Travis Michael Fleming and Dr. Derwin Gray dive into an important conversation about the multi-ethnic church and why it’s central to the Gospel. They explore how the church as a new creation community isn’t just a modern ministry strategy—it’s a deeply biblical vision rooted in the heart of God.

Drawing from the Apostle Paul’s teaching in Ephesians, they discuss how the Gospel forms a new humanity that breaks down ethnic divisions and calls the church to live out that reality in a world increasingly shaped by polarization. The conversation also challenges individualistic versions of the Gospel that can unintentionally reinforce segregation within church communities.

Dr. Gray emphasizes that the unity of the church is not just a theological idea but a lived reality shaped by love and empowered by the Holy Spirit. As they address the cultural pressures surrounding Christian nationalism, Fleming and Gray call the church to rediscover its identity as a foretaste of God’s Kingdom—a community where people from every nation, tribe, and tongue find belonging and purpose in Christ.

Takeaways:

1. Travis Michael Fleming and Derwin Gray emphasize the essential nature of the church as a new creation community, transcending ethnic divisions and embodying unity in Christ.
2. The discussion highlights the biblical foundation of multi-ethnic church dynamics, rooted in the teachings of the Apostle Paul and the inclusive nature of the Gospel.
3. Derwin Gray articulates the importance of the church reflecting God's covenant promise to Abraham, which includes a diverse family of believers from all nations and backgrounds.
4. Both speakers address the contemporary challenges of Christian nationalism and the need for the church to represent a countercultural model of reconciliation and love in a divided society.
5. The conversation underscores that the Gospel is not merely about individual salvation but rather about participating in a collective identity as the body of Christ, a community marked by grace.
6. Gray and Fleming call for a reformation in how the church approaches community, emphasizing the necessity of embodying the values of the Kingdom of God in everyday interactions.

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There's a new humanity comprised of Jews and non Jews.

And this was in fulfillment with God's covenant to Abraham.

And the gospel not only forgives sins, but creates a family with different colored skins.

And as this family lives by the Holy Spirit's power and they love each other, the world will know that they are Jesus disciples.

And the world will know by their unity that the Father sent the Son.

And we know eschatologically in the new heavens and in the new earth, it's going to be every nation, tribe and tongue.

God will be dwelling with his people just like he wanted to at the beginning.

Today's episode we are tackling one of the most urgent and I'm going to say this misunderstood realities of the gospel and that's the church as a new creation community.

My guest today is Dr. Derwin Gray, pastor of Transformation Church and author of Building a Multi Ethnic Church.

Together we explore why the multi ethnic church is not some trendy ministry strategy, but is actually a deeply biblical vision rooted in the kingdom of God.

We talk about the book of Ephesians, the new humanity in Christ, the failures of our individualistic gospel language, the challenges of Christian nationalism, and why the church today must embody a better way in a divided world.

It's a rich, honest and timely conversation for pastors, leaders, and frankly, anyone longing to see the church reflect the reconciling power of God beyond.

Sunday morning, here's my conversation with Dr. Derwin Gray.

Derwin, it is so great to have you on ministry.

Deep dive.

Thank you, Travis.

I am so glad to be with you.

And I love how you say new creation communities.

That's number one.

It's very Pauline, it's very biblical, but it's also very NT rightish.

My good friend, Dr. Wright.

Yeah, new creation community.

He's been a guest on the show,

so I love it.

That's one of the things that we roll with.

We like to go.

It's we talk about the gospel, the kingdom, the church we call the new creation community.

And that's what you're writing about in this book.

This is why we wanted you on the show today.

Thank you.

So are you ready for the Fast5?

Ready as I ever be.

All right, here we go.

First one, you talk about food, you talk about really enjoying in your book.

You talk about these kind of oysters.

So I want to know though, what is your go to comfort food?

My go to comfort food, man.

Gosh, my go to comfort food.

Ooh, probably, probably a ribeye medium to medium well, some sauteed broccoli, and if possible, something from the sea like shrimp or some Alaskan crab legs.

Yeah, I mean, if I want ultimate comfort, that's where I'm going right there.

Nice.

Okay, how about this one?

Then we're going to get back because you play in the NFL, so what is your most memorable besides the fact of your, you know, getting your, your injury?

But what was the, the number one memory that you have playing football on the field?

I know the camaraderie is the thing that all the guys missed, but what, what was the one moment on the field you're like, or my, my welcome to the NFL moment.

Let's go with that.

How about that?

Well, my welcome to the NFL moment was my rookie year playing against Seattle.

That was in the old Kingdome, which doesn't even exist anymore.

I was pursuing off the ball running play and a big old tight end just came and just cold cocked me.

Bam.

And on film the next day, the veterans on the team said, welcome to the NFL.

And that was indeed a welcome to the NFL moment.

Because in college after my freshman year, I was pretty dominant, you know, that didn't happen much.

But when my very first game in NFL was like, holy cow, what have I gotten into?

I'm a 21 year old kid playing against 35 year old men who had mortgages and hundreds of thousands of dollar cars at stake, I was just happy to be there.

