Wading Through the Waters of Ethnic Diversity

Diversity

Mar 31

Harbor friends,

Many voices are speaking into each of our lives way too much. If you are like me, you can sometimes find yourself a bit overwhelmed as you try to wade through the deep waters of content to discern what is wise and what is unwise. This is especially true when it comes to the topic of race, ethnicity, the gospel, and justice. There are perspectives as wide as the Grand Canyon discussing the most Christ-honoring way to address these issues within the church. And while we at Harbor Network won't solve these problems, we hope to be one faithful sign amongst many pointing you and your church towards Christ and a more profound love for his beloved community.

We hope to be a faithful sign by regularly posting on this column, mainly vlogs (video blogs), articles, and other resources, to sharpen how we think about diversity, a core value at Harbor network.

Every month we will have conversations with church planters and leaders from within our network on how the Lord cultivates this value in and through them. I’m eager to learn from so many men and women, and I believe that you will too.

We will also hear from leaders across this country who are passionate about seeing healthy churches launched and who want to raise leaders to navigate deep cultural waters. My prayer is that this space would become a resource that helps you love the mosaic that is Christ's multi-cultural bride. I also pray that this space will inspire you to love those who are different from you…and to do so joyfully.

Now before this space gets on and "poppin," it's essential that I explain to you why the value of diversity is necessary to Harbor and what our goal is in pursuing this value as a network. Here are some of these reasons:

Diversity is essential to us because it points us back to a trinitarian God who is one in three persons yet diverse in roles.
Diversity also points us to how God created every person and people group in his image with equal dignity and worth.
Diversity is important because God sent his Son into the world to redeem people from every nation, tribe, and tongue. Or, as we say at Sojourn Midtown, “every person matters to God, so every person matters to us.”

The bottom line is Harbor's goal is to empower a diverse group of leaders from all people groups to plant churches in diverse areas because God values all people. We hope that each of our leaders would embrace humble equality as we pursue unity in diversity in our local contexts and the life of our network.

“Harbor’s goal is to empower a diverse group of leaders from all people groups to plant churches in diverse areas because God values all people.”

As you engage with this column, you can expect to be encouraged but also challenged. You can also expect conversations about mercy, justice, and ethnicity through a God-centered gospel lens because that is our only hope.

Finally, understand that this space will not advocate for what some call "cheap diversity."*** Cheap diversity is diversity for diversity's sake. Cheap diversity is diversity without sacrifice. It's a diversity that seeks cultural assimilation and appeasement, not freedom and joy in Christ. I’ve heard it said before that a truly diverse community requires everyone to lay their preferences down at the feet of Jesus while picking up their crosses to follow him. A genuinely diverse network looks less and less like one particular culture and more like a kingdom mosaic. I hope you are ready to learn, laugh, disagree, and be sharpened together by this imperfect column seeking to make much of a perfect Savior.

See you soon!

Jamaal Williams
President, Harbor Network

***”The Multiethnic Church Movement Hasn’t Lived up to Its Promise,” by Korie Edwards is a good resource that inspired this paragraph.