This is Part 2 of a conversation between Rick Hardison, lead pastor of Lakewood Ranch Baptist Church and author of the PhD dissertation, “A Theological Critique of the Multiethnic Church Movement” and Daniel K. Eng, SOLA Editorial Board member. Click here for Part 1.
In the second half of their conversation, Rick Hardison and Daniel K. Eng continue their discussion on ethnic-specific and multiethnic churches. They discuss:
- Whether there is a mandate to be a part of a multiethnic church
- Approaching people with their heart languages to bridge cultural gaps
- The relationship between contextualization and unity
- The need for multiethnic and ethnic-specific churches
- Serving the people living in your church’s proximity
- The difficulties of being an ethnic-specific church
We hope this conversation will lead to more conversations about ethnic and multiethnic churches and be an encouragement to the universal church.
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors.
Daniel K. Eng: One of the things I’ve heard, you know, as a pastor at a ethnic-specific church was this, and, and, you know, it bothered me. But it was it went along the lines of this, something like this. “Why do you have to be comfortable? You know, we’re not called to be comfortable. Why are you–why are you around people like you? Why are you doing that? Shouldn’t we be out of our comfort zone?”
Rick Hardison: Yeah, that’s a fair question. I trust that it comes from a good heart and a good place. We’re called to pick up our cross and follow Jesus, for sure. But doing that means that we follow the clear commands of Christ. So that question just assumes that there’s a clear command of Christ, that we should be multiethnic in our churches.
For instance, does that same person refuse to have air conditioning in their church? Probably not. And so if we were to take the same argument, why do you have to be comfortable? They would rightly reply, well, the Bible says there’s nothing wrong with air conditioning. And so I think the same argument follows. If the Bible says there’s nothing wrong with a monoethnic church, then the call of the cross doesn’t have to point us away from this natural desire to worship with people who understand us best. So in short, it’s that question presents a misunderstanding of discipleship. And it assumes the conclusion as it’s trying to argue for it.
Daniel K. Eng: Yeah, I mean, I think I wonder if that, brought to its logical conclusion that the argument becomes you know, that we’re just always looking for trouble, we’re always looking for something that makes it hard. And yes, following Jesus is hard. But that does that mean we look for things for the sake of being hard.
Rick Hardison: Yeah, I know that just a quick aside about my own personal story. I really struggled to discern the Lord’s will after college, because I was at a crossroads between being a pastor and a missionary. And went to the mission field for the Middle East for a while to explore that possible calling to overseas work. And in the end, it took me years to conclude this, I had to reflect the fact that the Lord has wired me and called me to be in the local church setting in the States. The reason that missions was such an appeal to me is because I thought that the harder thing must be the godlier thing. And mission sounded harder. And I had to really just admit, okay, I this is some flawed thinking. I need to figure out what the Lord was for me to do personally, not try to figure out what’s not necessarily the hardest. So yeah, there’s, it’s a misunderstanding of discipleship, leading to that question.
Daniel K. Eng: I do want to point out for for people who have heard that, is that, you know, for my experience, in an ethnic specific church has been really hard. And actually, there’s been times when I wish I didn’t have to deal with some of the cultural issues that are in the churches that I’ve been part of, because it was it was ethnic specific. That when I was involved in a multiethnic church in the past, it was easier for me. And so that so suddenly, what they tell me, Oh, should you run to the harder thing or not? Because it just doesn’t, it seems to itself defeat the self to be self defeating that the argument. And so and then you assume that you assume certain things about, about these people?
So yeah, you know, you talk a bit about hearing the hearing messages in a heart language. Can you tell me more about that? You know, as you’ve experienced that?
Rick Hardison: Yeah. Well, I think, basic missiology is that we want to give the gospel to people in their written scriptures, and in their preached word, in their first tongue, in the language they grew up speaking is the language that they would most naturally pray in and that’s their heart language. And so we want to recognize that the Holy Spirit evidently thought that was a good idea as well, at Pentecost.
Approaching people in their heart language is wise, because it reduces the boundaries people have to cross in order to get saved. And so let’s think about this. Like, let’s pose the question, does the gospel cross cultures? Obviously, yes, the gospel inherently crosses cultures, that’s what the Great Commission is. But who’s crossing the culture? Is it the missionary? Or is it the person we’re trying to reach?
