Theology in the Raw - #626 - What is Church? - Part 5 - Integration and Diversity

Episode Date: December 18, 2017

What is church? What should church be? What should church look like? What should church pursue?  In this series, Preston is looking at 8 different values that the church should work to keep forefront as they continue and grow.  Value 6 - Integration and Diversity Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Follow him on Twitter @PrestonSprinkle

Hello friends and welcome back to part five of our series on What is Church? This is part five, and the topic that we're going to cover is integration and diversity. Integration and diversity. And if you're joining me for the first time, I would encourage you to go back and listen to the other episodes in the What is Church series. In short, I am summarizing some values that me and my friends have established as we have barely begun a very simple, stripped down, somewhat raw, as I like it, raw church plant here in Boise, Idaho. And this value is really close to my heart, integration and diversity.

By integration and diversity, the overarching idea is that we don't want to create a church that is segmented, that is only targeting young marrieds or old people or young people or white people or black people or rich people or middle class people or poor people. We want the whole thing to be integrated and diverse because we believe that discipleship happens best when we're hanging out with people that are different than us. We believe that when we integrate youth or kids into our gathering, that we talk to them and learn from them and get to know them, that that actually is better for discipleship than if we simply did not hang out with people younger than us.

We believe that people that are older than us have so much to contribute to our gathering. We believe that people who are of a different ethnic background than us have a lot to teach us about what it means to follow Jesus. We believe that people who have a different socioeconomic status, poor people or rich people, have a lot to contribute in their diversity, in their uniqueness, in their different walks of life and backgrounds. We believe that that is actually very helpful for all of us to follow Jesus better. So this value is really close to my heart. In fact, let me give you a little bit of a backstory in particular with how I became passionate about ethnic reconciliation in particular. And I just want to say again that when we're talking about integration and diversity,

it is not limited to ethnic integration and diversity, but I do think that ethnic diversity is a, or should be a significant factor in the church body. So it was about 10 years ago when I was teaching at Cedarville University. And there was a couple of things that happened when I was teaching there. Number one, I got to know a colleague of mine named Jeff Cook. Jeff Cook ran the urban ministry program at Cedarville University. He's no longer there. He actually is a pastor in Denver, Colorado right now. Jeff Cook was a, gosh, when I say a legend or a specialist in urban ministry, he'd been planting churches in urban centers before. Planting churches in urban centers was cool. Okay. He's that kind of guy and didn't fit the Christian mold. He loved the kind of rough and tumble, the edgy, outlier sort of strand of Christianity, if you will. He liked to walk by the beat of a different

drum. And I learned so much from Jeff. One of the things he was so passionate about is getting to know the poor and marginalized in your community. In fact, he taught a class called Introduction to Urban Ministry, I believe it was called. And when I was a professor, and he was a professor at Cedarville University, I actually took the class because I heard all my students raving about it. So I said, gosh, just because I'm a teacher doesn't mean I can't learn. So I took the class, enrolled in the class, and I don't think, I think I got like a B minus or something. I didn't do too well, but, um, one of the things that Jeff Cook made all of his students do, including myself, was to spend a weekend on the streets. It was part of the class. Like you

couldn't pass the class unless you did this. It was called like poverty weekend. And we spent a weekend on the streets and the weekend that was chosen for us happened to be one of the coldest weekends in Ohioan history. We were at the schools in Ohio. I think it was like negative 19 degrees out. That was like the low. And we were still outside trying to stay warm, trying to stay alive as part of the class. side, trying to stay warm, trying to stay alive as part of the class. Anyway, long story short, we got to know prostitutes that had gotten saved. We got to know former drug dealers. We got to dive into dumpsters and find our food. We got to feel the psychological shame to stand at the front of a gas station or a 7-Eleven and beg for money. It was fascinating. And I just saw the world through a different lens. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is just one weekend. What about people who spend the bulk of their lives on the streets?

