In this conversation, Converge Biblical Diversity Co-Directors Pastor Rod Hairston and Pastor Jim Eaton continue exploring the Five Stepping Stones Toward Diversity, a biblical framework that helps believers pursue unity across ethnic and cultural lines.
In Part 2, they discuss the remaining stepping stones:
- Respect – Acknowledging the dignity God has already given every person, regardless of background, status, or ethnicity (Genesis 1:27). To respect others is to recognize the image of God in them.
- Wonder – Recapturing awe at the beauty of God’s creation in humanity. Just as we marvel at mountains, oceans, and skies, Scripture calls us to see each person as fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).
Building on Part 1’s focus on humility, curiosity, and relinquishing control, this episode reminds us that biblical diversity is not optional; it is woven into the Gospel itself. By walking these stepping stones, the church strengthens the credibility of the Gospel and moves closer to fulfilling the Great Commission.
Transcript
Rod Hairston: Alright, so we’re back. We’re talking about these stepping stones to diversity. We started out talking about humility.
Jim Eaton: Humility.
Rod: How essential it is. We talked about curiosity. And a God who is curious, expresses his curiosity about us and to us. We set the big stone that starts going uphill is this one about relinquishing control. I was really getting caught up when you started talking about that grocery store experience.
Jim: Yeah. You can relate to that.
Rod: I can relate to it. We were in the Netherlands for family vacation, and I was just tired of everybody, everybody, everybody, Jim. I was tired of my wife. I was tired of my children. We had my auntie with us. I just, I was tired. I just wanted to be by myself. I said, “I’m gonna go to the store. Does anyone need anything?” And I’m thinking it’s gonna be a simple grocery run. Man. I got to the store, everything was different. And I just, I became overwhelmed and exhausted. And I was asking myself, “Why was this experience so difficult?” I’m just looking for chocolate. I’m looking for some things to drink. I’m looking for some fruit. Right. Looking for things to take back to the house so we can enjoy. And I realized it was so exhausting because I had no control. I didn’t know where the door was.
Jim: And nobody cared that you were uncomfortable.
Rod: Listen, they’re all happy. I had to go to the bathroom and I asked the guy in the store like, “Hey, is there bathroom that I can use?” He was like, “Let me check.” He’s like, “No.” I was like, “Oh, man.” Dude, I had no control whatsoever. And I think that’s what this diversity journey is like.
Jim: Absolutely. It is. And I think that that’s where even sometimes well-meaning people will start out and then they’ll hit these places where they just suddenly feel like, “I’ve lost control. I don’t know where I’m at, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” And that’s where often we just, people will just back up and say, “I think I’ll just kind of retreat into my silo. I’m happy, I’m comfortable.” But the places of growth are the places of discomfort. The places where you’re willing to lose your own control over the scenario, the situation. And you let other people lead. Let them really talk to you. Let them keep you Candice. And I remember one time when I was pastor, and we were pastoring Mosaic, and we had a men’s event. And one of the black men was sharing about an encounter he’d had with the police Where he had a pickup truck. He was pulled over and the police officer came up with a gun in his hand.
Rod: Wow.
Jim: And then he said, “Oh, I’m sorry, you looked like,” you know, and he’s sharing that with us. Well, you could feel the discomfort in the room among the white brothers because they weren’t sure what to do. They suddenly felt like we had gone from a safe bible study to a place where they felt a lack of control. But at the very same time, the other men of color in the room surged forward because we were getting really real and really authentic. And God moved in that time.
Rod: Jim, we cannot make this journey to biblical diversity as a church. And let’s be clear, the reason we need to make this journey is because the credibility of the gospels at stake.
Jim: That’s exactly right.
Rod: It’s at stake. And so-
Jim: Now you’re preaching,
Rod: Oh, I’m gonna preach now. Gimme the mic.
Jim: Come on now.
Rod: Right. Because the credibility of the gospel is at stake. And if we don’t take this journey, we cannot fulfill the great commission. We cannot reach people whom God loves deeply.
Jim: That’s right. That’s right.
Rod: So we have to give up control and in our culture a big part of the dynamic is about who’s getting control. The recent elections, most recent elections very clearly bore that out. This is about who’s gonna stay in control. And I’m not suggesting that there weren’t some very unsavory things at play. But the point is, we can’t take the journey if we can’t relinquish some control.
Jim: That’s right. And I think that it’s really important to say that we are not here saying God is not in control. We’re being aware that God is always in control. The spirit of God is in control. But so often, and we will recognize this in our own church context, we’ll say, “God came into that prayer meeting.”
Rod: Yes. Yes.
Jim: “God did something in our worship time. I don’t know what it was, but when I was preaching, I felt suddenly like I was not in control.” And we know those are signs of the move of God. It’s the same thing culturally, that when God is saying, “All right, I made you different from one another, so that life is not boring, so that you can bless one another.” And you can build into one another’s lives so that you would get to a place one day, and Natalie and I re talk about this regularly, we would never want to go back to the life we once had 20 or 30 years ago, because our lives have been so enriched by being in settings where we’ve said, “All right, God, you take control. Because we’re not sure where this is going. But we wanna keep walking with you.”
Rod: Man, this is so rich. This letting go of control, I think it has to do, Jim, was saying to God, if you want to do something new we give you control. God cannot. So often I see Him doing new things where people give up control to Him.
Jim: That’s right, that’s right.
Rod: We see in Genesis where Adam is asleep, God puts him to sleep. Adam now has no control so God now gives him the blessing of Eve. We see this with who else was asleep, Jacob was asleep as he’s running from Esau. And there God reveals to him right where he’s gonna go. These angels going up and down the stairs that leaned-
Jim: The story with Peter and the vision coming out of heaven.
