I have just been listening to a message by my pastor, Tope Koleoso, who was recorded at a recent conference on building a multicultural church. I have become so used to what God has been doing these past couple of years at Jubilee that I sometimes need to remind myself that genuinely racially integrated churches are actually far from common. We truly have a lot to be grateful for. I really think you may well enjoy listening to Tope on this subject. The message can be downloaded or you can listen to it right here:



Other talks from the same conference are also available, as is a series of talks on 'gracism' preached at another multicultural church in South London.

Tope is a dynamic speaker, and most of the time does not focus on racial issues, preferring to simply get on with preaching the Bible to a church which happens to have different nationalities attending. If you want to hear more of him, you can visit the website of the church I attend where you will also find sermons by others, including myself. Tope has also preached at a number of other churches, and some of them have put his messages online:

• Tope Koleoso at City Hope Church, Bermondsey—"Celebrating Diversity: Move on From Integrating Multiculture to Love and Acceptance," 10th February 2008.
  
  
• Tope Koleoso at Christ Church, London—"Regaining Refreshing (Acts 3)," 15th April 2007.
  
  
• Tope Koleoso at Church of Christ the King, Brighton—"Godliness is Profitable For All Time" and "Pursuing the Wonderful God," December 2006.

Thankfully, many people today seem to have moved on from the ideas of the "homogenous church growth principle." I never could see how that whole idea wasn't just a thinly veiled form of racism, or at the very least, an accommodation with the racism of others. I think I would prefer to be a part of a church aiming to be multicultural, even if that means it might not grow as quickly as one where people's eager desire to flock together with others like themselves is not challenged.

Having said that, it's not easy to build that kind of church. For a start, one has to live in a multicultural area, which is simply not true of every town—certainly not in the UK anyway. Even if you are in such an area, there are many hurdles to overcome.

The desire does seem to be growing for multicultural churches to be formed. There are even a few such churches springing up. It was great today, therefore, to attend a day conference at King's Church Catford aimed at stirring churches to rise to this challenge.

For once I decided not to live-blog the event, but I am told mp3s will be available online. It was great to greet one or two of my readers at the event also. Thanks for coming up and saying "Hi." It always means a lot to know that there are real people reading.

It's vital to remember when blogging that behind every page impression lies a human person with real emotions. It's because so many bloggers forget that, not only am I glad I banned comments here, but for now at least, I'm keeping away from the comment boxes elsewhere, too. Somehow forcing people to send me an e-mail if they want to contact me seems to have driven away the negative comments that I used to have to wade through.

I guess that little outburst was probably prompted by an illustration used earlier today:

From a distance I thought you were a monster. Then, when you got closer, I thought you were an animal. When you got closer still, I realized you were a human. Closer still, I realized I liked you. When you were right next to me, I recognized you were my brother.

A quick shout-out about a couple of books on the subject, neither of which I have had time to read completely, but I like what I have seen. First, Gracism by David Anderson (one of the speakers) and secondly, Dynamic Diversity by Bruce Milne.