In this conversation, Converge Biblical Diversity Co-Directors Pastor Rod Hairston and Pastor Jim Eaton introduce the Five Stepping Stones Toward Diversity—a biblical framework to help believers move from confusion or hesitation into Christ-centered action. 

In Part 1, they walk through the first three stepping stones: 

• Humility – Recognizing that life is not centered around one culture, ethnicity, or perspective, but following Christ’s example of servanthood (Philippians 2). 

• Curiosity – Asking questions, listening well, and seeking to understand others as a way of showing respect and dignity, modeled by Jesus in the Gospels. 

• Relinquishing Control (Part 1) – Learning to release the need to dominate conversations and allowing others’ cultural perspectives to shape our understanding, without compromising biblical truth. 

This series reminds us that pursuing diversity is not about worldly trends — it’s about living faithfully in light of God’s Word. True unity in Christ requires humility, authentic curiosity, and courage to let go of control. 

Transcript

Jim Eaton: So one of the things I’d like us to talk about in this conversation we’re having, often people come at this thinking, it is so incredibly complex, there’s no way I can make any progress. So what if we, as we have had conversations have identified five stepping stones toward diversity.

Rod Hairston: I love that idea, right? We’re always trying to clarify framework, right? So that we can convey to others what it is that, you know, will help us to reach our goals. And so I love this idea of five stepping stones toward diversity. So when we were talking about this, the first thing that came to mind for me was how necessary humility is.

Jim: Mm.

Rod: I couldn’t think of enjoying, pursuing, embracing diversity without being humble. Because to enjoy diversity, to pursue diversity, to become more diverse is to simply say, you’re not the center of the universe. This is not all about me. It’s not all about one person, one race or ethnicity. And so I think humility is essential. You know, biblically we see the cry all throughout scripture, humble yourself in the sight of the Lord. I think it is a call to us individually, but I think it’s also a call to us culturally where we see divisions in scripture. Paul addressed it in Philippians. He addressed it in Romans. It’s addressed in Acts. And what Paul says in Philippians, he says, basically be humble.

Jim: And he gives the example of Christ. And he doesn’t just, you know, pull out of a hat some deed that Christ did. He takes Jesus’ ultimate act as he comes into the earth, the incarnation, which means God becoming flesh, becoming us. And that is really at the heart of engaging people racially and culturally. It’s humility to say, I’m not the center of things. God has made other people who walk in a different story, who live in a different context. So God’s calling me to step out of where I am comfortable. And that takes humility because all of a sudden you find yourself transitioning from a place where you know the rules, you know the lay of the land, you know where all the furniture is in the room of the house. And all of a sudden now you’re in a different place. You’re stumbling over the dresser and you don’t know where the road is going. And I remember we were talking about this earlier when Natalie and I first moved to Germany with our family, and I remember that first Christmas season. And Natalie sent me to the grocery store just to get some chicken, just some chicken. And several hours later I came home with some chicken. But I was so frustrated because I’m in a grocery store and there was bratwurst and there was pork, and there was tenderloin and everything else except chicken. And a year or two later, we were just laughing about it because now all of these things had become familiar, but at first it took humility to just push into a different cultural environment.

Rod: Oh man, that’s so huge.

Jim: Mm.

Rod: Right, that humility means that we have to take off this layer of self-righteousness. That I have to admit that there’s something I am not right about that I don’t know. That I have some assumptions. I have to shed those assumptions. And I think, I love the scripture. How Paul talks about Jesus and how he, you know, he put on the garments of a servant. He basically took off his deity. He didn’t, you know, obviously divest himself of his deity, but he came as a servant. He humbled himself and became a servant. That humility is powerful. How about this next one though? How about the curiosity?

