The evangelical church in America, especially over the past 75 years, has intentionally been built on homogenous growth principles. Popularized by the first wave of megachurch pastors and church growth experts, these principles encouraged churches to move out of urban centers into the suburbs, and to create cultures that were attractive to the growing middle class. Whatever the motives, the dominant form of evangelical church became large, majority white, and wealthy. There have been a host of unintended theological and missional consequences to this new reality. Some of these changes show up significantly and clearly when it comes to ethical questions around social issues that affect non-white populations in higher percentages.

The church’s life is to be one marked by sympathy and compassion, but more powerfully it is to be marked by an intentional and empathic understanding of the suffering and pain of others, and then living in active response to this knowledge. This is a calling to embrace, understand, and seek the blessing of all people. There are no barriers to this calling, just as the work of Christ had no barriers. Christ died for the sin of all, that all would be drawn to his kingdom. So too does the church engage in this work by being led along a path of  familial love that unifies us in our embrace of others.