Would you like to ask these two pastors a question about racial reconciliation issues? We hope you will!
Please allow me to introduce my friend, Eugene Collier, Pastor of The Grace Family Worship Center. His church is located next door to our church in Troy, OH. Over the last few years Pastor Eugene and I have been talking together and finding ways for our two churches to do things together. His church is mostly African-American and mine mostly Caucasian, though both congregations are ethnically mixed.
We plan to have breakfast together again in a few days to make plans for the next thing our churches hope to do together. We want our community to know two things: 1) we want you just to know THAT we are doing this and 2) we want you to know WHY we are doing it. And I want to offer for you ask any question you may have about the race issue.
Please leave a comment below with any question you’d like to ask of a black pastor and a white pastor as they sit down together for breakfast. Would you like to ask why there isn’t more unity between white and black churches? Then go ahead and ask! Want to ask why more leaders aren’t doing this? Ask! Wondering why it’s such a big deal that we would want to do this? Ok, ask! We’ll do our best to give you an honest answer to your question.
We want you just to know THAT we are doing this. With all the craziness in our country on the race issue it can seem like nobody is doing anything about it. Well Pastor Collier and I want you to know that two pastors in our community are seeking to do something about it in our little corner of the world. No, we won’t be able to change the rest of the world but at least we can strive to be good examples here in our two churches in our town. Be encouraged friends! And why not join us?
We also want you to know WHY we are doing this. It’s plain to see that the race issue still divides Americans deeply even though not everyone is a racist. We want to do this because we want to be good examples to our two congregations. We want them to see the gospel being lived out in our lives so they will have greater encouragement to live it out in their own lives. The greatest of all motivations is to glorify God. We want Him to be glorified because His name and worth are of highest value. Pleasing Him is the most important thing in all of life.
According to the Bible the glory of God is seen most brightly in the face of Jesus, His Son. Second Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” That means God has chosen a huge way to make His glory seen in the world – in the face of Jesus. The way Jesus’ face shows His glory is in the gospel.
Jesus made Himself poor, left heaven, came to earth, bore God’s wrath for mankind’s sin, dying on the cross to reconcile them to the Father, and rose again so that those who believe forever become sons and daughters of God. Galatians 3:26-28 goes farther and says this gospel has erased the dividing lines of race, “for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
The gospel has made all believers one in Christ. Pastor Collier and I want to live out the gospel in real life. The gospel says we are one so we want to live more and more like we are one.
Now, I’m really interested in hearing what questions readers want to ask these two pastors. So ask away!
