It was near the end of our worship time today and I was walking by a back door at church. A woman was standing outside peering into the church so I walked over and opened the door… “Hi, I’m Russ. How can I help you?” She asked when our church services began and said she had been interested in visiting. Her husband was waiting in the car nearby. I told her 10:00am and that we would love to have her family come join us next week.
As she turned to walk away she asked me, “Is your church mixed?”
I could feel a confused look come over my face. I asked, “You mean racially?”
She replied, “Yes. Are you mixed racially?”
I responded, “ABSOLUTELY we are. I’ll see you next week.”
Friends, there are some questions we should never need to ask. Whether a church is mixed racially is one of those questions. There was a day when Christians thought it was a good idea for races to remain separate during worship. There were a variety of reasons for this thinking. All of them were misguided. Jesus used a Samaritan as the main character of his stories when speaking to a Jewish audience for a reason. He was saying something. And He’s still saying it.
-Russ