I get that.

I mean, even sometimes when I saw that Philip Rivers came back out, I'm like, dude, you're like way older than the other guys that are out on the field here.

That's crazy.

Yeah, I'm really glad he didn't hurt himself.

I really am.

40, 44 is a big lift.

And you know, he's got like 13 kids and I'm sure his wife was like, look man, do not injure yourself.

I need some help with these kids.

Yeah, but he got like insurance for like another five years or something because of it.

Yeah, yeah.

So when you play in the NFL, the NFL does have really good benefits.

And so by him coming back, you get five years of insurance after you're done playing.

So mine is long gone, which, which by the way, it's, it's kind of sad that we even have to talk about insurance in that way.

When I talk to my friends in Europe, they're like, what's wrong with you guys?

I was, I was sharing with.

With N.T.

wright that our church, Transformation Church, canceled $34.9 million of medical debt for people in North South Carolina.

And he looked at me and said, why'd you have to do that?

Then he goes, oh, yeah, you guys are in America.

And so, you know, I know we're talking about a funny topic, but it is kind of sad the way the insurance racket is United States of America.

It's really sad.

It is really sad.

Especially when you think about that other people look at us around the world.

It's like, whoa, what are we dealing with all this?

Yeah.

All right, here's the next question for you.

Since we're talking about multiethnic, we're talking about cross cultural stuff, what is the craziest food?

Going back to food for a second.

What's the craziest food you've ever eaten from a different culture?

Oh, man.

The craziest food I've ever eaten from a different culture.

I would have to say.

And I really don't care what it was.

It was really delicious.

Listen, man, listen.

When you hungry, you throw down.

You ask no questions.

You throw down.

I've been to India, but I'm not trying to think what it was.

Was it a meat or like me?

Yeah, it was.

Oh, okay.

I don't know what kind of meat it was, but it was good meat.

I was in Liberia and I was pulled over with my host, who was.

Who was Liberian.

And there was this meat pulled out between two poles.

There's flies all over it.

And I was like, what is that?

And he goes, bush meat.

I'm like, what's bush meat?

He goes, whatever they found in the bush.

Yeah, yeah, we, you know, I think when you live in a first world context, you have a whole different perspective of things.

I get that.

I totally agree with that.

Let me ask you the next question.

Here we go.

What is the funniest cross cultural experience you've ever had?

The funniest cross culture.

The funniest.

You gotta have some.

Oh, I do.

I got tons.

It's like, it's kind of whittling it down.

I would say probably the funniest of recent times.

So the church where I'm co founder and lead pastor is in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.

It's actually in a community called Indianland, South Carolina.

And when we first got there, I was surprised at how many of my white brothers and sisters of the deep South Carolina Ethos found a home at our church and really connected.

It was like, I don't understand you.

Is that English?

And so I've learned to now speak South Carolinian, which is what?

Which is just, you know, you got to just learn how to work through, how to carry letters and nouns and verbs and stuff like that.

I lived in New England and pastor there.

I had to learn a whole different language too.

So I get it.

I understand that.

All right, well, let's, let's jump into the book.

I know this isn't, it's not a new book per se.

You've got other books that have come out recently.

But I want to talk more about this one just because we talk about being a new creation community today and you're talking about building a multi ethnic church.

And as you talk about, you talk about nt right a lot in here.

In Ephesians 3, talk.

You have so many different dialogue partners that are really meant to draw out this concept of a multi ethnic church.

Why is that such a passion for you?

Because it's God's passion.

That was a good answer.

That was a really good answer, you know, because it's, it's because it's God's passion.

And I think one of the blessings of not growing up in the church and coming to faith in my late 20s was I just had the Bible and I didn't have all of these filters I had to work through.

And so one of the first things is I learned that the word church is the Greek word ecclesia, which simply meant called out ones that those who call the name of Jesus are called out of the darkness of sin and death and into the light of his kingdom and new creation by grace through faith in Christ alone.

And then next I learned that the letters that the Apostle Paul wrote were to communities of Jews and Gentiles.

That there was no like in Paul's understanding of church.

There was no like, let's make a church for this group of people, this group of people, this group of people, this group of people.

It was in Christ there's a new humanity comprised of Jews and non Jews.

And this was in fulfillment with God's covenant to Abraham.

And the Gospel not only forgives sins, but creates a family with different colored skins.

And as this family lives by the Holy Spirit's power and they love each other, the world will know that they are Jesus's disciples.

And the world will know by their unity that the Father sent the Son.

And we know eschatologically in the new heavens and in the New Earth.

It's going to be every nation, tribe and tongue.

God will be dwelling with his people just like he wanted to at the beginning.

The beginning.

And so what's sad is Even after almost 30 years of ministry, what I just shared with you is still relatively unknown to even pastors that have gone to seminary, let alone lay people.

We in America have designed and created church around our ethnic distinctions and it's created segregation basically, and we're okay with it.

It's called a homogeneous unit principle.

But what's interesting now though, in the 10 years with the rise of Christian nationalism, which is just masquerading as nationalism, it's become popular to not want multi ethnic churches, that if you even talk about a multi ethnic church, you're quote unquote woke.