And my whole world just kind of turned upside down. And I began to cultivate a passion for the marginalized, for people who are down and out, people who are homeless. And in a sense, I began to cultivate a better understanding or at least a desire to understand the other, those who are different than me. And that may even be like a super wealthy, you know, person from Jordan or something like it doesn't have to be, you know, somebody who's poor necessarily, or somebody who's a different ethnic background necessarily. There's a lot of different facets of diversity. And I just grew passionate about getting to know and learning from the other. Around the same time, I was doing a lot of reading in the writings of Martin Luther King. And I read the autobiography of Malcolm X, which is probably my top 10, if not top five favorite books that I've ever read. The autobiography of Malcolm X. It was rated one of the most important books of the 20th century. It's an incredible book, and it gave me so much insight into the life of somebody who grew up in

the middle, mid-20th century in an African-American community. And yeah, Malcolm X is absolutely fascinating to me. I'm not going to get into all the details. Obviously, Martin Luther King, many of us love Martin Luther King, and he is also a hero of mine. What's fascinating is that Malcolm X, in terms of moral uprightness, Malcolm X was almost flawless. Of course, he's a sinner. He's born in sin. He needs Jesus like all of us, but man, he was a disciplined man. He was a disciplined man. And Martin Luther King, whether it's his busyness or his lack of self-control, whatever, I mean, he wasn't really known for his sort of raw, like, moral purity, personal purity in terms of, you know, he had a lot of affairs and he drank a lot. And, you know, he wasn't like your Mother Teresa type figure, but he loved Jesus and he was for social justice. And I admired the heck out of his writings and his sermons and his passions.

And Malcolm X, obviously I disagree with him. He was a committed Muslim. Although he got in some trouble with the nation of Islam toward the end of his life. But we don't need to get into all that. But there was different things that I really appreciated about Malcolm X and different things I appreciated about Martin Luther King.

Anyway, both of them really pricked my heart toward racial reconciliation, or at least understanding the other in terms of the ethnic other. And I became really fired up about issues of social justice. Now, fast forward a couple of years, I moved back to California in, um, must've been May of 2009. And a couple of years later, I was asked to speak at Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California. And that's the church that Francis Chan used to pastor. And when Francis Chan left, they identified a preaching team,

and I was one of the members of that preaching team. Now, I had preached at a lot of churches for the previous 10 plus years. Preaching was not a new thing, but this was a pretty big church. And it had the legacy of Francis Chan. And so preaching at Cornerstone Church was an incredibly intimidating thing. I remember studying for a long time for my sermons and rehearsing them, like preaching them to myself in a room like five times, literally five times during that week, a couple of times on Sunday morning. By the time I preached

on stage, I had already preached the sermon like seven, eight times because I really wanted to get it right. Well, the very, well, maybe not the very first, I think it was the second sermon I ever preached. We were going through Ephesians and I was assigned the passage Ephesians 2, 11 to 22. Now, for some people, the last half of Ephesians 2 is kind of not too exciting. It's the first half of Ephesians 2 that we get all excited about, about being saved by grace through faith. and we were dead in our trespasses and sins, and we were raised with Jesus Christ. And it's that those first 10 verses are really meaty theologically. I remember just falling in love with those verses

in Bible college and seminary. And the last half never really struck me as very impactful. So I remember being assigned that passage, and at first I was like, oh, I just missed it. I just missed the first half. Oh, well, you know, maybe next time we preach through Ephesians, I can get the first half. But then I started to really study this passage out and it connected the theological dots, all the stuff I was already feeling about ethnic reconciliation and a passion for the other, it was sort of crystallized in my preparation and preaching of Ephesians 2, 11 to 22. In that passage, Paul says that Jesus is our peace who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.

Now, the two groups are Jews and Gentiles, two ethnic categories of people. And Christ is our peace. And when Paul says our peace, he's specifically thinking about corporate ethnic reconciliation, that he is our peace, meaning the peace between Jews and Gentiles. He made the two groups between Jews and Gentiles. He made the two groups, Jews and Gentiles, one. He destroyed the barrier, things that separate Jews from Gentiles, that separate two ethnic groups from each other. He goes on to say that his purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two. Who are the two? Not just two people, but two ethnically different people,

