Why I Dont Care About "Kingdom Diversity" (The trademarked #BigEva kind)

AD Robles

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00:01

So I'm pretty certain that I've done a video about this topic before, but I was just thinking about it again today and I wanted to just bring it to you in a kind of a slightly different way.

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And it's this idea of of kingdom diversity, right, like, like diversity in the church.

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And it's, this is almost like, like sacred, this is almost sacrosanct, like, like, it's obviously if your church is healthy, it's going to be diverse.

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And I gotta, I gotta say that this, I have to challenge this, I think this is just one of those things that people say, and they say it often enough, and we just accept it that it's true.

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And, and, and there's really no reason to think that it's true. So I guess what I'm saying is, you know, you ever heard of like the marks of a healthy church, right?

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And I'm not going to go into what the marks of a healthy church are. That's for a different video for a different person.

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That's, that's not for me. But I think that it's almost just assumed that that diversity is one of the marks of a healthy church.

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And before I get any further, I'm not talking about diversity in the global church, obviously,

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God has said, and everyone quotes this verse, Revelation, where it talks about every tribe, and every tongue, and every nation.

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So every tribe will obviously that's a diverse church. And the thing is, like, people quote this verse, as if anyone disagrees with that.

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And even kinists agree with this, like, like, I'm not a kinist, obviously, I would be a contradiction because I'm married to a non

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Puerto Rican. But but, you know, even kinists would agree with it, every tribe, tongue, and nation.

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So like, you can't just quote that verse and assume your conclusions, obviously, we agree that the global church is diverse.

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And that's not something we need to strive for. It's just a fact. The Holy Spirit moves wherever he wills.

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It's like the wind, you don't know where it comes from. And you don't know where it goes. So he will do what he wants. He will convert whoever he wants as many as he want in the in, in the proportions that he wants.

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So that's the thing about the Holy Spirit. We can't hold the Holy Spirit to this weird idea of it has to be exactly proportional.

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Like the Holy Spirit will convert whoever he wants at any given time he will he has his own agenda. So the global church is obviously diverse, but people like to make it seem like local churches have to reflect this diversity, this kingdom gospel diversity.

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And if it doesn't, that's a sign of a problem. That's something to be rectified, something to be fixed.

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Now, some people will give like rural churches a pass, like if your area is mono ethnic, like if there's only white people in your town, well, then obviously we don't we can't hold you to the same standard of gospel diversity.

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Some people will give you a pass there. Some people won't. They'll just say, well, yeah, that that's just proof that your location is racist and you're racist too for living in that location.

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But let's just set those people aside. Those are the more crazy people. Often what you'll hear is your church should represent your town or your city or your neighborhood proportionally.

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So if your neighborhood has 20 percent blacks, 20 percent whites and six Hispanics and 60 percent whites, then your church ought to be 20 percent black, 20 percent white and 60 percent.

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I'm getting all the proportions mixed up. You know what I'm saying? 20 percent black, 20 percent Hispanic, 60 percent white.

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So it should be proportional. And if it's not proportional, like let's say you go to a church and it's pretty much all white folks, then there's something racist going on.

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There's something that's a that's a problem to be rectified. And I just have to challenge that. Why?

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Why? What in the Bible makes you think that every local church should be proportional?

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Now, again, let me just say this, and I know this isn't going to please my critics. I don't care about please my critics, but I want you to know where I stand.

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I don't have a problem with diversity. I've been part of diverse churches and I've been part of more monoethnic churches where I was the token, you know,

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Latino, you know what I mean? And so actually just the other day,

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I go to a very white church in Vermont and just just on Sunday, there was a black family there.

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And, you know, I mean, I made eye contact with them. You're like, yeah, what's up? You know what I mean? Like because we were like the only non -whites in the church, right?

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It was, you know, anyway, but but anyway. So the point is, I don't have a problem with diversity, but I'm just saying, is it a mark of a healthy church?

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Is it something that you ought to look for to decide whether or not your church is healthy? I don't think so.