I'm like, man, well, Jesus wouldn't have fit in your church.

Paul wouldn't have fit in your church.

Peter wouldn't have fit in your church.

Matter of fact, the Bible don't fit in your church.

And so I guess I'm on a quest to really help the church.

God's people recognize that number one, He's a promise keeper.

He told Abraham, I'm going to give you a family.

And that family, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nation of Israel, Jesus the Messiah, Galatians 3:16.

He's the seed of Abraham.

And through him there's neither Jew nor Greek, free nor slave, male nor female.

For we're all one in Christ.

And if you belong to Christ, then you are children of Abraham.

So for the Apostle Paul, for the early church, the idea that individual salvation was simply so you don't go to hell was foreign.

Salvation was God restoring to earth his redeemed people of every nation, tribe and tongue to image forth his glory.

And I don't know why that's so hard to get.

And I can't tell you how many times I've shared just that basic Christianity.

And people with doctorates, master's degrees, let alone lay people, are like, why did no one teach me this?

And I said, well, I think it's a blinding effect by the devil.

Because if what I said is true, then prejudice, racism and bigotry and nationalism must be repudiated at the altar of King Jesus.

I agree.

We've done several.

It's funny what you're talking about.

I mean, we did an episode with Paul Miller, the Religion of American Greatness, really looking at Christian nationalism and what it is and how it came to be.

We've done other episodes with like Mark Noel.

How did we get to this individualistic gospel that has really been pared down from, we commonly say a four chapter gospel to a two chapter gospel.

And we missed this community part.

Did you actually bring that out?

You talk about the Great Commandment, the Great Commission, and we actually talk about it and you just didn't use this term.

But we use the great community as that other third great, that the three are interdependent.

And if you don't have it, then your gospel, we call it a gospel expression.

Your gospel expression is malformed.

You know, as you've been doing this because you're, you're doing it out, you're doing it every day, you're living with the just people and, and trying to share this.

I want to know just from your experience, how frustrating has this been for you?

Just, just trying to live this out.

That's painful.

Yeah.

So on multiple levels, let me talk about the joy first.

Yeah, awesome.

We are a revelation 7, 9, every nation, tribe and tongue.

Jesus is exalted, people are discipled, justice.

I mean it's, it's what God is doing is simply beautiful.

And I don't mean any disrespect, but it is a lot easier to do a homogeneous church where everybody thinks alike, looks alike, votes alike, same economic qualities.

There's certain things you don't even discuss from the pulpit because the people in your church, it doesn't bother them.

And so what God has done amongst us is simply astonishing.

And I am so, so grateful.

What I'm most frustrated with is not laypeople, it's more Christian leaders who know what I'm saying is true, but who are afraid to do it because the cost is too high.

We have what's called the Multi Ethnic Church Roundtable.

We do it once a year.

We've done it for the last 12 years or 11 years.

And when leaders come in and if they're white, I say to them, so glad you're here.

But you need to know if you implement these gospel centered principles that lead to a multi ethnic church, you're going to lose about 30% of your people.

And you will be called everything in the book by people you married, you buried their parents, you baptize their kids and they're going to believe a, they're, they're going to believe a Instagram influencer who can't even spell college more than you, who leads them in theology.

So just be prepared for it.

But after that first year of hemorrhaging, man, beautiful new growth is going to happen.

And yeah, it's really interesting.

The church does not, and I'm talking from the seminary level, does not do a good of teaching cross cultural competency.

Now, let me pause here.

Even when American missionaries go overseas, they still implement the homogeneous unit principle.

For example, Rwanda was hailed as the great Western missionary achievement, but the Hutus and Tutsis still were allowed to build churches based on their ethnicity.

So their ethnicity was more important than who they were in Christ.

And so when the Belgians pulled out, all of that racial stuff came to be and they massacred each other.

Now, praise God, Rwanda is not in that place again.

But when you say, hey, you can be a Christian but you cannot like those other people, that is a defiance of the gospel.

1 John 4:20.

How can you say you love God whom you've never seen, but hate your brother whom you see and hate is also, it's not even, it doesn't necessarily have to be despised.

It's indifference towards.

And so that's been the biggest frustration is seeing the church itself be woefully inadequate in this area.

We had Hutus and Tutsis at our church.

So I know exactly what you're talking about.

I mean, they wouldn't even share their names because their last names are surnames if they had one, simply because of the issues that had come.

I think that's what I've really struggled with is when I hear people say, hey, this isn't a gospel issue.

And I'm like, you don't know the gospel.

Thank you.

Your definition of the gospel is woefully insufficient if you don't understand the reality of this new humanity that God is trying to say.

And both like Tom Wright says, of course, N.T.

wright says, you know, the kingdom may not be from this world, but it's for this world.

Amen.

And that's that part that's in there.

And that's the part, though that I find myself struggling with.

It's the people that have.

And again, we're going to get a little bit philosophical here because we're dealing with these issues.

But I have found that a lot of our ethnic, our doctrinal expressions are much more ethnic than they are theological.