What the multiethnic mandate does when it comes to is every church to be multiethnic, it essentially tells, people who are outsiders, you have to cross the cultural gap. You have to come to me in this hodgepodge of cultures. And I find that to be the opposite of what the New Testament does. The New Testament says, the missionary is going to cross the cultural gap so that you don’t have to cross a cultural gap. What we’re asking you is we’re asking you to cross the Lordship of Jesus Christ gap, a sin gap. And so the gospel crosses cultures. But you see this pattern, you look at the New Testament theology of contextualization, that it is the missionary who’s trying to remove all boundaries, so that they can hear the Gospel.
And so when I say, we should hear the gospel in our heart language, heart language is really just a symbol for all of those cultural gaps. Because language is a big one. Now, we will remove cultural gaps in order for people to hear the gospel, and just consider how significant this was. Paul circumcised a grown man, Timothy, in order to remove cultural barriers to the gospel. He in Jerusalem, of course he ended up getting arrested, but an Acts 20:21 he’s adorning himself with these probably Nazirite-like vows, and shaving his head to cross a cultural gap so as not to offend the Jews. Paul’s crossing cultural gaps all the time. In other words, he’s approaching people in their heart language, so that the only thing they hear is Jesus, so they’re not distracted by anything else.
So I think if we want to be–I really want to lean in here–that this is at heart. This is the biggest problem I find with the multiethnic mandate. Maybe not, maybe not the biggest, but it’s a big one is that it’s a misunderstanding of contextualization, Paul says, First Corinthians 9, become all things to all people so that by all means, I might save some. But what the multiethnic mandate does is it inserts the phrase, we should become all things to all people so that we might by all means save some at the same time. And tries to become an all it tries to become all things to all people at the same moment. But that is not how Jesus ministered, that is not how Paul ministered, when he was with the Greeks, he was like a Greek. When he’s with the Jews, he’s like a Jew. And he really adorned himself that way.
And so it is the multiethnic mandate kind of lives in this illusion that you actually can contextualize to all people at the same time. But the very meaning of contextualization is that you are absorbed in the context. And but if there are multiple contexts, you’re not actually there. Instead, you just become a melting pot of some other kind of culture, not actually any one’s own culture.
So that’s what I mean by heart language. I think it’s so important to understand the theology of contextualization. Contextualization is not just the missionary principle. It’s not just something for people who get on a plane. It’s a principle that Paul says, I want you to do. First Corinthians, verse, chapter 11, verse 1, he says, Be imitators of me, as I imitate Christ. And just before that, he talks about how the church should give no offense to Jews, or Greeks. So the same principle that he applies to his own ministry cross culturally, he applies to the church in Corinth. The church in Corinth is supposed to contextualize their message. And so I think a faithful stewardship of the Gospel is that we try to remove the boundaries that oppose the gospel, so that the gospel is left shining like this beautiful jewel people can see, and understand.
Daniel K. Eng: Yeah, I think it’s significant that Paul talks about contextualization, in a letter where it’s all about unity. And so contextualization is not at odds with unity. That just because you minister in different ways to different people in different–and I’m gonna say it–local congregations, doesn’t mean that the church is divided. Because you’re writing about unity the whole time.
Rick Hardison: Yeah. So this is a little bit more speculative. But if you read the end of Romans, you know, you’ll see what might be a list of house churches being listed, give greetings to this person, greetings to that person, all this stuff. But then earlier in the letter he talks about glorifying God with one voice. There is a unity that transcends that larger level of perhaps a gathering of house churches. The same would be true if Ephesians if there were I think a lot of scholars agree that there’s a network of house churches in Ephesus, the gospel had some headway in Ephesus. But you have that classic, beautiful passage in Ephesians 4, there’s one baptism, because our unity is not defined by coming together and shaking hands on Sunday. Our unity according to Ephesians 4 is defined by common doctrine. And so it is not an overstatement to say I am united to the missionaries in Brazil that we support right now, that’s not an overstatement to say that over Zoom, you and I are united, because we share the same faith that we don’t have to worship on Sunday together to express that.
Daniel K. Eng: So again, just because we’re in our local congregation, doesn’t mean we’re divided from another local congregation.
Rick Hardison: Absolutely. No more than– let’s say a multiethnic church was really growing. God was blessing. And then they choose to plant another multiethnic church 15 miles away.
Daniel K. Eng: A daughter church.
Rick Hardison: A daughter church. Are they now divided? Because they worship separately? Are they missing out on gospel unity? Like I’ve literally heard the word gospel become an adjective for diversity. Like gospel diversity, as if somehow these are intertwined.
Daniel K. Eng: In the same gathering.