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I mean, listen, I don't know everything about the Bible. I don't know every single verse memorized with like the top of my like the back of my hand, but I just don't think that the

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Bible says that that's one of the marks of a healthy church. That's something you ought to look for. It should be mono or it should be a multi -ethnic or should be diverse or it should be proportional to your location.

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That's just something people say. And I'm not saying if you prefer to have a multi -ethnic church,

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I'm not saying don't go to a multi -ethnic church. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is I'm challenging the notion that that's a sign of a healthy church.

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I don't think it necessarily is. I really don't think it necessarily is because I know of plenty multi -ethnic churches that have a ton of problems.

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I mean, probably a lot of liberal churches are very multi -ethnic. That doesn't mean anything. It's not a sign of anything except that, you know, there's multi -ethnicities there.

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I mean, I listen and maybe I'm wrong and if I'm wrong, challenge me in the comments.

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Let me point me to the verses that talk about multi -ethnicity or proportional ethnicity even being a sign of a healthy church.

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I just don't see it. I just don't see it. The local church, I can think of many reasons why a local church in a diverse community might not be diverse.

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Let's just give you a quick example. Let's say you lived in a diverse community where it was like, let's just say 50 -50 whites and Asians, right?

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Whites and Asians. And it was an immigrant neighborhood. There was a lot of immigrant Asians there. I can see nothing.

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I see nothing wrong with some of the churches in that location being totally

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Asian or totally white. I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, this is common in the city.

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And one good reason why it's common is because of language barriers. So we can easily see like, well, okay, if the

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Asians don't understand English in this part of town, then why would they go to an English church? Obviously, that would be stupid.

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And vice versa, if white folks don't understand whatever language these Asians in this immigrant neighborhood are speaking, why would they go to that church?

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It doesn't make any sense. So we can understand it kind of with language, but I'm saying, okay, it also applies to other things like cultural things.

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And again, I'm not saying you couldn't be friends with an Asian who has a different culture than you, but I could see someone being more comfortable worshiping with people that kind of share some of the same issues, the same problems, the same cultural vices or whatever it is,

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I can see lots of good reasons why you would go to a mono -ethnic church in a very diverse neighborhood. I'm not saying you have to, but what

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I am saying is it's just not a mark of anything necessarily. It could be, but it's not necessarily.

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So don't let big Eva folks, conference speakers, browbeat you that you should have a diverse multi -ethnic kingdom diversity church.

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Like don't like prove it from the scriptures. Don't just tell me I need to do that or need to look for that debt to be a healthy church.

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Show me how that's a mark of a healthy church. What's funny about this is a lot of these guys who say this have mono -ethnic churches, like basically browbeating you for not having something that they don't even have.

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And so, I don't know, this is a little bit of a rant, but I just wanted to encourage you, like if you don't have a multi -ethnic church and you live in a diverse area, like you should do some self -reflection just to see if maybe

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I am harboring some prejudice. But I would never discourage someone from doing that. But don't, like I just don't think that it automatically means that.

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And I really, I don't think that diversity, kingdom diversity, or whatever kind of diversity you want to call it, people just call it kingdom diversity so it sounds more

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Christian, but really it's just secular progressive diversity. And they just put kingdom in front of it to make it sound good.

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So don't let, don't feel bad if you're not reflecting the kingdom diversity that everyone says you ought to reflect, automatically, that doesn't necessarily mean your church is not healthy.

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In fact, I would say that if you're seeking kingdom diversity just for the sake of diversity and you're trying to find those proper proportions just for the sake of proper proportions, that's actually a sign of an unhealthy church because you're actually seeking after the wrong things.

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Instead, you should try to, you should be trying to be as faithful as possible to the biblical commands of what a church ought to be.

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Preaching that gospel, administering that communion, baptizing people, teaching them to obey everything that Christ commanded, that's like what you should be focused on.

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And your worship ought to be reverent and your worship ought to be according to the regulative principle and all that. That's what you should be focused on, not some kind of weird quota.

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I don't think God ever gave a quota in the Bible, prove me wrong if I'm wrong, but I just don't think these quotas are a sign of anything except for acceptability in secular progressive