You think that's true?

I believe that.

I believe there is a great deal of truth to that, that people have baptized ethnocentric things at the altar of, of, of the gospel.

So for example, I'll take John Wesley.

Yep.

Anglican priests from England comes to America, revival breaks out, the Anglicans kick him out.

And so he needs a method to disciple all these people.

So the Methodists are born.

Well, one of John Wesley's core convictions was that slavery was anti gospel.

So he was an abolitionist.

And the excuse I hear a lot of times as well, the men who were Christians who endorsed slavery were men of their time.

Well, John Wesley was in that time.

Charles Spurgeon was a little bit after that time.

William Wilberforce was after that time, after that time.

And so we can't use that excuse.

The Bible is timeless.

So we have to adjust to the eternality of God's will, not what's happening in the moment.

And you look at George Whitfield, who was a great preacher, but yet he endorsed slaves working at his orphanages.

You look at Jonathan Edwards, supposedly the greatest theologian that America's ever produced.

He literally wrote a sermon on the back of a receipt of a 13 year old slave girl he purchased.

And so I think when money's involved, it seems to be very convenient to change your theology to match that.

And I think being a spiritual leader, a pastor, I think you have to have some spiritual courage to call idols out now.

Always embrace redemption, but we have to topple idols.

And so, yeah, I do think there's been some baptism in, in that.

And I don't want to just say, hey, let's just look at our white brothers and sisters.

Because the reality is ethnocentrism is not simply located into one ethnic group.

And so I think we have to be first and foremost committed to the kingdom of God and the King Christ.

And then his agenda, regardless of ethnicity or holiness, has no color but blood.

You make a very important point, even with the, as you just mentioned, that it's not just a white thing or a black thing.

I working with so many different people around the world, I'm sure you experienced this.

There's racism within every culture.

Oh my gosh, it's everywhere.

So some of the things that I try to do with the Transformation Church congregation, as I say, it's very important not to be trapped in what C.S.

lewis called chronological snobbery.

The United States of America is not where the sin of racism started and is not where the sin of slavery started.

I have friends that are from around the world and they go, you think you guys have racism in America, you need to come to India.

I mean, there are people in our tribe, in our church who are from Nigeria, but they're of different ethnic groups and they won't even let their kids marry each Other.

I have to challenge them in that.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, like the devil from day one loves to divide God's people.

He can't divide God, but he can divide God's people.

And that's why we have to have the unifying blood of Christ.

Unity does not mean same belief.

Unity means oneness and purpose and purpose, commandment, great commission through the great grace of God to create this great community.

And in that community, we rub shoulders.

That's called sanctification.

And that's where we learn and grow.

I mean, you even go back to everything with.

Happened with Michael Brown.

I mean, you're talking about everything that was going on in Minnesota.

I mean, all of that in a lot of.

You saw divisions within the church, and it's because.

Partly because they're not talking to one another.

They don't have that because they're not in communication.

They don't share the same cultural struggles.

And again, they're the ethnic lines of their gospel expressions.

I mean, their theological lines of their gospel expressions are sometimes their boundary markers that prevent them from seeing.

That's where we get this issue where the people say, oh, there's no such thing as structural sin.

No, there is.

There is.

There's.

It's in it.

It just has been perpetuated.

You know, what's, what's interesting, and you covered a lot there.

So I want to try to.

It was brilliant.

I want to try to make one salient point in that is some of my friends will say, you know what?

Structural racism doesn't exist.

But then they'll come and say, well, white people are being discriminated against structurally.

That's why President Trump is doing this.

And I go, you just told me structural racism doesn't exist.

Doesn't exist.

Yeah.

You know, or I'll say to him like, so do you believe that we, as even evangelicals are being persecuted?

Yes.

On college campuses?

Yes.

In the workforce?

Yes.

Well, you just told me structural, systemic evil and prejudice doesn't exist, but it exists when you think it's against you.

So this is what I've come to believe.

When you've had privilege your whole life, equality seems like oppression.

And I think for the believer, we need to have more understanding of Philippians 2, 5 or 4 through 11.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Consider others better than yourselves, for you have the mind of Christ, even though he existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to grasp, but humbled himself, became obedient as a man to the Point of death.

If we all lived a cruciform life of seeing our brothers and sisters, sisters better than we see ourselves, we would advocate for each other when we see injustice.

And that's, that's the beauty of discipleship within a multi ethnic context is because I can see your story, I can hear your story.

And when I begin to love you and you begin to love me, we can advocate for each other.

And then another thing, Travis, we live in a time where propaganda is so easy to spread.

Now all you got to do is open up your phone.

Like these Internet, these Instagram influencers, these tick tock influencers are paid by political parties.

If you're paid by a political party, you're partisan.

Once you, once you go partisan, you lose the prophetic witness of the church.

And then you find yourself endorsing utterly utter debauchery and having to backtrack against utter evil.

That's happening.

Well, this is why we have to talk about not only the message of Jesus, but the ways of Jesus.

You can't have one without the other, right?

Amen.

I mean, you know, Jesus said, I'm the way to truth and in life.

