The GRCOC Diversity Team

The GRCOC Diversity Team aims to fulfill three tasks in support of God’s ministry of reconciliation through the church (2 Cor 5:16-21; Ephesians 2:13-19):

  • to celebrate our cultural and ethnic diversity

  • to educate brothers and sisters about vital communication tools that promote empathy, trust, and a shared life

  • to advocate for what makes for peace among ourselves and our neighbors in this community

Truths We Share In Common

In light of these aims, we affirm the following essential truths:  

We are one in our Creator:  “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27)

We embrace love and unity in diversity: Our church family represents the many beautiful and diverse expressions of God’s image in Christ (1 Cor 12:12-14).  In this vast diversity we courageously take hold of the opportunity to live out love as God commands:

  • Let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth (1 John 3:18).

We are called to participate in God’s work of healing and repair:  We acknowledge that favoritism (James 2:1-9), especially in its institutionalized forms, is a sin.  As Isaiah reminds us: “Woe to those enacting crooked statutes and writing oppressive laws to keep the poor from getting a fair trial/and to deprive the needy among my people of justice, so that widows can be their spoil/and they can plunder the fatherless” (10:1-2).  This afflicts all the vulnerable, including immigrants and people of color in our community, and falls short of the calling to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:30-31).  

Commitments to Each Other

The Diversity Team serves our church family in its commitment to reject the patterns of the world and to guide us into transformative thinking and acting by the renewing of our minds as we seek God’s perfect will (Romans 12:2).  

In our passionate commitment to belong faithfully to one another, let us always pray for courage (Deut 31:6) and to remember that we were not given a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7).  

In Christ’s love,

GRCOC Diversity Team