By Mike Maldonado — Colorado Springs, Colorado … It has been said that a church should reflect the demographic of the community it is in. If a community is mainly Caucasian, then it is no fault of the church if its members are mostly Caucasian. But if a church is in a racially diverse community and the demographic is mainly Caucasian then there is work to be done. That is the situation we (my wife and I) found ourselves in eleven years ago when we first arrived in Colorado Springs to pastor Central church. Colorado Springs is a diverse community due to the large military presence, numerous universities and colleges, a booming economy, and a red-hot housing market.
Yet for the most part, Central church was mostly Caucasian with little diversity. I do not believe Central’s “whiteness” (for lack of a better word) was due to prejudice or overt racism, but rather from a lack of diversity-oriented leadership in the past. The bottom line is the leader of an organization or church creates the culture and values of the organization. When my wife and I arrived in Colorado Springs, we were welcomed with open arms, mainly because they had been without a pastor for almost a year! I do not think they realized the implications of having a pastor born in Mexico and a pastor’s wife born in Nicaragua who is also one-quarter Chinese!
One of the core values my wife and I have is that racial diversity is a beautiful thing. It does not matter what area you are talking about, having a mix of cultures and ethnicities always makes life more fun and beautiful. We got these values from having lived overseas for a period of time, traveling extensively around the world, and my wife’s two dozen medical mission trips to places such as Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Venezuela, Columbia, Greece, Iraq and many more.
When we arrived at Central, the standard practice when a person of a different racial background showed up, was to let them know (out of courtesy, of course) that there was a Black church, Korean church, Hispanic church that they might like trying out. We even had directions to the other churches printed out for such an eventuality. I immediately stopped this practice. We made sure that the greeters did not send people of color to other churches but let them know they were welcome at Central. Up front, I verbalized again and again that all people were welcome at Central regardless of race or ethnicity. But it was not just about race, we also let people know that anyone, no matter what their background or history, was welcome. Our vision for the first nine years was simply to create a safe place for all people to come and grow spiritually together. It took time, but word eventually got out that Central had changed!
Two other big steps in transitioning from an all-white church to one more reflective of the community was International Sabbath and Brenda’s mission reports. Once a year we host an International Sabbath where we have a guest speaker from another country, where the service is done in various foreign languages and we encourage members to come dressed in their national dress. It is now our most popular service, mainly because of the international lunch after the service! In addition, every time Brenda went on a mission trip, she always came back with an inspiring mission report/sermon. She has awakened the congregation to the beautiful diversity in the world and brought it back to Central church.
We were also very intentional about bringing diversity into our leadership team. Eleven years later, it is remarkable to experience the diversity at Central. The senior pastor is Mexican, the head elder is Caucasian, the associate pastor is Samoan, the secretary is from British Virgin Islands, our Bible worker is Jamaican, and our school board chair is African-American. In response to George Floyd’s death, I preached a three-part series on “Jesus and Human Rights”.
On Sabbath, June 27, the church will sponsor an evening of discussion and prayer on growing up black in America. There are still a few pockets of resistance in the church, but with love, education, strong leadership and the softening of the Holy Spirit, walls of prejudice and fear are coming down and the banner of Christ is being raised high above the nations.
—Mike Maldonado is senior pastor of Colorado Springs Central Church. Photo by Rajmund Dabrowski