And his life embodied the way, the truth and the life.

That's right.

And so when, when, when I teach our church, when I teach leaders on like, what is it?

What does it look like for us to build a multi heathen church?

So they think, I'm going to pull out all these sociology books.

I go, okay, we're going to go to Luke chapter 10 and we're going to do verses 25 through 32nd.

It's the story of the good Samaritan Jesus in talk with a scholar what's most important.

Commandment?

Love.

The scholar says, who is my neighbor?

And you got to understand from the Jewish scholar's perspective, Gentiles had wanted to wipe the Jews off the map.

So he was afraid to love.

That's why Jesus says, love your enemies.

So what does Jesus do?

He tells a story where a Samaritan who by the time Jesus was born, 700 year ethnic feud between Jews and Samaritans.

He makes the Samaritan the hero of the story.

The Samaritan rescues the Jewish man that the Jewish priest and Levite walked by.

Now listen to this.

What is a Samaritan?

A Samaritan is a Jewish person and a gentile person in one body.

What's the church supposed to be?

Jews and Gentiles in one body.

What's the church supposed to do?

Go on mission to help the hurting, Particularly those You're not supposed to love.

That's the one message I would teach over and over again.

To teach the church how to be multi ethnic, how to do justice and break down racial barriers is something that,

I mean, once you start to see it, it's everywhere in the scripture.

It's just amazing to me.

I remember going through Acts and we were getting through chapter eight into chapter nine and it's that one very confusing passage where you have, they're taking the gospel to the Samaritans and they start, you know, they haven't received the Spirit yet, right.

And they'd already been baptized.

And it always throws people off like, what does this mean?

What does this mean?

And I said it makes total sense when you start understanding the cultural implications of the passage.

That's why they have to have the apostles come lay hands on them.

They receive the Holy Spirit.

And it's my contention, because they were Samaritan, is that they were going to set up an alternative temple just like, or have an alternative form of Christianity, just like they did with the temple in Judaism.

But when you see that, wait a minute, salvation comes from the Jews.

This is one body.

This is the serious nature of what's being brought here is so that they wouldn't go, they had to be from the Jews.

They couldn't go separate their own thing.

This is how important it is to God.

When you start seeing that, that lens, it changes your whole dynamic.

It changes, it changes everything.

Yeah, it's, it's beautiful.

One of the beautiful things About Acts chapter two is.

Acts chapter two is the reversal of Genesis 11 and the fulfillment of Genesis 12.

Genesis 11, Tower of Babel spread apart by languages.

Genesis 12.

I'm getting my family back.

Acts chapter two.

16 different ethnic groups are in Israel to celebrate Passover.

They hear the apostles so speaking in their languages.

And then what happens?

The gospel goes to the world and we really need to repent of ghettoizing our gospel.

The word ghetto, as you know, comes from when Jews were placed in particular areas of a city.

And so what we've done is we've ghettoized the gospel.

Like we're going to teach it in such a way that people like us come in and then we're going to put guardrails that if you think this way or act as well.

I'm not, I'm not talking about holiness, like sin.

That's a non negotiable.

I'm talking about boundary markers that people put in place that aren't biblical to preserve what they think is their way of life or their way of being versus a full understanding and embracing of the kingdom of God and all of its beautiful.

As Paul says, polychromos, multifacetedness, multicoloredness, which

is one of the beautiful parts of it.

I mean, you know, you mentioned like I think about the.

I don't want to say the shelf life.

That's the wrong part of it.

We're popularized.

It becomes fads.

Like I remember when multi ethnic church started becoming much more entering into the vernacular of evangelicals.

I'm thinking of Mark Demas, I'm thinking of Mosaics conference.

And then it seemed to quickly fade in certain circles.

Like the popularity worn off.

People starting to.

I don't know necessarily.

That was a huge deal.

And.

And how did that play out with you?

So, I mean, for us, our church flourished because we were prepared for it.

And now it's just a full.

Like who.

Who would have ever thought that empathy would be considered a sin and bad.

My gosh.

And so like we have we.

In many segments of the evangelical church, political grifters have changed the doctrine and beliefs of entire movements of Christianity.

Like.

Like, who would have ever thought that evangelicals would have voted for a candidate whose administration said it was okay for the FDA to approve the abortion pill?

Like, we are a pro choice nation now because if you leave it up to the states to choose, that's pro choice.

If your administration green lights the FDA to say, hey, abortion, the abortion pill is fine.

That's pro choice, limited government.

I mean, it is a weird time.

And this was what breaks my heart is it seems as though we have deluded what it means to be the church and the kingdom of God for political power.

And we always know what happens when you pursue political power.

You're the one who gets ate up at the end.

You know, it's interesting you mentioned that we have written about this in different stuff, but Andrew Walls, I don't know if you know him, familiar with him, but he founded the.

Basically pioneered a whole nother subject called the study of non Western Christianity.

And so he's looking at the transmission of the gospel over the centuries.

And he said it came down to two different modes.

