During my ninth year, we started being more intentional about including more minorities in all levels of leadership and utilizing more multi-cultural music and promotion.
- By my eleventh year, half of our Elder Board were minorities.
- In my twelfth year, we reached a point where we had no ethnic majority in our church or on our pastoral staff.
- We continue to work on new ways to touch the hurts of our community that we might teach their hearts about the love of Jesus.
-Jay