Leading a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church: Seven Common Challenges and How to Overcome Them (Leadership Network Innovation Series)

Increasingly, church leaders are recognizing the power and beauty of the multi-ethnic church. Yet, more than a good idea, it’s a biblical, first-century standard with far-reaching evangelistic potential. How can your church overcome the obstacles to become a healthy multi-ethnic community of faith? And why should you even try?

In Leading a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church (formerly titled Ethnic Blends), Dr. Mark DeYmaz provides an up-close-and-personal look at seven common challenges to creating diversity in your church. Through real-life stories and practical illustrations, DeYmaz shows how to overcome the obstacles in order to lead a healthy multi-ethnic church. He also includes the insights of other effective multi-ethnic church leaders from the United States and Australia, as well as study questions at the end of each chapter.

Leading a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church describes what effective local churches in the 21st century will look like and shows us how to create them, together as one, beyond race and class distinctions. –Miles McPherson, Senior Pastor, The Rock Church, San Diego, CA

Mark DeYmaz, perhaps more than any pastor in America, has his pulse on what it will take for the Church to find real reconciliation in our generation. –Matt Carter, Lead Pastor, Austin Stone Community Church, Austin, TX

A recognized leader in the Multiethnic Church Movement, Mark planted the Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas in 2001 where he continues to serve as Directional Leader. In 2004, he co-founded the Mosaix Global Network with Dr. George Yancey and today serves as its president, and convenor of the triennial National Multi-ethnic Church Conference. In 2008, he launched Vine and Village and remains active on the board of this 501(c)(3) non-profit focused on spiritual, social, and financial engagement and transformation in Little Rock's University District, the 72204 ZIP code. Mark has written six books including his latest, Disruption: Repurposing the Church to Redeem the Community (Thomas Nelson, March 2017); and Multiethnic Conversations: an Eight Week Guide to Unity in Your Church (Wesleyan Publishing House, October 2016), the first daily devotional, small group curriculum on the subject for people in the pews. His book, Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church (Jossey-Bass, 2007), was a finalist for a Christianity Today Book of the Year Award (2008) and for a Resource of the Year Award (2008) sponsored by Outreach Magazine. His other books include, re:MIX: Transitioning Your Church to Living Color (Abingdon, June 2016); Leading a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church(formerly Ethnic Blends, Zondervan, 2010, 2013), and the e-Book, Should Pastors Accept or Reject the Homogeneous Unit Principle? (Mosaix Global Network, 2011). In addition to books, he is a contributing editor for Outreach Magazine where his column, "Mosaic" appears in each issue.  He and his wife, Linda, have been married for thirty years and reside in Little Rock, AR. Linda is the author of the author of the certified best-seller, Mommy, Please Don't Cry: There Are No Tears in Heaven, an anointed resource providing hope and comfort for those who grieve the death of a child. Mark and Linda have four adult children and two grandchildren.  Mark is an Adjunct Professor at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, and teaches D.Min. courses at seminaries across the country including TEDS, Western, and Phoenix, where he earned his own D.Min. in 2006.

 

Harry Li is the Campus Pastor of Mosaic and came on staff in 2002, when the church was six months old. Prior to that, he was an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Idaho where he taught for 10 years. Harry and his wife, Melanie, reside in Little Rock and have three daughters, Anna, Katie and Meredith.