Phil Jackson: It’s almost a mandate to seek out diverse people. Christ picked a diverse crew of knuckleheads. He put together 12 different types of people and personalities. We need to instill virtue in our students and an appreciation of their culture and of the culture around them.

Soong-Chan Rah: It is important to create a space that is a place of safety and discomfort. American materialism pushes us toward comfort and safety, not discomfort. Therefore, we do not grow. We need a message that challenges the status quo and our assumptions about comfort. That happens when we develop relationships with those different from ourselves—not only cross-culturally but also across socio-economic lines.

YWJ: What does it mean for a youth ministry to be multi-ethnic or multi-cultural?

Mark: These two terms are not necessarily synonymous. A multi-ethnic youth ministry is one that promotes a spirit of inclusion among those of varying ethnic, economic and educational backgrounds; and some use the term “multi-cultural” with this in mind. Others, however, use it to describe a commitment to “multi-culturalism.” Multi-culturalism advocates a society that extends equal status to distinct cultural and religious groups, one in which there is no pervading cultural or spiritual truth.

Ryan: It’s a youth ministry that doesn’t cater to or seek out any one ethnic group. It’s a group that seeks to reflect the people around it. It’s one that’s filled with diversity and embraces that diversity.

Soong-Chan: There are two different streams of multi-ethnic ministry. The first is being color-blind—where we all get along, join hands and are united without dealing with our differences and our history. The other is genuine reconciliation. This is important because youth can smell the lack of authenticity in a multi-ethnic ministry that ignores our history and seeks to create a disingenuous form of multiethnic ministry. We cannot have a multi-ethnicity that is watered down, where the dominant culture is still the main form of expression. When this happens, it deteriorates into a show rather than a genuine reconciliation. If we are playing the game of multi-ethnic ministry, then we will be using the biblical value of multi-ethnicity as a marketing tool and as a means of growing our own Christian empires.

YWJ: What are the biblical and theological models for ministry to diverse people?

Mark: In John 17, Christ envisioned the unity of the church “so the world would know God’s love and believe.” Later in Acts, Luke describes a local church that fulfilled this vision (Antioch), one in which Jews and Gentiles walked, worked and worshipped God together. Finally, Paul prescribes the multi-ethnic church in the book of Ephesians, defining it as “the mystery of Christ” (Eph. 3:6), i.e., the way of the future.