Evangelical Futures: Diversity - a powerful witness to a divided world

As we consider our future as evangelicals, we should return to the commission the Lord Jesus gave before His ascension: ‘But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth’ (Acts 1:8).

Sharing our faith is core to our identity as followers of Jesus Christ, and Christians sharing their faith with others has been used by God to underpin the growth of the global church – despite heresy, persecution and scorn, the gospel prevails!

When we look at the audience of that day who first received the Great Commission, Jerusalem represented their home; their friends and neighbours. Judeans represented people of similar cultural and religious understanding, who would have felt familiar and easy to connect with. Samaritans were the cultural and religious outsiders.

Jesus was asked: ‘What should we do to inherit eternal life?’ The answer given was: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.’ When questioned about who the neighbour is, Jesus replied with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan to Jews who looked down on Samaritans as ‘unclean’ people who were beneath them. This would have been shocking to them as an example of God’s view about our relationships with each other. That a Samaritan could be the leading figure in the story would have been deeply controversial, and challenged the social and religious norms of the day – surely it was a Jew who should be the leading figure of the story!? Who do we expect to be the leaders of our day? Where does ethnicity, culture and class fit into our expectations? Do we even think that loving our neighbours, all of them, even the ‘Samaritans’, is part of how we inherit eternal life?

When we look at these Biblical principles in our own lives and the lives of our churches, there is much to learn. Occasionally, we are sharing the gospel in ‘Jerusalem and Judea’ – with people who we feel we have lots in common with. We can invite friends to Hope Explored or other courses, Carol Services or Bible-themed toddler groups, and often find ways to have conversations about faith. This can feel challenging and it is normal to struggle with these things, which is why Jesus said we would need to wait on God for help – prayer is usually the beginning of evangelism.

When we look at our ‘Samaria’ – people living nearby but who are culturally very different to us, a shocking number have no Christian friends. One in three people in the UK have no Christian friends to invite them to church or share their faith with them, yet if you are a university graduate, you are five times more likely to have a Christian friend. Many people in the UK from more marginalised communities will go their whole lives without hearing the good news of Jesus. For the future evangelical church to bring a credible witness, that means that we need to go out and build bridges into communities nearby who are very different from us. Kev Murdoch has been doing this at Euston Church, which is mostly middle class with lots of students. They have been doing some great outreach work with LCM missionaries in the local council estate and he says that people now have a vision for mission like never before.

God’s heart displayed

The church is intended to be welcoming and diverse, not homogenous like a private members’ club. There can be peace between different classes, different ethnicities and different cultures, so that the world can look at us and see God’s heart to include everyone and to see the difference that being part of God’s family makes. Achieving unity takes great effort, and it can feel easier to give up and live a segmented, uniform existence.

Within the early church, the groups with the biggest differences, the Jews and Gentiles, were encouraged to unite. Paul is clear: Jews, Gentiles, rich, or poor, the gospel is for everyone and those who repent and believe are made one in Christ – not segregated. God has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility between different groups (Eph.2:14) so that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known (Eph.3:10). This word ‘manifold’ can also be understood to mean multicoloured or multifaceted, which shows us that when we unite in our diversity around the eternal truths of the gospel, we are making God’s eternal plan of reconciliation known.

As Evangelicals, we need to ensure that gospel-preaching, welcoming churches are at the centre of setting our strategy for growth across the nation, welcoming people who are from a wealth of backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures with a genuine warm welcome with the gospel at the centre. Churches that offer enduring hospitality that include and make space for difference – a powerful and united witness to a divided world.

At London City Mission we are seeking to serve the church by sharing our knowledge through developing resources and providing training. As evangelists (Eph. 4:11-13) we are called to build up the church to reach out into communities unlikely to hear the gospel with the good news of Christ. We are calling on the church to ‘remember the poor’ (Gal. 2:10), to reach out with hope and good news to all people, particularly those who would otherwise never hear the gospel.

To see gospel impact in the lives of marginalised people could mean developing ministry into youth violence, setting up local food banks or launching a prisons ministry. For those whose lives have been characterised by rejection, trauma and poverty, the barriers to understanding the gospel can be significant. Building up relationships where people feel safe and helped is often a key part of God’s work in their lives. Our central purpose must always be to share the hope we have in Christ with those we practically help – we potentially do them the greatest harm otherwise.

However, when we look at our churches, many leaders feel their congregations are too small to do anything significant like this. Churches who agree on eternal gospel truths based in the same area can gain so much by cooperating with other churches, separate on secondary issues only, and bring a better-resourced and united witness with more gospel opportunities. I’m not saying we should compromise on the primary issues, but aspire to make every effort to ‘maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ because ‘There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all’ (Eph. 4:3-6). Our reticence to work with other Bible-based churches can sadly be particularly true for churches who derive their culture and heritage from other parts of the world. Many may not be recognised for historic and cultural reasons – some will have much in common with other Reformed churches that may be assumed.

The other barrier to church engagement can be how busy those central to the life of the church can feel, and a very simple answer is to spread the load further, even to those people who we may be more nervous about being involved in ministry, even as volunteers. We have to exercise discernment in extreme cases, however we are all reformed and we have a priesthood of all believers. The future of evangelical church growth depends largely on us de-professionalising outreach ministry and for us to relax control and trust that God is sovereign over our church. Ask people if they’d like to lead things, delegate and cultivate them as leaders and understand that not everything will be as we want, acknowledging that the original 12 disciples also had their learning moments. Equip the saints! Ministers who are too busy and feel like they have to do everything to ensure doctrinal purity can be a bottleneck to the gospel. I’d encourage the intentional creation of a culture where people feel a greater sense of permission to lead, and to get involved and learn as they go. People flourish when they feel a sense of ownership of a project or initiative – invest in developing the people leading the ministries, and the gospel impact will multiply.

Gospel first

When we commit to a way of church that puts the interests of the gospel first, that works with others and embraces difference, we can mature into a place where we are less focused on our own experience and more focused on how God can use us to see His kingdom come in the lives of others. We can also grow by including those who may be more marginalised, by radically allowing them to bring something that the Lord has given them to minister to us in new ways. The parable of the Good Samaritan reminds us that those who are different to us are neighbours who need to be loved, but also someone with great ministry potential to offer.

Building up diversity is a rich blessing to the church, and we should cherish those who are not like us, especially the first few to join the church, because they add so much. It takes more effort but is much more satisfying, and allows us collectively to be a powerful witness to a divided world desperate for true peace.

Can we be united in the gospel? I pray that we can.

• Case study

One LCM missionary, an Indian woman, is working alongside New Testament Assembly, Tooting, which is a predominantly Afro Caribbean church – two very different cultures! But God has used this difference to open up opportunities for reaching local Asian people with the good news of Jesus. Church volunteers started working with our missionary to reach out into the local community, and a handful of people from the neighbourhood’s large Asian community started coming through the church doors.

God seemed to be really moving, radically changing the culture within the church and bringing outsiders into the heart of the church family.