An Army of Ones
Does diversity in the church work?
Craig Keener, Larry Osborne, and Mark Driscoll
April 1, 2005
Martin Luther King Jr. said that 11:00 on Sunday morning is "the most segregated hour in America." Not much has changed since King made that statement. But is this a bad thing? As America has grown more diverse, and not just racially, the church has responded by creating congregations to appeal to specific subcultures. We see not only black congregations and white congregations, but also boomer and postmodern, contemporary and classical, liturgical and spontaneous. Some of this has been spurred by research that indicates homogeneous congregations grow more rapidly by appealing to a definable target audience. But even there, no congregation is completely homogenized; differences of opinion will show up in even the most niched congregations. Working through differences is usually what leads to maturity. The question remains—how diverse should we strive to be? We asked three church leaders to explore the model presented in the New Testament and compare it to their own experience. Craig Keener is a white minister in a predominantly African American congregation. Larry Osborne pastors North Coast Church—a ministry that pioneered the use of "video venues" to create multiple congregations distinguished by worship style within a single church. Mark Driscoll is pastor of Mars Hill Church, a community birthed from a postmodern context now wrestling with issues of diversity as it matures. Biblical diversity is worth sacrificing for
Craig Keener
If God called first-century believers to surmount an ethnic barrier that he himself established in salvation history—the barrier between Jew and Gentile—how much more does he summon us to surmount all other barriers of our own making? Overcoming the Jewish-Gentile barrier is one ...
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