He said there's the missionary mode, the missionary Mode is where you demonstrate, you plead, you pray, you know, use the Bible, you do all this stuff, but at the end of the day, you don't have cultural power.

You have to rely on heavenly power.

You got it?

And he said, but the other mode is crusader mode.

And crusader mode does everything the same.

It gets down though to one thing and that's they end up getting cultural power and then they'll compel by force.

And that's what's happening to some aspects of the church for sure.

But there is a groundswell of others who are walking more faithfully and what I would say is the mode of love, not cultural power, but recognizing the powers in the Holy Spirit.

So I am encouraged.

I am excited about that.

I am too.

To see people that are willing to suffer for the glory of God, to suffer to help other people, to suffer, to be heard, to sacrifice, to serve,

to love, to be slandered, to lose great swaths of your congregation.

And you know, let me pause because I think this is very, very important as we talk about a multi ethnic church.

Before the last presidential election, I did a series called Kingdom Citizenship and I walked through the Beatitudes and I said, this is what a Kingdom citizen looks like by being formed in the power of the spirit.

And I also said this, you will have Kingdom citizens who will vote for Donald Trump, not because they agree with everything that he does.

And you will have Kingdom citizens who vote for Kamala Harris, not because they agree with all of her policies.

There's only two choices and you will have Kingdom citizens who choose not to vote for either.

And to say that a believer is not saved because of the way they vote, you're discounting 99% of all Christians who've ever lived and who live today.

My friends in Norway, they think we've lost our minds in America and they are good godly people, but they don't vote Republican.

They don't have Republican, my friends, all throughout the world.

So it's very myopic and manipulative to say, well, you can't be saved because you didn't vote Democrat or you didn't vote Republican.

Respectfully, who do we think we are that we can take the gospel and make our little 250 year old country the center of how salvation is wielded and given.

No, that is what the Galatian heresy was.

Jesus plus circumcision, Jesus plus this.

No, it's Jesus plus nothing that saves.

And you don't have to agree with every single political point to still vote for a particular Party.

And it's really sad to how I've seen Christians gaslit into thinking that one party is for God and the other one isn't.

It's pretty absurd.

It is pretty absurd.

Well, and not only that, I mean we want people to participate in the political process, but I mean even the political sphere is somewhat limited.

You can't expect the politics to do what only the church can.

Yes, and I think we betrayed that.

I had James Davison Hunter on and we were discussing that very thing is just that we have these different spheres.

But so many Christians feel like they have been and again get into the structural issue, but they feel like they've been shut out from influence and entertainment and education and business and all these different things.

And so the only sphere that they have left to use any cultural influence is through the political sphere.

Yeah, you know, you know what's, you know what's interesting about that, and I'm just going to say it as it comes to my mind, is there's a bunch of billionaires who got people who are blue collar to think that that's true and it's not right.

When, when you look at presidents of universities throughout America, look what their ethnicity is.

When you look at CEOs in America, look at their ethnicity.

When you look at Senate and Congress, look at their ethnicity.

And every source of incredible power in America is led by the majority people, particularly men.

So if this is what oppression looks like, good gracious man.

So I mean like, like there is a well crafted propaganda machine done by oligarchs to make the common man believe another man who doesn't look like him is taking from him.

And it is working to perfection.

It is mind numbing to me that Amazon does not pay federal taxes and the man is worth $300 billion.

It is mind numbing to me the way we fight to give the 1% a tax break.

I, I mean if you, if you're worth a couple billion dollars, is 5% more taxes really going to hurt you?

Think of, think of all the good that could be done.

And man, I'm grateful for the jobs they create.

That's awesome.

But there's people that work.

I mean nothing against Walmart, but four of the top 10 richest people in America, four billionaires, and you can work certain jobs at Walmart and still be on welfare working 40 hours a week.

It is a crazy time in which we live.

How much more do we need?

That goes back to the cultural idolatries piece.

This is where we are.

You mentioned this in your book.

We're very individualistic.

We're also very consumeristic.

We are very comfort addicted.

We've been told for years we can have it our way, do whatever we want.

And we have all of these advances, but we're more miserable than we've ever been.

There's more depression, there's more anxiety, there's

more isolation, there's more outrage, there's more, oh my God, there's more division.

There's more polarization.

And you know what that's a recipe for, Travis?

That is a recipe for populism to take root.

Cause everybody's mad.

And the populist leader says, let me tell you who you need to be mad at.

Let me tell you who took your job.

Let me tell you who's harming you.

And you know what's interesting?

I have not read or seen any illegal undocumented immigrant names in the Epstein files.

You know, it's interesting you mentioned, you mentioned this, the populist idea.

And Mark Noll says that evangelicalism, historically pragmatic, utilitarian populist in how we go about stuff.

And he's not wrong.

I mean, we're more and more, in some respect, I feel like we are more susceptible because even when we have taken our faith, we have baptized it to certain political ideologies thinking that these were God things.

But to me, this is where the church has to be, as in Bonhoeffer's time in Germany, the confessing church, where we have to stand against the cultural idolatries and embody a totally different ethic, as you even mentioned.

And we both talked about it because we've not met each other before.

