Word: pastor
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...told Willow Creek pastor Bill Hybels in 1999 that he was going to use him "to create new attitudes on race," he was about a half-century late. Today almost any public gathering the size of Willow Creek's congregation would be more than 2% African American. A decade into the 21st century, and Hybels is considering allowing a black pastor to preach or teach! The United Methodist Church has had black bishops and pastors for predominately white congregations for about 40 years. I wish Hybels success, but in this case, he is not parting the waters of social change...
...Sindiswa told me her story, her voice trailed off, and the man who brought me to her - Andre Lombard, 39, a pastor of the Christian Revival Church - laid his hands on her. Lombard had a penetrating gaze and a simmering rage toward men who abuse women. His father, a brutal drunkard, had beaten his mother regularly. Lombard became a born-again Christian at age 17, then served in South Africa's élite special forces for 11 years. (See 25 people who mattered...
...zeal on the topic and unique authority, left the main pulpit for several years. Most disturbing, according to about a dozen minority congregants, was that Hybels never promoted a nonwhite member to a pulpit pastorship or senior staff position at the main Willow campus. (Bibbs, never a "teaching pastor," now advises other churches on multiculturalism at the Willow Creek Association.) An African American recently joined Willow's elder board. Curtis Sallee, a black 15-year "Creeker," comments that while "what Bill has done racially has been nothing less than miraculous, there needs to be someone who speaks for the church...
Willow's predicament is hardly surprising. To some white congregants, naming a person of another color to tell you what Scripture means, week in and week out, crosses an internal boundary between "diversity" (positive) and "affirmative action" (potentially unnerving). Daniel Hill, a former Willow young-adult pastor who founded his own fully multicultural River City Community Church in Chicago, says, "There's a tipping point where the dominant group feels threatened." Consciously or unconsciously, Hybels stands at that point...
...perform his work. I'm going to persevere on this for the rest of my life." In December, Willow announced that 80% of its Hispanic attendees were undocumented and had a speaker give a talk explaining "God's heart on immigrants," a positive biblical analysis. Harvey Carey, pastor to a vibrant mixed-race congregation in Detroit, did a stint as a guest preacher...