The current blog
theme—citing the words of Ronald Kalifungwa—is that “we must examine the
patterns within our churches that erect barries to other races and endeavour to remove
those barriers with the help of God.” The editor then asks what some of those
barriers might be.
I find the question
difficult to answer. I suspect part of the reason is that, as Rick Phillips
suggests, the answers will be different in different churches. An urban church
in New Orleans is going to face a different set
of issues than a rural church in Redfield, South
Dakota. The issues will be different for a churches
surrounded by different races, cultures, ages, etc. There’s no one-size-fits-all
answer because there are multiple situations. We also know that it’s not as if
we can just stop practice X, Y, or Z and people will come flooding through the
front doors of the church.
