A fellow District President told me, “We have about one hundred congregations that will be closing – and some should be closing. They refuse to look at their surrounding changing neighborhoods. They don't want to reach out to them.” Sadly, that is true in many Districts. But it should come as no surprise. After all, the Church Growth people told us thirty -some years ago that people like to associate with those who are most like themselves. They join churches populated by people who are like themselves. So why scorn behavior that is natural? Isn't it a case of birds of a feather flocking together?

                                                                                                                                                 

Let's not beat up on ourselves too strenuously. Our forebears saw it as their mission to round up the Germans living in communities and see to it that they were brought into congregations that spoke German. Guess what? Immigrants from every nation are doing the same today in America! Eritreans, Ethiopians, Arabs, Koreans, Chinese, Hispanics – you name it – each group finds it most natural to come together with those most like themselves.

On another level, though, selectivity may not be so good. When we attach moral superiority/inferiority to people based on their differences from us, we are only acting like “normal” people and receive no commendation from the Lord. And when we are less than enthusiastic about reaching them with the Gospel because they are not like us, we fail to carry out God's will. How easy is it to reach those whose education level is lower than yours? How comfortable is it to speak with people whose bodies are generously covered with piercings and tattoos? How easy when the other person's American English accent is markedly different from yours and you have judged them by that accent?

Look to Christ. During his days on earth, how comfortable was it for him to relate to people who were total moral failures? How easy did he find it talking to people whose culture was different from (and even hostile to) his own? How easy is it for him to extend an invitation to people who have held him and his Father in contempt and disbelief? Love for each person estranged from His Father turned him toward those people, not away from them. A desire for fellowship with them led Him to the cross so that we, and all those alienated from God, might be able to live with Him forever.

As more immigrants tip the racial/social scales away from a Caucasian majority, what will we do? How will we relate to these new waves of incoming immigrants? Lick our wounds and flee to a safe retreat? Such actions created the suburbs in the fifties and sixties. But our nation paid a heavy price for suburban flight. And what about those second-generation immigrant children whose language is English and who want to identify with American culture but are not Caucasian? Will we continue to look the other way? Or will the Spirit enable us to fulfill Paul's counsel, “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you”?