But we talk about the importance of living out the new humanity, which is what that new creation looks like.

We have to embody a different, a higher, different standard and willing to stand against the cultural idolatries.

And we all agree for the most part of what those idolatries are in the world.

What we have a hard time is when they syncretize with the church and the gospel.

They fall into the, or, I don't want to say baptize, but they synthesize to gospel categories and they become even worse.

Would you agree?

I, I, I agree.

Let, let me say this too.

I, I think it's, I think it's really important.

Secular left progressivism is not the answer.

Far right populism is not the answer.

The kingdom of God through the Jesus, through Jesus Christ is the answer.

And you're going to get shots from both sides coming at you that, that when I say I believe in the biblical ethic of marriage between a man and a woman because marriage reflects Jesus and the church.

In Genesis, you have opposites that make one.

The secular progressives are going to come after me.

But then when I say things like, man, we can have law and order and protect the border and do immigration reform, but also we can honor the dignity of every single human being, then I'm going to get shots from over here.

So if you're getting shots from both sides, you're probably in the right place.

So I just think that that's super important because the secular left and the progressive far and the populist far right is both an affront to the kingdom of God.

And I think it's important when we use these terms, when we say populism, we're talking more emotional base.

The easiest part to move a human being is through anger and to get them to feel something.

That's what Hitler was able to do.

Hey, the Jews did this to you.

You know, when we talk about individualism, think even how we present the gospel.

Hey, Jesus sin.

We fall short of the glory of God.

The free gift of God is Jesus Christ.

Believe in him and you'll be saved.

Okay, that's true.

But God saves us individually, to put us on a team, to put us in a family, to put us in a body that we're one brick in his temple.

It's not just God saved me, God saved me to participate in the we, which is the body of Christ.

And the body of Christ is this beautiful mosaic.

There are more followers of Jesus outside of America by far than inside of America.

And the statistical center has moved from Madrid, Spain, to Lagos, Nigeria.

They're going to be more followers of Jesus in Nigeria than any other place in the world.

It's crazy.

And I think that humility's needed.

But I also think the devil's always been busy to destroy, distort.

And the best way to distort is to make something sound similar and to be close to the real truth.

Oh, yeah.

And I think that's why we have to have discernment.

That's why we have to have scripture.

That's why we have to have love and charity and wisdom.

Well, this is the difficult part though, is because we have a really reductionist gospel.

And it's much more pragmatic, and Jesus has become much more therapeutic.

We don't have theology very much.

I mean, this reason why.

And I talk about this a lot.

We've really talked about the separation between the academy and the church at times.

And it's like the academy is answering questions from 200 years ago that no one's asking anymore.

And they're not asking the questions of people at church.

And the church has just said, I'm done.

It's not helping me where I'm at and dealing with the situations I'm at.

But I know talking to, like, places like.

And we, again, we work in larger churches like Vanderblumen.

I mean, they're 50 of their hires, have no theological education.

It's crazy.

It's just crazy.

Yeah.

Yep, yep, yep.

That's probably a show for a different show.

I do believe that as leaders, if someone's gifted and can move you emotionally, people don't care about the theology.

Your.

I agree with that.

Your theology is the roots that.

That go down deep.

So if you can combine strong theology with cultural awareness, with a heart full of love, you can give people a chance to be equipped.

But, yeah, the theology is on bad times, man.

And the enemy loves ignorance.

The enemy loves ignorance, man.

The enemy loves it.

Because you can be tossed to and fro.

You can be moved.

Like, even.

Even, like the words you're using, like, reductionistic.

Most pastors don't know that that means it's reductionistic.

When you say the gospel is, Jesus died for your sins.

Believe in him and you don't go to hell, you've reduced the bigness of the gospel.

It's not just that he died for your sins, it's he is Lord, and He proved it.

Through his life, death, and resurrection.

He is king, and all those who believe in him are united to Him.

You are reborn into his kingdom to participate in his kingship.

We got too many vampire Christians where they just want to suck the blood of Christ and that's it.

I've never heard that before.

I think Dallas Willard said that, like, a long time ago.

Oh, and I love Dallas, and I just Darwinized it.

You know, we talk about the gospel is individual, communal, cosmic.

Yeah, we focus just on the individual, and we miss the communal and the cosmic.

That's why the church.

That's why we have so many people leaving church.

We've made it completely irrelevant.

And when we reduce it all the time and it's just get into heaven, people are like, I got it.

I'm Good.

I don't need anything else.

You know.

And what's, what's sad is in the first century of Jesus's day the early followers of Christ wouldn't have talked about getting to heaven when they die.

Oh right, right.

They would have talked about an eternal kingdom on earth.

They would have talked about being resurrected on earth.

They would have, they would have talked about God coming to dwell with them.

That was the whole point of the temple.

And so we, we really need a reformation of theological ecclesiological gospel centered training so congregations could be equipped.

There are, there are Christians who think hell is in the middle of the earth.

Like Dante's Inferno, you know, and, and so like, like that's why we see in the end of the book of Revelation the new Jerusalem.

God is with his people.