two ethnically different groups formed into one body called the church. In one body, Paul says, to reconcile both ethnic groups to God through the cross. Put simply, part of the goal of Christ's of Christ's death and resurrection was ethnic reconciliation, according to Ephesians 2, 11 to 19, or in particular to 14 to 16. That doesn't mean that Christ tried to erase ethnic distinctives, but he didn't want those ethnic distinctives to become barriers to unity in Christ Jesus at the foot of his cross. And I remember in the process of really studying this passage and looking at other passages, I began to see that this idea that God desires to join two ethnic groups or multi-ethnic groups into one body through the death of Jesus Christ is much more of a pervasive scriptural theme than I had originally thought. Way back in Genesis 12, 3, which is part of the Abrahamic promise, God's

promises to Abraham, one of the most important passages in scripture is Genesis 12, 1-3. It's the foundation of the Abrahamic covenant, which becomes the foundation for the ongoing scriptural narrative of redemption and restoration. And at the end of that passage in Genesis 12, 3, it says that God says, I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you. That is the phrase all peoples. It has sort of a glance at the ethnic makeup of Abraham and his descendants. You know,

God's working through Abraham and his descendants. He's going to work through the Jewish people. But in Genesis 12, 3, God says, ultimately, I'm doing this because I want all peoples, not just Jews, but all peoples on earth to be blessed through the Jewish people as the mediators of the covenant and the conduit through God with the son Jesus. So this is an explicit statement about ethnic unity into the covenant of God, the Abrahamic covenant that God establishes with Abraham. Now, fast forward a couple thousand years, the New Testament, Paul says in Galatians 3.8, that scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. Okay, here, a statement about justification by faith.

Huge doctrine, right? Especially if you're a Protestant. Justification by faith, like we have it tattooed on our arms and other body parts. Justification by faith. It's like the bedrock of our faith. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham. Okay. So he's going to talk about what the gospel is. This is justification by faith, folks. This is the gospel. And then he goes on to quote Genesis 12, 3, all the nations or all the peoples will be blessed through you. Paul specifically says that the message going forth, the message of redemption going forth to

other ethnic groups and bringing them together under one body is part of the gospel. It's intrinsic to justification by faith. We are justified by faith, not by ethnicity, justified by faith, not by ethnicity, not by our Jewishness or whiteness or American-ness. We are justified by faith in Christ, which is applicable and unifying toward all ethnic groups. Go back one chapter to Galatians 2, and Paul rehearses a time when he confronted the apostle Peter, who used to dine with the Gentiles, but then he started to separate himself from Gentiles. And, you know, because they're eating this unclean meat. And Peter all of a sudden starts to backtrack, say, even though God had told me that all foods are now clean, meaning all people are clean, he starts to rebuild the wall, the wall that Christ tried to tear down in Ephesians 2. And Paul rebukes him for it. Paul opens up the can on Peter for, quote, deviating from the truth of the gospel, Galatians 2, 14.

So you see, when you start looking at these passages and how much they are integrated with the very idea of the good news of Jesus Christ, you begin to see that ethnic reconciliation is not an optional issue. At least if you really follow scripture closely, it seems that the idea that Jews and Gentiles, and by extension, all ethnic groups, are targeted and are intended to be brought into unity through the gospel. Like, that's part of the gospel's power, the gospel's intention, the gospel's message, that God desires ethnic groups to be one in Christ Jesus. And of course, you have the passage in Acts chapter 2, the whole speaking in tongues passage, the Pentecost passage, where people are speaking in different languages and other people who don't understand those

languages hear them in their native language. This is Acts chapter 2, verses 5 through 11. And sometimes we get hung up on the idea of tongues and is this for today and what is tongues anyway? Is it a private prayer language or is it a different language? Well, whatever the case, it seems clearly it's a different language here in Acts chapter 2. But the emphasis here, like why tongues? Why different languages? Why highlight the different ethnic groups in verses 8 to 11? Because, again, it's symbolic of different ethnic groups coming together under one body. Multiple languages, one voice.

