Fallen humanity has always fallen short when it comes to bringing together people who are different from one another. That’s why a diverse and faithful church can function as a powerful defense of God’s presence among His people. When a faithful church unites people from different ethnic, economic, and generational backgrounds, that congregation provides a living apologetic for God’s wisdom and the gospel’s power.

1. Faithful diversity gives evidence for the gospel’s power.

All of us are inclined to choose physical kinship and social similarities over kingdom diversity. That’s because sin has distorted our desires, and disordered our loves. If there’s no God and the natural world is all that exists, seeking the supremacy of people who look like me might make sense. Yet treating any class, ethnicity, or culture as superior to another contradicts our common creation in God’s image. That’s why, when some Christians in the first century began preferring one social class over others, James rebuked their partiality as a transgression of God’s law (James 2:9).

A diverse yet unified church, by contrast, honors God’s image in all humanity by practicing a distinct set of values that refuses to favor people who look most like us. Such churches humbly admit that the resources we need to become like Jesus are not the exclusive property of people who share our ethnicity and cultural background.

Overcoming our sinful tendencies and pursuing diversity requires supernatural power and grace a materialist universe can’t explain or provide. That’s what John R.W. Stott was hinting at when he wrote, “The more mixed the congregation is, especially in ‘class’ and ‘color,’ the greater its opportunity to demonstrate the power of Christ.” When our churches are separated by human customs and social classes, we miss opportunities to show the gospel’s supernatural power, but when we’re faithful in diversity, we give evidence for it.

2. Faithful diversity provides an aesthetic argument for God’s wisdom.

According to Blaise Pascal, Christians should show how their faith is “attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show that it is.” Faithful diversity is one of the many ways we can manifest the attractiveness of a Christian way of life. When a Christ-honoring church draws together people from many social and cultural backgrounds, that congregation declares the truth of God’s Word by displaying the gospel’s divine beauty.

In his epistle to the Ephesians, Paul described how the gospel joined Gentiles and Jews as fellow participants in God’s promises (Ephesians 3:6). As he reflected on the diverse communities God was bringing together in the church, Paul rejoiced at “the manifold wisdom of God” (Ephesians 3:10). The term translated “manifold” or “multifaceted” in this text suggests, in the words of Francis Foulkes “‘the intricate beauty of an embroidered pattern’ . . . or the endless variety of colors in flowers.”(Ephesians, Tyndale New Testament Commentary.) A richly varied church that’s united by God’s Word reveals to the world the intricate beauty of God’s wisdom.

According to the apostle John, this diversity will persist past this present life. The multitude before God’s throne in eternity enfolds the redeemed from “every tribe, people, and language” (Revelation 7:9). At the end of time, all that’s glorious and good from every ethnicity will be gathered together in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:26). There’s a beauty glimpsed when God’s people gather in all their diversity that’s hidden when we remain apart. This beauty provides an aesthetic apologetic—a defense of the gospel that first displays how the church’s way of life is more attractive than anything the world can achieve, the goes on to declare that what is attractive is also true.

What Might Faithful Diversity Look Like in Your Context?

If you’re still reading this article, you probably aren’t the sort of person who would tell a visitor of a different ethnicity to find a different church for their own “kind of people.” But it’s still worth asking, “Is my local church providing evidence for the gospel’s power and beauty bringing people together that the world can’t? What types of people has God providentially placed in my neighborhood who don’t attend my church? What barriers might be keeping these individuals from hearing the gospel and finding a spiritual home in my congregation?”

This may look different in your context than it does in mine. In your community, cultivating a diverse kingdom culture might require learning to pass the peace with displaced Somali refugees or Latino immigrants. It may entail some difficult adjustments to help a congregation of twentysomethings be more receptive to senior citizens. It might mean adjusting your ministries to welcome low-income families from a nearby trailer park.

Perhaps your church already displays gospel-empowered diversity. If so, prepare yourself to point to this pattern of life as proof of the presence and power of God There’s power, beauty, and proof in a church that gathers different classes and cultures in the same communion We shouldn’t hesitate to point to this diversity as evidence for the truth of our claims.