A Fellowship of Differents

From NPR:

Fifteen years ago, Peoples Church in Cincinnati was called First Christian Assembly of God and was 98 percent white. After the riots of 2001, Pastor Chris Beard decided to take the church in a new direction. He drafted a mission statement and said the church would focus on racial reconciliation.

Ed Weithe, who is white, has attended Peoples Church for more than 20 years.

“I know pastor Chris felt like he had a vision from God for our church to become a church like heaven,” Weithe says. “When he mentioned the word ‘reconciliation,’ it’s like, we really didn’t have any need for reconciliation with the body of believers that we had, because we were all white, all probably middle-to-upper class incomes, and we’re thinking, ‘What’s this reconciliation all about?’ ”

Beard diversified the staff; he expanded the music to reflect many cultures; he asked his congregation to take a series of classes designed to help break down racial barriers.

Weithe remembers one class assignment: Go out into the world and make a friend who is different from you. Weithe read a news story about the local NAACP president.

Weithe gave him a call and invited him to breakfast.

“I told him that I’m reaching out to you as a white man to a black man, because I no longer want to sit on the sidelines and be part of the problem, I want to be part of the cure,” he says. “We eat breakfast once every six weeks, and we’ve been doing that for almost 10 years now.”