Multicultural Ministry in a Divided Age

it's important because everyone is important to Jesus Christ so let me be clear uh we're trying to be biblically correct we're trying to reach everyone with the Gospel of Jesus Christ we want everyone to belong to the church so in our polarized culture sometimes terms such as diversity or inclusion are being used or being Twisted so we're not talking about a political agenda we're not talking about political correctness we're not talking about the ideology of multiculturalism meaning all cultures are equal there should be no common culture etc etc so I don't want to get off on those political tangents but we do believe in Multicultural Ministry which means reaching people in and from every culture I think that's biblical now why do I think it's biblical the Apostle Paul addressed this in the early church the Roman Empire was the context for the early church and it was a multiethnic multi-racial Empire and here's what the Apostle Paul said in Galatians 3:28 of course this is inspired scripture um and I'm reading from the new King James there is neither Jew nor Greek there is neither slave nor free there is neither male nor female but you are all one in Christ Jesus so obviously you could still tell a Jew from a gentile or a man from a woman so he's not denying that physical reality but he's saying whether your culture is of a Jew which would be from the Jewish perspective a Biblical culture or Greek which from a Jewish perspective would be Pagan uh whether you're slave or free in Christ we don't recognize slavery but in society some people were actually slaves but it didn't matter in church you could be the pastor um and male and female obviously those roles are distinct in the family and in society but when it comes to serving God being part of God's kingdom uh being a minister of the Lord you know it doesn't matter who you are everybody should be valued needed wanted recognized we also see the same type of statement so this is not just a an unusual strin statement but Colossians 3 11 talking about in the church where there is neither Greek nor Jew circumcised nor uncircumcised that would be of course the Jewish religious tradition Barbarian people who are considered outside um the the common culture cyan that was an example of what was considered on the fringes of the Roman Empire outside the Empire kind of like a pagan tribe uh slave nor free but Christ is all and in all and then of course if you go to the Book of Revelation Revelation 59 Revelation 79 save people will come from every nation every tongue every tribe every race so the church should seek to be a reflection The church here on Earth should seek to be a reflection of what it's going to be like in heaven where I think in heaven we'll all be distinguished as to our personal identity including our culture or who we are it's not going to be all obliterated but we're all going to be equal we're all going to be worshiping God we're all be going to be valued and recognized in our own uniqueness and distinction so the church should do that here on Earth and what does that mean practically speaking I think it means every local congregation and the church body at large to be open to people of every background every race every Walk of Life the distinguishing factor is Faith in Jesus Christ being born again pursuing Holiness doesn't matter the color of your skin the language you speak the nation you were born in now I do think the church needs a common culture around Apostolic values and I so that nothing I've said we talk about diversity that doesn't mean we approve of Lifestyles that are contrary to God's work doesn't mean we approve of uh you know putting ethnic identity above the gospel so actually the gospel supersedes any other ethnic or cultural identity so a certain culture may say something is right but if the Bible says it's wrong then the Bible supersedes that culture and every culture has those problems but every culture also has good things that we can learn from and then sometimes learning another culture helps us to look at the Bible more carefully to say some things we thought were biblical aren't really biblical they're just traditions and they're locked into our culture but now they're exposed to other cultures we realize wait a minute the Bible isn't addressing that or the Bible allows diversity uh in these areas uh I also think as a nation so here in the US also Canada I think we you do need to have a common national identity I think it should not be be race based on race but for example in the US the reason why we are a nation we're very deliberately our motto is out of many one so you can be any race and being an American any culture any ethnicity but you should adopt certain values such as democracy Republican form of government freedom of religion freedom of press freedom of assembly freedom of speech uh Economic Opportunity uh private property you know all these things Forge us people come to our nation for these things and if we obliterate them or if we say what other cultures you know uh women are sub subjected or children don't have rights or polygamy is allowed or this and that St well just because that's another culture doesn't mean it's correct and even if it's acceptable in some context um that doesn't mean we as our nation should change our culture to adopt something that's not our culture so I do believe we have a right and a need for a common cultural identity but when it comes to the church uh we need to reach out to everyone and of course the church uh goes beyond politics so whether somebody is here legally or illegally whether they're here with papers or without papers we can say as a nation we want to have certain guidelines and laws we want to enforce them and people should follow them and and I believe all that but when it comes to winning a soul none of that matters to me in that sense a soul is a soul so if I can lead them to Jesus Christ if they