Rick Hardison: Yeah, it’s just not–it’s not a fair argument to say that your unity has to always exist at the local church level.
Daniel K. Eng: Well, Pastor Rick, you’re a pastor. What pastoral message would you have for those who hold to that multiethnic mandate?
Rick Hardison: Prove it. I would say you know, humility. I would say understand that it is no small thing to call 92% of congregations in America, unhealthy.
Daniel K. Eng: Unbiblical, disobedient.
Rick Hardison: Yeah, when I did my research, those were the numbers, they might have changed. It’s been about 10 years. But there’s 92% of American churches are monoethnic, based on the definition. Now, they might want to be multiethnic, but they haven’t achieved it yet. So they are still monoethnic, because 80% or more is one ethnicity.
And so to say that all of those have misunderstood the gospel, that is a heavy claim. So just understand that the burden of proof falls on you, not on us. So I would really say if you have adopted the multiethnic mandate, prove it. And ask the same question that I asked when I started my dissertation research. Is this really in the Bible? Or have I been reading Scripture with this multiethnic milieu that this pair of goggles, that’s in the Kool-Aid everywhere, that if it’s multiethnic, it has to be better? And I think that idea that attitude has influenced our hermeneutic, to where we start seeing it when maybe the text isn’t calling for it.
Daniel K. Eng: And again, just for the record, you’re not against it. But you’re not saying you’re saying not necessarily.
Rick Hardison: Yeah, that’s great. We need, I’ll say this, we need more multiethnic churches.
Daniel K. Eng: I think so too.
Rick Hardison: We need more churches, who are excelling in this. I think they are–like I looked at our Deacon board the other day, I was like, Oh, we were actually pretty multiethnic. We have a Black guy, we have a Japanese guy. It didn’t dawn on me because I just see them as qualified men. But um, we need more multiethnicity. In our churches,. I do think that it can be a positive witness. But I think that if you think it can be a positive witness, you have to be humble enough to recognize a monoethnic Somali church is probably gonna be more effective at reaching that Somali immigrant than my church is. So both have rooms in the kingdom of God.
Daniel K. Eng: And we need to be okay with that.
Rick Hardison: Yeah, we do.
Daniel K. Eng: What pastoral message would you have for those who are in local churches that are, that wouldn’t qualify as multiethnic?
Rick Hardison: Well, my pastoral message is to first look at your community. You know, I believe that the command to love your neighbor does extend across racial lines. And so we need to humbly say, how can we reach our–first, know your community. And then brainstorm. If there seems to be a gap? If there’s 15% of your community, ethnically, you’re not reaching. Ask the question “why?” And if you find yourself missing out on a demographic, I do think that proximity equals accountability. I think God, if God puts you somewhere, he has a calling for you to reach those people. So ask the question, “how can we best do this?”
Daniel K. Eng: “Proximity equals responsibility.”
Rick Hardison: I think so. I’m not coming up with that. But I think if you look at the thesis of Acts 1:8 in the progression of the book of Acts, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and so on, I think that you do think that that proximity being close to someone leads to accountability and responsibility to reach them. So I pray more for my next door neighbor than I do for your next door neighbor to come become a Christian.
So I think it’s just kind of intuitive. And if that’s true, I think pastors need to own that responsibility and ask the question. But you could begin that process by translating your worship slides into multiple languages. Or you could do it by looking in your area as in your association to see are there other pastors in this area who are more effective at reaching a certain demographic? And maybe I need to have lunch with them and see how we can partner together. I’m in a portion of Sarasota, Florida, that’s pretty well off financially. And so maybe that we can support a church that’s doing this or that. And so I think we should be striving for church partnerships.
And another thing that I would tell pastors, why you need to understand this. You need to understand this because you hope that God will raise a future pastors and missionaries in your own context. And if you don’t understand this, if you get confused on the multiethnic mandate, you will get confused on cross cultural competency. I do not think I personally am elder-qualified in a Chinese context.
Daniel K. Eng: Okay, I was like, “where are you going with this?”
Rick Hardison: I’m not apt to teach in a Chinese context. And so I think that you if you blur these distinctions between pastor and missionary, you’re, you run the risk of sending guys to the field, who aren’t gifted for it. It’s not an accident that when Paul picked a sidekick, he picked a young man with a fresh pair of legs, who also had–thinking about Timothy–he had a Greek for one parent and a Jew for another. It’s not an accident. And what it what was their ministry? It was to the Greeks and to the Jews.
