EFCA – ReachNational Leadership Summit with Dr. Alvin Sanders

Dr. Sanders is the Director of the EFCA's SAMARITAN WAY Reconciliation and former pastor of River of Life Church in Cincinnati, OH

Developing the "All Peoples" Piece of our Mission

Applied an illustration of how we pretend to want reconciliation and inclusion. We invite, but don't include or make to feel welcomed. From Alvin's experience and dissertation, the EFCA is one of the very few if not only denominations taking proactive steps in this realm. We really want it. Alvin is the only Chief Diversity Officer in any denomination in America. Alvin.sanders@efca.org or call 612-232-1352. Their story is Cincinnati from Riots to Reconciliation. http://www.riveroflifeministries.us/

The Concept of Reconciliation

Reconciliation is God's initiative, restoring a broken world to God's intentions by reconciling all things to Himself through Christ: the relationship between people and God, between people, and with God's created earth. Christians participate with God by being transformed into ambassadors of reconciliation. – Duke Center for Reconciliation

• Genesis 12:1-4
  


• Galatians 3:6-9
  


• Galatians 3:26-29
  


• Colossians 1:18-20
  


• 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
  

Race and ethnicity should mean different things to the world and in the church. (side-bar…who would Jesus vote for?...why would the King of all the earth even care to vote?)

The Role of Culture (Christianity is not bound by culture, where many other religions and societies are)

Culture is about groupness. It encompasses everything that people believe and everything that they do that identifies them as members of a group and distinguishes that group from other groups.

The purpose of culture is to assist people who are not members of a group to know what the rules for acceptable behavior are and to provide consistency and predictability in everyday actions. It's the space where we derive our values, attitudes and beliefs about life.

Are we prisoners or liberators?

• Cultural Destructiveness – eliminate other people's culture
  


• Cultural Incapacity – belief in one's own culture over others
  


• Cultural Blindness – failing to recognize cultural differences or acting as if the cultural differences don't matter
  


• Cultural Pre-competent – a desire to provide an equitable treatment with appropriate cultural sensitivity, combined with not knowing exactly how to proceed.
  


• Cultural Competence – see it, know it, learn from it, embrace it.
  


• Biblical Christianity
  

MORE TO COME…