Crossing Twin Bridges of Race and Class: Planting and Pastoring Churches Across Racial and Class Divisions

The primary aim of this research is to identify shared characteristics among churches that are crossing racial and class divisions. While there is a growing body of literature exploring the best practices and approaches to planting and pastoring multiracial churches, there remains an absence of literature on churches that have within them a diversity of economic classes. This research is a first step at considering what might be best practices for churches with a vision to be multiracial and multi-class.
The motivation for this project is bound in my ministry context. I pastor a church that is predominately higher educated and upwardly mobile. And while Christ City Church is racially diverse, we lack economic diversity despite being in a neighborhood that includes housing projects and one of the largest family homeless shelters in the city. As the leader of a church called to our neighborhood and our city of Washington, DC, I want to explore how other churches are bridging such class divisions as a matter of ministry vision.
This project identifies a number of characteristics that are shared by a modest sampling of churches that are diverse racially and economically. The findings indicate that there are five shared characteristics: humility, intentional diversity, proximity to the poor, CCDA influence, and a theology of renewal that embraces holistic approaches to ministry.