So Paul selected someone who had a natural connectedness to his audience. Yeah. And so I think that one of the my words to pastors is to pay attention to ethnicity. Ethnicity matters, in how people grow and have humility to recognize, to the African American 50 year old, who’s 45 year old in the church, he’s trying to give her son–teach them how to drive. She’s having have conversations with him as an African American, young man that my parents didn’t have to have with me.
Daniel K. Eng: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Rick Hardison: As a white guy in Georgia. And you know what, that if, if she feels like her elders–she’d like to be led by someone who understands that struggle, and identifies that. That instinct is not something of which she needs to repent. It is an instinct that is, should be celebrated and understood. Not celebrated, but we should understand it, that it comes from a good place, not a selfish place.
Daniel K. Eng: That’s not language, Rick. That’s experience. That’s culture. That’s, that’s why you know, this the way that the way that things are in this world. Yeah, I mean, they were all still speaking English. But you just mentioned something that wasn’t necessarily a tongue issue. Just want to point that out.
Rick Hardison: Yeah, and it’s, I’m glad you mentioned, the different types of diversity, or the sort of the touch points of how culture inserts itself in the conversation. We can get in the habit of thinking that it’s all music, this is really a conversation about music or language. But when you step back and think this has everything to do with, “when does your church start? How long are the services? What is the dress code of the Preaching Pastor? Do you have a choir or do you not? How clean is the nursery? When you raise money, what’s your fundraising approach? Do you honor– does the 22 year old elder receive as much hearing as an 80 year old elder in the among the elder board? These are all culturally informed issues. So this idea that every issue you can compromise on, you can’t. Once the preacher stands in the pulpit and is wearing an outfit, he’s not going to change clothes mid-sermon, he is preferring one culture over another culture by his dress. Once the Church says we’re going to start at this time, you’re preferring one culture over another.
So you can’t solve these issues by just compromising and singing one song in Spanish and another song in English, and then having enchiladas and hamburgers at the potluck. You can’t do both. At several touch points, you just have to decide. And the moment you decide how you’re going to do something, you prefer one community over another community. Because God created us, He created us as cultural beings. The Gospel flows along cultural lines. An analogy I use in my paper is that the same way electricity needs a wire to be transmitted. The Gospel needs culture, those are the lines along which it flows. And so we ought to just accept that and swallow that pill that we cannot become all things to all people, at the same time. Because we’re– God made me Anglo, and I if you if you watch me dance, you would really understand this, I am who I am. And and I can’t be anyone otherwise.
So I wouldn’t just implore pastors to understand that we’re all situated in a particular culture. And it is an act of humility to recognize that. It’s an act of humility to recognize that I’m going to naturally be more effective in one particular group of people than another.
Paul, when he got saved, before he started his ministry, the disciples sent him somewhere– they sent him to Tarsus. First missionary journey. Of course, we know that the first stop for Paul and Barnabas was Cyprus. Philip, the first deacon, one of the group deacons says he preached the gospel in Acts 18, until he got to Caesarea and then later on an Acts in Caesarea, his daughters had set up shop. In other words, Caesarea was probably his hometown.
So we just see several times these little clues that God uses the natural connectedness of people to advance their kingdom. I think this as I mentioned, Timothy’s natural connectedness to a Jewish world and a Greek world household conversions. Those are evidence that there’s a natural connectedness to people. I mean, as a Baptist, I look at household conversions as legit the whole house, I’d actually exercise belief, okay, it’s not just the head of the household, and everyone else got baptized. The whole household, those who are capable actually believed. That’s showing the Holy Spirit uses natural bridges of the gospel. And we can either oppose them, because we take pride and making things hard. Or we can just say, you know, what, God gives us examples of how he uses the natural connectedness of people. So let’s use that to share the gospel.
And I think we all intuitively understand this. I mean, there’s a lot of golfers down here in Florida, and if my unbelieving friend, I’m trying to reach plays golf, I’m probably going to use that as a touch point, a natural connection, say, “hey, let’s, let’s play golf together.” You have a common interest in the Seahawks, let’s just go watch the game together. We intuitively understand this at the interpersonal level, it’s okay to use the natural things that bind us together to promote the gospel. But the moment we try to do it at the church level, all of a sudden, we become gospel-deniers. And I’m like, “No, it’s fine.” We all should take a deep breath and realize there’s a lot of freedom in how we approach people.
