I don’t know any Christians who say they want less diversity in their church. But when we get more diversity—could be age, ethnicity, class, or something else—it’s often harder to manage than we expect. Suddenly, other people think differently. They don’t understand us. They even make us uncomfortable. And we make them uncomfortable too.
It’s not easy to love the ones who drive you crazy. But that’s just what Jamie Dunlop wants us to do in his new book (Crossway/9Marks). He offers eight truths for pursuing unity in your church. Of course, loving the ones who drive you crazy starts with recognizing how God loved us when we were yet sinners. And he didn’t choose us because we were lovely. Rather, he made us so in choosing us before the foundation of the world.
It turns out he chose the other people in our churches too. Jamie serves as an associate pastor at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, and he joined me on Gospelbound to help us love one another.