What Color Is Your Church?

I don’t mean what color your church is painted. Or whether it is built of red bricks, yellow bricks, Indiana limestone, or cement blocks. But what is the color of the people who belong to your church? Are they all white, or all Negro; all Oriental or Southern European? Maybe your church resembles a human rainbow!

Gregory was always bragging about his church. Not only was it the largest, oldest, richest, and most beautiful church in town, but he claimed it was made up of the "best people" in the city. The congregation was made up of college professors, lawyers, bankers, big businessmen and, of course, their well-dressed families, too. You really had "to be somebody," according to Gregory, to belong to his church. It made a person feel "respectable" even to be asked to belong.

Now we cannot believe that Jesus ever expected his church to divide itself into so many groups. Nor did he intend for his followers to "draw the color line." When the pure light of the sun shines through drops of rain in the air a beautiful rainbow is formed in the opposite side of the sky.

The rainbow begins with one color of light. It is beautiful because it blends all its colors so nicely. The colors do not clash. They seem to know that they come from one source of light.

How would you explain the absence of people of other races and nationalities in your church if Christ should drop in some morning?

Ask God to help you come up with a good answer.