Daniel K. Eng: Yeah. I mean, I’m just thinking about even within our churches we have, we have a sports ministry, and we have a youth ministry, and we have a Men’s Ministry. These are all affinity groups. And discipleship happens when you have things in common. And but for some reason, when we get on the local church level, that’s not okay.
Rick Hardison: Yeah. And so I want to be clear, like, I’m not, I’m not arguing for the super niche churches, like, I’m going to support a motorcycle church, or a hillbilly church. I do think you can go too narrow, in a way that you’re no longer self-sustaining, self-propagating, that kind of thing.
Nevertheless, our ethnicity is part of who we are at the core level. Like, I think our diversity is preserved in the new heavens and the new earth. You will be my people and I will be their God in Revelation 21, it actually doesn’t say that it says you will be my peoples. Look at that footnote in the ESV (Rev 21.:3). I think it highlights that as a laoi, I think of the plural of people, peoples, you will be my peoples, God says, in the new heavens. And so ethnic diversity is preserved in the new heavens and the new earth. And so that tells me that’s part of a core identity. Therefore, I think that when churches gather along those core identity lines, that’s okay.
That’s not to say, and I want to be clear about this. I do think every church ought to have an open door policy. So if I felt like I wanted to join First Korean Baptist Church, I do think the gospel requires them upon a credible profession of faith to receive me into their membership. So I take the title of their church not to be barring someone from the outside. Yeah, just as an advertisement to say, “Hey, if you come, this is what you’re gonna see.”
Daniel K. Eng: And you know, in my circles, for those of us who are an agent, churches, you always there’s always those people within your church that have been welcomed into your church, and but they don’t necessarily fit the main demographic. But yet, they’re part of the they’re part of our communities. And we love them. We love each other, and they’re still discipled. And so we can always–all of us, I think, can think of people like that within these communities.
Rick Hardison: I think that I would encourage people to study along two lines. One I feel like this question is really a New Testament studies question. So it’s no doubt, no accident that you’re a New Testament Professor looking into this. But also it’s a sociological question. I would encourage you to get it. It’s Korie L. Edwards. I think her book is called The Elusive Dream. And it is an empirical study of– a sociological study of multiethnic churches or churches that have tried to become multiethnic and what her, honestly her conclusion is devastating. And that’s why it’s called an elusive dream. Being Martin Luther’s I have a dream, hasn’t been accomplished. And what her finding was when she controlled for various factors of a young, old, Pentecostal, Non… She looked at markers of ethnic diversity in churches. Do you have a choir? Do you not? Is there responsiveness to the Preaching? Is there not? Hands raised? Yes or No. All these different things. And she said, majority culture churches are here. Ethnic specific churches are here. So she proposed, “I suspect multiethnic churches will be in the middle, that there will be a merger of majority culture and minority culture.” And when she actually did the study, what she found is that successful multiethnic churches looked exactly like Anglo churches, they looked alike.
Daniel K. Eng: Can you say that again?
Rick Hardison: She reports in The Elusive Dream that successful multiethnic churches, that is the ones that made it, looked the same as majority culture, they look just like Anglo.
Daniel K. Eng: How so?
Rick Hardison: In that they bore the same marks of like how charismatic they were, what their cultural worship looked like. And she outlines this in her book, and her finding is sad. It really shows, does grieve me that in order to be successful, minorities have to conform to an Anglo majority in these churches. And that’s that’s my experience. I felt that as I was sharing the gospel during seminary days, that I was just asking people to lose a part of their culture. I was asking people to give up a part of their identity that the Bible never asked them to give up. So it’s really sad, when you hear someone quite passionately talk about how our ethnic identity doesn’t matter as much as our identity in Christ, as if that’s a conversation stopper. Because I’ve never met anyone who thinks that our identity in Christ is as important or is less important than our ethnicity, right? Everyone alive, if you have a pulse, and have the Holy Spirit, he understands our identity in Christ is good as it gets. But that doesn’t mean we flush our other identities that are real, and will even be preserved on the last day.
Daniel K. Eng: Hmm. Okay. Any any last words of encouragement as we close our time?
Rick Hardison: Yeah I think that I would, I really just want to hear from you. What’s been because we’re sitting in different chairs, you’re, you share with me a little bit about your church, and share with me your experience in your own local church and how you’ve landed where you’ve landed?
Daniel K. Eng: Well, for me, you know, being involved in different churches, you know, being involved in ethnic specific, where the Chinese American church we have we, you know, we had services in English and Mandarin and Cantonese. But then experiencing at different places, just English speaking. And sometimes it was mostly White, sometimes it was more balanced diversity, if, if you if you will, and I just was able to see, you know, how God is working through all of these. And where, you know, I’m able to worship together, and it’s great.