Multiple tongues, one understanding. Multiple people, one spirit of God unifying them all. And throughout the book of Acts, we won't get into all the passages, but Acts chapter 6, Acts chapter 8, Acts chapter 11, and many other passages in Acts highlight not just the gospel going forth and conquering hard hearts, but the gospel going forth and unifying different ethnic people into one body. Like this, again, is part and parcel with the flow of redemption that goes all the way back to the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis chapter 12. And I would say even goes back to Genesis 1 and 2. But yeah, that's going to take us in a different direction. One more passage, Ephesians chapter 3, verses 1 to 10. Paul goes on a little tangent here,

little rabbit trail, talking about his ministry to the Gentiles, to the ethnic other, from a Jewish perspective. And he's going to do ministry to the ethnic other. And he talks about bringing Gentiles into the covenant and in Ephesians 3a, you know, I'm the least of all the saints. This grace was given to me to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ, to bring to light everyone, to bring to the light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all. He just goes on and on and on about his ministry to the ethnic other. And then verse 10, he says, so that.

Hina in the Greek. If you know Greek, Hina is a purpose clause. So that. What's the purpose of all this? What's the purpose of God calling Paul to himself and launching him into a ministry to the Gentiles? The purpose is so that through the church, through the multi-ethnic gathering, that's how I'm going to define the word church here in Ephesians 3.10.

If you look at Ephesians 3.1-10, look at the flow of thought, look what Paul's getting at here, and look at how the Greek word henna, or in the English phrase phrase so that in verse 10 is the climax, the summary, the culmination of everything Paul's been saying from three, well, let's just say 3.1 to 3.10. So that through the church, church there means different ethnic groups in one body. So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God

might now be made known through the rulers or to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places, which if you've done any study on Ephesians and Colossians, you know that rulers and authorities in the heavenly places refers on some level to demonic powers, the power and multitude of Satan. Okay, so let's back up again, and multitude of Satan. Okay, so let's back up again. Verse 10, so that different ethnic groups are coming together in unity

so that through this unified body of different ethnic groups, the manifold wisdom of God would be broadcasted to the forces of evil, Satan's minions. So what happens when church does not reflect that kind of manifold wisdom of God?

What happens when the church is segregated, when the church is not diverse or reconciled across ethnic differences, but is simply ethnocentric or is simply constituted by one ethnic group or is not seeking after the diversity that is proof that God has won through Jesus Christ. Because that's kind of the point here. Is that Paul says that through the bringing together of the impossible of different ethnic groups, that God's wisdom would be broadcasted. So when that doesn't happen,

God's manifold wisdom is not broadcasted. And it's more difficult to declare to the rulers and authorities that God has won. I said one more passage, but let's just do one more. Revelation 5, 9 through 11. The 24 elders, which I believe represent the two different covenants, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles, 24 elders. Israel and the church fell down before the Lamb.

Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of God's people. And they sang a new song, saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God. They, they, who's they? Different ethnic groups. Ethnic diversity and integration will reign upon

the earth. God's goal is not just to redeem people, but to redeem people from every tribe, language, people, and nation. And not just to redeem people from every tribe, language, people, and nation, but that that group of people would not just be diversely scattered around and segregated, but would be unified in one body, again, in order to proclaim the manifold wisdom of God and to proclaim loudly to Satan and his minions, you have lost. How do you know you lost? Because we've done it. We have unified people who have a history of animosity toward each other. Look, ethnic reconciliation, I don't think, is simply an add-on to the gospel. I don't think it's simply something that could be nice to achieve if you have the space, the time,

the energy, if that's kind of what you're into. It seems to be part of the fabric of redemption and reconciliation. So let's talk about church. I live in Idaho. Boise, Idaho is 92% Caucasian. Boise, Idaho is 92% Caucasian. I think it's about 6% or 7, maybe 6. Well, I don't even know the breakdown. In terms of people of color, it's primarily Latino, a little bit Asian, and hardly any African Americans. I think the African American community makes up less than 1% of our fine state of Idaho. We do have a lot of refugees here coming in. I mean, Trump has kind of put a stop to that, or at least a huge speed bump. But I think we have quite a few refugees, about 12,000 last time I checked, refugees from about 50 different countries here in Boise, Idaho.

Either way, the whole idea of creating a church here in Boise, Idaho, that's going to be super ethnically diverse is incredibly difficult to do. And so I've been talking about ethnic reconciliation for a while, and now I have to try to live this out. And I'm looking around saying, how can we live this out? How can we pursue ethnic reconciliation? How can we elevate and value different ethnic groups coming together in one body? It's not just a nice idea or, hey, it's cool if it happens or, hey, yeah, if you're black, you can come to our church. We're not going to hate you. That's, I guess, a good start. But how can we actually elevate the priority of different ethnic groups coming in?

