Right Color, Wrong Culture
By Bryan Loritts
Bryan Loritts is a champion of the multi-ethnic church. In his book, Right Color, Wrong Culture, he dives into a narrative of a church leadership desiring to challenge themselves to make changes that are in step with the changing racial demographic of their city.
The story revolves around a primarily white church with an all white leadership that wants to reach the growing black community. Peter, a black consultant for helping churches find leaders for this very purpose, is enlisted by his friend, Gary, to take on some new clients in the south. The bulk of the story follows communication with Peter and the church leadership/elders as they interview different candidates. Peter, as the middleman, employs a unique system that not only proves to be helpful in the book, but can also be applied to real life.
America is one of the most diverse countries in the world due to our immigration policies and accelerated birth rate of minorities. Given America’s strange and unjust relationship along ethnic and racial lines, it is important to point out that by the year 2050, the white American will no longer be the majority demographic. Although racism and segregation are not what they once were, they are still an issue today. We have seen organizations, businesses, schools and even some government sectors start to embrace a type of diversity, but the church is lagging far behind. As the years pass and demographics shift, the comfortable homogenous churches that we’ve learned to call home will become ineffective to the witness of Christ and the fostering of well rounded disciples.
Loritts offers a real practical approach to this complex issue in a very engaging way. Today, a hot discussion in church leadership is how to diversify their church. Right Color, Wrong Culture highlights a top-down method that I believe many would find useful.