Jim: Oh, I love that one. I think that is so crucial. I think that, you know, we have four grandchildren, and one of the delights of being with these little kids is their endless curiosity. They’re constantly asking questions. They’re constantly making some assessment or a guess to what something is. And sometimes it’s just so cute or so funny, but they’re just endlessly curious. And I think sometimes as we mature into adults, we lose that. And we think, well, what we need to be is we need to be knowledgeable or we need to just be competent. But God wants us to remain curious because, you know, someone made a little diagram once with a big circle and that’s what’s really out there in the world. And a tiny little dot in the middle is what you know. And I think that when we’re thinking about all kinds of things in life, we tend to be curious. You know, where do you like to go on a trip? And what is it like to be in Arizona? I mean, we get curious when we hear people tell stories, but God wants us to have curiosity about how people are living their lives in different cultural settings. And that’s not offensive. It’s to be curious is to be respectful. To be conferring dignity, but simply to want to know where someone is living.

Rod: Jim, when you mention the word, when we use this word, curiosity, I can’t help but think about how many extraordinary inventions were the result of curiosity.

Jim: That’s right, that’s right.

Rod: Would would we have Apple computers? Would we have AI technology? Would we have cars? I mean, we can go, you know, down a long list of inventions, but curiosity is about asking questions. And sometimes we think that God is only about making statements. It asks the questions Jesus asks, you know, who do men say that I am? I’m curious. What about you guys?

Jim: Yeah, I think that’s so cool when Jesus does that, or like once he says to a man, what do you want me to do for you?

Rod: I love when he asked one guy at the pool of Bethesda, what was it? Pool of Bethesda. He says, do you wanna be well? It’s almost the implied. I’m curious, do you want to be made well? I think he has a curiosity that brings up the best in us. In fact, science says, and I think we shared this in a video before, that when we lose our curiosity, we lose our ability to learn. We literally shut off our brains from learning, which then makes us, I hate to use this word, I think it’s right. Kind of ignorant.

Jim: Yeah, it does. And you know, isn’t it true that when you’re around other people, most people tend to want to talk about themselves. And actually, if we’re really honest, after a while, those kind of people are boring. But every now and then you meet someone who’s genuinely interested in you. They’re curious. They ask you questions instead of quickly diverting the conversation back to themselves. Yeah. They want to know more. And you walk away saying, I’d like to know, I’d like to know more about that person.

Rod: And I think it’s the authentic curiosity you’re asking.

Jim: That’s right.

Rod: I’ve had an experience, I’ve had several experiences where people have asked questions where it was like, okay, you’re not being curious. You are sort of asking with assumptions and trying to confirm your assumptions.

Jim: I’ve had those too.

Rod: Yeah. But I think if you wanna be authentically curious, you can simply say like, hey, I don’t really know how this goes. And I don’t want to offend you. Can I ask this? I think most people can handle that kind of curiosity.

Jim: Yeah, that’s right. So what’s another stepping stone?

Rod: Let’s see, how about this one. The relinquishing of control.

Jim: Oh, that’s good, that’s good.

Rod: I think that one goes uphill, Jim.

Jim: It does, it does.

Rod: These stepping stones are not all the same.

Jim: This one’s definitely, this one’s climbing. That one I think is so crucial because when you really start to get to know people in other cultural settings, you’re not just talking with someone, assuming they’re just like you, they just look different. But you’re really starting to grasp, they live in a different world. There’s something inside many of us that we just start to feel like we’re losing some control. Somebody else is taking the wheel of the car and we’re not sure where this is going to go. And so we tend to kind of shut down at that point, or we tend to try to control the conversation. But if you can learn to relinquish the control, and that doesn’t mean relinquish your beliefs, hold those, but relinquish the control of the conversation. Let the other person guide it.

Rod: So this control stone, stepping stone has so many layers to it. And getting there from humility, curiosity, links in control is almost like a huge step. It’s a huge step. So that we can talk about this in a helpful way, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna save some of the control conversation for our next video. We want you to digest these first two and a half stones. We’re gonna come back and talk more about this relinquishing controls.

Jim: Yes, let’s do that.

Rod: And then we’ll share the last two with you guys in the next video. We’ll see you in the next video.