I'm really wrestling with that. We're a young church plant, and I really want to try to keep that at the front and center of our values. Ethnic reconciliation is one crucial aspect of reconciliation, but I also believe that integration and diversity and reconciliation applies to many different other areas. It applies to socioeconomic reconciliation. We don't want a church with simply a bunch of middle-class people. We don't want a church with simply a bunch of middle-class people. We don't want a church simply with a bunch of old people or young people. I think sometimes it's unhealthy for young church plants to have a bunch of young people. You don't have some gray hair in there. I think you're going to be lopsided and missing out on a whole lot of wisdom and vice versa.

If all you have is gray hair, I think that you're going to miss out on some energy and creativity and passion from younger people. So in gender diversity too, I mean, typically that's fairly easy. You typically don't have churches that have, you know, like 80% men and hardly any women or vice versa, but it's not, it's not enough just to have women or men there. We need to have both men and women playing significant roles in the flourishing of the church. Was that diplomatic enough in terms of the question about women in leadership? I mean, sometimes we get sidetracked on women in leadership. And I like my first idea better, actually, of a focus, that this church cannot flourish without both men and women. Maybe that's too general. I don't know.

Is that too general or is that too vague? I don't think it has to be. I think that that can be a central component of every church. I don't care what your theological stance is on women in leadership or women in ministry or women's ordination. If a church can flourish and can move forward with only one gender, I think that's a very unhealthy church. We need both genders contributing to significant aspects of the mission and lifeblood of the church. I don't think that in and of itself demands that women must be in leadership because I don't think the Bible views leadership that way.

I think leadership is one gift of many. It's an important gift, but the ministry, as I've said before, shouldn't rest, stand, or fall on the leadership. I think leadership is helpful. They're supposed to serve the body and help other gifts and ministries to flourish. But the center of ministry is not on the leadership. It doesn't shouldn't be centered around the leadership. It's not like the leadership is doing all the ministry. No, that leadership is simply providing avenues for ministries and people and gifts to flourish. And so it's an important role, but it's not the end all it's one slice of the pizza.

So, uh, that's what we're trying to do. We have in our church, we do try to prioritize diversity over performance. So if a 14-year-old has a heart for worship and he or her maybe has a great voice, maybe doesn't have a great voice, or maybe can lead worship well, maybe is just trying to figure this out, then we're going to do that. We're not going to say, well, you're not talented enough to lead. No, we want to instill in our younger people, even really younger people, a passion and confidence and confirmation that they are necessary for this body. We recently had a Q&A at church and we asked for questions from some of the kids in the group. And we answered those questions and kids were, not teenagers, were participating in the discussion. It was brilliant. Sometimes teenagers have the best questions of all of us. We, yeah, we try. We're trying to value and elevate all of the different people that come to our church.

But just to circle back around, I am truly praying for specifically ethnic diversity, because right now we are very white. It's who God's brought our way. And I would love to, over the next several months, several years, to look out across the different gatherings of the church that we're starting and see different people of color. Not because, hey, that's kind of cool or, hey, you're allowed to come or, hey, we're not racist. We desperately need other people of different ethnic backgrounds to contribute to the discipling health of the body as a whole. I'm Preston Sprinkle. This is Theology in the Raw. And you're listening to the What is Church series. Lift up your shoulders, try breathing Carry the weight of love you've been given Storm is passing by

Light breaks in As you learn to sing Every color can be unwound Woven into a wave of beautiful sound Open the heavenlies and shake the ground And change the ground And change the world So let all the creatures sing

Praises over everything Over everything Colors are meant to burn Glory to the light Oh, yeah Oh, yeah Oh yeah Oh yeah Oh Voices may fade away And begin Become the top of the street We all are in And begin Become a tapestry

We all are in No one will ever be forgotten There's a place for us So lay down the creature's sin Raise hands over everything Colors are made to bring Glory to the light So lay down and greet your Savior Praise Him, He's over everything

God is a mick to a rake Lord, head to the throne This is our story, this is our song We're telling it slowly, all our love long All the same, what he's done is a mystery Oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh

Oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh Oh, oh, oh, oh