At the same time, I was– a lot of my discipleship, the formative things in my life came because I was ministered to, in a contextualized way. And, you know, I’m thinking about things, messages that were given to me in a way that would resonate with me, maybe would resonate with me even more than somebody who didn’t have the same experience as me. And I’m just, I’m just about where Jesus, you know, with the seven churches in Revelation, and you kind of see the way that if youlook at the historical background of the cities that he’s that he’s writing a message to, he uses language that resonates with each of these different locations. And so here, Jesus is doing discipleship, in a contextualized way. And it’s not just evangelism, by the way, these are churchgoers.
And so I’m seeing how certain messages because they spoke to the deep core of my being or the experiences that were formative to me. Those have a much greater influence on me, if that makes sense. And so we’re looking overseas and we’re looking at missionaries who, who are employing this principle, where they’re reaching people and saying, Okay, it’s not just about using the words but also kind of understanding the worldview, that we’re ministering in that and so just like a good, just like a good missionary. They were people who ministered to me sometimes cross culturally, by the way, ministered to me in ways that resonated with me and I’m learning more about this kind of this cultural experience from me being both Chinese and American, and the clash of those things, and how I can minister to others, in a way that reaches them.
And so as a pastor in different places, it was, you know, it was an exercise always in studying the people that I that I’m ministering to, and saying, Okay, what makes them tick? You know, what are the things that? What are the values that they have? Or what about their family histories and things like that, and so what would be effective for them?
But now, here as a seminary educator, one of the things that we’re doing is just kind of thinking about culture, and how that’s not a bad thing. You know, and but we need to be aware of the culture, the lenses, the cultural lenses by which we see the Bible, and that there is culture back in the Bible times, there’s culture now. And we’re kind of sitting in there and trying to figure out all that, as we read and communicate the Bible faithfully.
And so one of the things that I encourage my students to do is, reflect on your own culture. Think about how, think about how you’re shaped. And that’s not just ethnicity, but it’s also like the household you grew up in. But what are the unwritten rules in your home? Or, or, you know, what are some things that you find to be priorities that might be distinctive? And so you bring all of that to the text. And it’s not a bad thing. We just, we just need to be okay with it. Wait, because you look, you read the Bible from wherever you’re standing. And so can we be able to discern those things, we become better exegetes, better, better interpreters of scripture.
Rick Hardison: And I think that I translate and praise God for your story of how you’ve been kind of molded along the way from a combination of influences. And I would encourage, if you ever wanted to dip your toes into this water, I would say, particularly if you’re a part of a majority culture, like me. Go to an African American church, go to a Chinese church just once. And what I suspect you’ll find is, you’ll probably have an experience that helps you realize, “oh, they do things differently. And maybe, when I thought I was doing things biblically, maybe I was actually just doing them like a majority culture guy.”
For instance, my research showed that some Koreans when they pray, in local congregations, they’ll say, let’s pray and everyone will start to pray out loud. If you were to say, Okay, let’s pray, I’m gonna bow my head and just let you pray. Because there’s going to be a cultural understanding of what’s about to happen next. And so when the Bible says, Pray without ceasing, or Devote yourselves to prayer–we read that with our cultural lenses and assume that they did it just like we’re doing it. And so I think, if you want to grow in this area, is to just have some experiences where you experience cultural shock. And then what really stood out to me was when I realized “Oh, my word.” Because I went to, and I did this during seminary, I went to an African American church and that particular congregation I’m not trying to speak for all African American churches, I know there’s great diversity probably within that group. But this particular church worshiped very differently than I was used to. And I realized, like, if, when I invite people to my church, they’re having that same experience. No wonder they’re not coming back. It was really just a come-to-Jesus moment, to affirm that ethnicity matters. It’s a good thing. It’s a good gift God’s given us. And we will not run from it. We will not pretend it doesn’t exist, but we should lean into it, and ask God to use it to further his mission.
Daniel K. Eng: Thank you, Pastor Rick, thank you for this conversation. Your desire to see the gospel furthered, really comes out and I can tell that you have a passion to see the church built. But also your desire to see the Scripture is being handled accurately. And so I thank God for both of those things for you. And so, thank you. Thank you for this conversation.
Pastor Rick Hardison, PhD, everyone, thank you for your time.
Rick Hardison: Appreciate the invitation.