Rod:Yes. Yes, man. Yes.
Jim: So Peter’s not in charge in that-
Rod: He’s not in charge in that moment. So God takes away control so that He can give fresh revelation.
Jim: That’s right. That’s right.
Rod: Fresh insight, fresh vision. And I think that’s really the heart of this control matter. “God, I wanna be open to something new that you’re doing. Rather than controlling all the factors, controlling my positions, controlling my assumptions.” Giving up control. Man, we got a lot to say about that. Let’s talk about this other big one.
Jim: Okay.
Rod: Two more big ones. Aretha Franklin said it best. ♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-E-T. ♪
Jim: Respect. Let’s talk about some respect.
Rod: Respect. That’s it.
Jim: Your voice is a little different than hers.
Rod: A little bit, a little bit.
Jim: Respect. That’s so big. You know, people are really hurting everywhere with a lack of respect and dignity. I think one of the greatest tragedies of racism is the way it deprives people of the dignity God has blessed them with. And to just, whether it’s in a microaggression, whether it’s in a little thing here or a major thing there. I think virtually everyone has stories of situations where they were just blindsided and walked away feeling diminished. Feeling like they were less than. And God is calling us to move in this arena, giving people what is already theirs by God’s hand. And that is their dignity and their respect.
Rod: Oh, that’s good. That’s good. We can’t move this whole diversity effort forward if we don’t respect people.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: I was sharing on my Instagram that I was watching a young couple, actually, my nephew and his fiance. And I could see that he likes her, that they like each other. I could see that they love each other, but what stood out to me most profoundly was the deep respect they have for one another. And we can’t be all God called us to be if we don’t have respect for one another’s humanity.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: Right. The image of God in one another. To respect that you may not look like me. I may not look like you. We may have different levels of education, experience and background, but everyone is worthy of dignity and respect.
Jim: Oh, you’re really speaking deep into my heart here. I can just share something from, from my background, growing up in South Asia, and I grew up in one of the poorest countries in the world. So most of the people that I interacted with, my friends, my friend’s parents, my pastor when I was growing up, went no further than fourth grade in his formal education. But he spoke seven languages. And he was a man of God who kept moving with the gospel in the face of persecution. And one of the things that has often troubled me is I’ll hear well-meaning people say, I went on a one week missions trip to Mexico or some other developing country, and they’ll share a testimony. And I came back and I’m just so thankful to be an American. And what I’ll be thinking is, yes, that’s part of the story. But do you understand the high value and the dignity and the respect of the people you were with? That the sole measure of a person’s worth is not how big their house is, or whether they drive a beautiful car, or whether they have clothes from a designer store. Some of the finest, most noble people of great dignity and worth have very little in the eyes of the world. And I think if we can learn to just say, “God is calling me not only to love people, but to always approach them with the highest level of respect and dignity.” Then the spirit of God opens our eyes to see with different metrics.
Rod: That’s right. That’s right. Jim, if we elevate our level of respect for people, the way God demonstrates that kind of care for us, we’ll change the game. We’ll change our language, in fact. We won’t call people by derogatory names that we assign to different ethnic groups. You following what I’m saying?
Jim: Yeah. Yeah.
Rod: I just remember so often hearing the police refer to black men in a derogatory way, using the word boy and how disrespectful that is.
Jim: Yeah. Yeah.
Rod: And we’ve seen this across the breadth of races and ethnicities. And what if we change that narrative and give respect? Let’s cover this last one.
Jim: Yes I love this last one.
Rod: Because I think this one is hot, because it really gets to the heart of the imago day. And it’s what we’ve called the stepping stone of wonder. Talk about that.
Jim: Yes. Well, this is a gospel driven movement. To diversity is not like a spare tire. It’s not some option over here. It’s woven into the gospel. It’s woven into the great commissions. But it’s also deeply embedded in the call of the word of God to see every person as made, crafted, beautifully created and fashioned in the image and likeness of God. And so, just as we freely will admit this, as we look at creation. We’ll say, “I was down in Florida and look at the palm trees. And then I was in Arizona, look at all the different colors of the red rocks. And then I was in Chicago, and I was looking at Lake Michigan. It looked like an ocean.” We’ll talk freely about all the diverse things that God made, but then when it comes to the ultimate, the pinnacle of God’s creation.
Rod: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim: It was very good when He made humankind, we’ll step back and we’ll say, “Well, I’d just rather not do that, or I’d rather not get com uncomfortable.” Instead, God’s saying, “Recapture that sense of wonder when you encounter anyone.” And Mother Teresa once said, “Everyone’s in the image of God.” Some are in a very distressing disguise. They may not look like it, but they are. And I think when we start to say, “God is blessing my life to bring me in the pathway of someone else who’s bearing the wonder of the image of God,” that changes things.
Rod: Jim, this wonder thing, and really this whole set of stones to step across is so powerful that it will change how we as believers approach people in the world.
Jim: That’s right.
Rod: And it will change the narrative in our society. I really believe that God has given us this mandate.
Jim: Amen.
Rod: Right. To love our neighbors as ourselves. It’s the love of Lord our God. And so when we traverse these stones, the change that we’ll see in our nation, in our discourse, in our churches, in our communities, God’s gonna use you, and you, and you, and you, and you, all of you and us.
Jim: Amen.
Rod: Right.
Jim: To bring about a new day for the gospel.
Rod: Amen.
Jim: To be-
Rod: Amen.
Jim: Shared and accepted.
Rod: That’s a good word. That’s a good word.