Like we're gonna have resurrected bodies here on earth.

Do on earth as is in heaven.

Matthew 6, 9.

Jesus says.

And so we have to have this great reversal.

Like I love Martin Luther other than his anti Semitism.

Yeah.

You know, like, like he got it.

Like I don't have to live with spiritual anxiety.

And, and I can know that I'm with God.

Yes, yes, yes, that is true.

But it is equally true.

You are now a co laborer with him embodying his kingdom on earth.

We are to be a foretaste of the new heaven earth.

And that's one of the metaphors that I use throughout my book.

How to build a multi ethnic church is we are to be a foretaste and the individualism really makes us too preoccupied with ourselves.

We need to be preoccupied with Jesus and his kingdom.

I totally, totally agree.

I know our time is limited today.

We could talk I'm sure for hours.

Just as you're talking about the fortaste, I'm thinking of new begin because we do a ton of stuff with new begin, new begins.

Amazing.

I, I dig his stuff, man.

Maybe, maybe, maybe next time we can explore some of those themes as well.

Oh yeah, I should have you join some of the conversation.

I got Mike Goheen and Mark Sayers, we're jumping in and we're going to have this whole conversation on where we're at.

But Gohin was underneath newbegin, he was like his assistant.

So he's one of our advisors at the ministry.

So we gotta, we gotta talk more offline, brother.

We gotta talk more offline.

We got a lot of stuff going on, a lot of similar, a lot of Venn diagram overlap brother.

We got a lot of things.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, as we as we close, I am forever indebted to my mentor, Dr.

Norm Geisler.

Dr. Geisler was a preeminent classical apologist.

He was a preeminent Thomistic philosopher.

That man really taught me how to think.

And the Thomistic philosophy, the cultural apologetics, have paid off immensely.

I'm really, really grateful for him.

And so, yeah, so whenever I get a chance to talk to apologists, man, it always feels good.

And as you know, an apologist is a word that a lawyer would use to give a defense.

We give a defense of the kingdom, but we're not defensive as we do it.

That's a good word, brother.

What is?

I mean, I hate to say, to add a, a water bottle because I feel like you just gave it, but give me, give me another one.

Give me a water bottle.

For our audience, where they're at, these pastors and ministry leaders that are out there that are considering this, give them some hope.

Yeah, man.

You know, people go, why do you have hope?

And I go, respectfully, that's an easy answer.

The tomb is empty.

The tomb is empty.

And because the tomb is empty, the power to raise Christ from the dead lives in me and he lives in you.

And so try not to get distracted and caught up with the zeitgeist of the age, the spirit of the age.

Get caught up.

Set your mind on Christ.

Let the nourishment of his grace fill your lungs with the oxygen of his mercy so you can breathe out compassion on a world that desperately needs it.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

Thank you, brother.

I would encourage those out there to get Dr. Derwin Gray's book, Building in Multi Ethnic Church.

If you want to learn more.

He delves into some of the subjects that we're talking about today, much more in depth.

I love the stuff that, that you do with Paul as you're digging into Ephesus and Colossi and Philippi and how these churches were made up.

And it really takes you kind of in a skip through the New Testament to see just the reality of what it means to be a multi ethnic church is what we like to call it, that new creation community.

That's how we're supposed to look, that's how we're supposed to live as reconciled individuals who truly love one another as a sign and a foretaste of the reality of, of Christ's kingdom.

So I want to thank you for coming on the show.

I want to have you back.

We need to talk more about Nubigan, get you in some more conversations.

Let's have some fun.

Thanks brother.

That was my conversation with Dr. Derwin Gray.

One of the things this conversation reminds us is that the multi ethnic church is not a side issue or simply a ministry strategy.

There was a period of time where that became like this really popular thing and then as soon as it came in, it went out.

And I find that to be a shame because it's actually so much bigger than that.

It's not just some novelty, it's actually a hugely deeply gospel issue at the very core.

Just simply go into Ephesians and you'll see that.

Or even look at the Book of Acts, you'll see everything differently.

It's deeply rooted in the Gospel itself.

And if Jesus is creating one new humanity in himself, then the church is meant to embody that reality as a foretaste of God's coming kingdom and in a cultural moment marked by deep political division and constant outrage.

That calling requires wisdom, humility, and a posture shaped by the love of Christ.

As followers of Jesus, we're called to pursue truth while refusing to let the spirit of the age dictate how we treat one another.

Now the church has to model something different, a community formed by grace, reconciliation, and the transforming power of the Gospel.

It should be the safest place on earth.

If this conversation has encouraged or challenged

you, share it with a friend, your staff, team, or other leaders who are thinking through these issues.

And if you want more conversations like this, along with resources to help help you think more deeply about the church, theology and culture, be sure to sign

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stay connected with everything we're doing through ministry.

Deep Dive.

And if you haven't already, check out

Dr. Derwin Gray's book, Building a Multi Ethnic Church.

It's a great resource for anyone wanting to think more deeply about what it means for the church to live as that new creation community.

Thank you for joining us on Ministry Day.

Deep Dive Stay watered everybody.