can lead them to repentance of need to receive the Holy Ghost then we can sort out their legal status or what they should do or what's the way to deal with their situation but whether they remain here or whether they go somewhere else you know our country is better off if someone is full of the Holy Ghost versus Not Having the Holy Ghost so when it comes to the world I think you know what's happened and which caused a lot of the political turmoil is we've had such an influx of immigrants from all kinds of backgrounds it has changed our country some you could say for better some for worse but from a Church's point of view I look at as an opportunity I look at it as God is enabling us to reach the whole world from our own Nation so we can say there's some things we're like some things we don't like some cultural changes might be better some cultural changes might think are worse and I have a right as a citizen to express my views to vote according to my views Etc but I should still treat every human being with dignity or respect regardless and when it comes to the church I want everybody to be in church because that supersedes any personal cultural preferences or thing other things and of course the whole new testament book of Ephesians Paul is saying you Gentiles which that would be you and me you know we were not the people of God but we are brought in and the wall of partition that separated Jews and Gentiles broken down so that we could join in all the promises of God and so I'm thankful that the church is multi ethnic multi-racial because that's the only reason why I can be in the church and I've received that Grace I want to ex extend that same Grace to everyone else

yes and let me give you some resources so um the LA the last pastoral subur we asked this so for the US and Canada which is our home base um our con constituents are an estimated 61% white or Caucasian uh 19% Hispanic uh 15% black or African-American 3% Asian-American and 1% Native American that does show diversity and what's interesting to me that is pretty close to the percentages of the population of the US and Canada in fact probably a little more minority representation so we're actually overall seeming to do very well in reaching the diversity of our society now where we need to improve is as more people come in church it there's a time lag but people get called to preach they get qualified they come into positions of leadership so our Minal constituency is not quite that much but it's growing and then of course leadership drawn primarily from ministers that will even be take a little further time but we're also seeing increased diversity there even at the highest levels uh such as our headquarters office uren University uh headquarters officials Ministry leaders we are seeing increasing diversity as you can see on our website if you're interested I would uh urge you to go to our website upci.org and if you go forward slats you'll get all kinds of research our latest surveys in great detail you can peruse those also if you go to for statements hyen archive we have our racial and ethnic affirmation which includes our total position on this subject and includes an amendment to our articles of Faith where we emphasize uh the importance of recognizing uh every ethnicity every person and not allowing racism to intervene so that is a now a a fundamental position of our church that's our highest doctrinal statement the articles of Faith so that's in our statements archive also there's a racial and ethnic timeline where we talk about over the last 50 years what steps have we taken what progress have we made because we've made lots of progress in very specific ways what have we done step by step what's the latest uh information and statistics and then I would also say we have a curriculum that's free on training for diversity training how to reach people of various backgrounds in general and also specific and you can find that on Ministry Central uh.com which is our training website if you go particularly under Multicultural Ministries there is a free curriculum which you can use for your church for volunteers for leaders it's called Mosaic and you can look at individual lessons or you can take the whole course so we're trying to put practical Tools in people's hands so that every local church every District can be more effective in reaching the population my vision is this if we're going to truly be U an Evangelistic missional organization the church needs to reflect the people who live in our communities and then the leadership of the church needs to reflect the people who are in the church so that's a natural progression uh we still have a lot of work to accomplish but I I think we're heading in the right direction of course if you look at across the world we now exist in more than 200 Nations plusSign a in number of territories and the vast majority of our constituents would not be white at all they would be of various ethnicities uh brown black and so on and our Global Council which is our umbrella organization um which consist of leaders from all the nations of the world where we have organized works as well as our missionaries of works that are under development but you will find strong representation of all Races and ethnicity uh I'm the chairman of the global Council our global missions director Adam Hunley is the vice or co-chairman and then our secretary is brother kuruku he who is the national superintendent of uh Kenya so at the highest level we have diversity of leadership both here in the US and Canada and the global Council and I think if people want to see the diversity of the United Pentecostal Church here in North America on display all they got to do is come to North American youth congress this summer and that's you can see firsthand what we're talking about our annual General Conference and our our our B anual North American Youth Congress are excellent to see the diversity from across our fellowship