Reflection Options  

Journal  (Reflect on one or more of these questions)

• Journal about your vision for unity in diversity in your church, neighborhood, community or college campus.

• What was your best experience of a group embracing the value of diversity?  What facilitated that positive experience?  What was your attitude before and after that experience?

• How did Jesus value or act on the value of ethnic or cultural diversity?  If you could guess, what do you think Jesus would want to say to our churches about cultural diversity?

Quote Interaction  (Agree, disagree or otherwise engage with the quote/quotes)

• The most insidious racism is among those who don’t think they harbor any.  (Jack White)

• The family of God is ethnically and culturally diverse. As Christians we not only permit such diversity, but we cherish it. This is because God Himself cherishes ethnic diversity. He is not color-blind; He is colorful. At His throne God welcomes worshipers “from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev. 7:9). His plan of redemption is for the peoples of the world in all their rich variety. (Philip Graham Ryken)

• People who treat others as inferior are those who themselves suffer from a sense of inferiority and insecurity. Others are a threat to them because they don’t have a sense of being important to the eternal God. They don’t have the assurance that this God will look after them more than adequately. When we lose sight of our identity in Christ, lesser identifying features, like race, class, caste, and education, become significant. We try to find our identity by acting more significant than others.  (Ajith Fernando)

• If we want the meaning and the worth and the beauty and the power of the cross of Christ to be seen and loved in our churches, and if the design of the death of His Son is not only to reconcile us to God but to reconcile alienated ethnic groups to each other in Christ, then will we not display and magnify the cross of Christ better by more and deeper and sweeter ethnic diversity and unity in our worship and life? (John Piper)

Reading and reflection on Shaping The Journey of Emerging Adults: 

• Read “Is This A Universal Landscape?” (pp. 36-39) What are some factors that create diversity in the way we experience and grow in faith?  Which ones do you feel you have been more affected by?

• Read “Friendships” (pp. 146-147).  Look at the list of American ethnic subgroup tendencies in friendships as well as gender differences.  How could the various tendencies of these groups enhance the functioning of the body of Christ if all were valued equally?

• Read “Living in a Diverse World” (pp. 195-197). How are young adults poised to bring the church forward in valuing diversity? Look up one of the churches/ministries mentioned.  What inspires you about their approach? What might you be able to propose for your church in regard to valuing diversity?