The Beautiful Diversity of the Citywide Church of Kansas City

When we started on this amazing adventure with The Sending Project almost 13 years ago, early on we had a fantastic group of 10 churches belonging to what we call The Sending Alliance. This is simply a more formal way for a church to connect with The Sending Project. Each alliance church agrees to The Sending Alliance Covenant, affirming a basic and very important short list of Biblical beliefs and a philosophy of working together as the Holy Spirit leads.

These first 10 churches were an amazing list of churches, but there was one glaring problem: almost all of them were white suburban churches. Of course, The Sending Project is focused on serving and connecting the entire citywide Body of Christ, and we knew that citywide Church of KC was and is very ethnically diverse, with faith communities from a variety of people groups. So…we prayed and we worked to connect with these KC-area ethnic churches…and God blessed us immensley! We began to connect with African-American churches, Hispanic churches, and churches from many other people groups and languages being led by pastors who were born in other countries outside of the United States.

Diversity is one of our three key values. Mission and Unity are the other two.

Our staff team is intentional about building relationships with these foreign-born pastors and their churches. Now, when you go to our list of Sending Alliance churches, you will find many ethnic churches among that list of what is now 88 alliance churches.

One of my favorite times of our yearly schedule is during our annual banquets when we recognize and pray for these pastors and other ministry leaders who were born in other countries. Sending Project staff member, Mark Davis, who is the KC Trauma Healing Director and KC Missional Prayer Director, has a special emphasis with these ethnic churches as he does his church relations ministry on behalf of The Sending Project, and Mark facilitates a beautiful segment at each our banquets that highlights many of these devoted servants of Christ.

The photo above of some of these pastors/leaders is from our 2022 September 26 banquet. It presents the pastors and leaders at that banquet who were born in other countries. Each of them shared their name, the name of their church or ministry, the name of their people group, and then said “My hope is in Jesus” in their own heart language! It was so beautiful! Then we prayed with them and for them. We facilitated a similar segment at our 2022 September 19 banquet.

These pastors and leaders are precious gems within the citywide Body of Christ. Each of them is a pastor of a local church/ministry, but each of them is also a pastor/leader of the citywide Church of Kansas City! This is the paradigm for the way forward as we continue to build connections among ONE CHURCH in the KC metro area. We are truly better together. This is not just a concept, it is a fact, a practical reality! These pastors/leaders who were born in other countries are so perfectly positioned to help the Church of KC reach the various nations (people groups) who reside in our city.

These many people groups, ethnicities, and languages are a vital part of our citywide Body of Christ, but we are all on the SAME TEAM, serving ONE GOD, clinging to ONE HOPE, and participating with ONE MISSION: the mission of Jesus! The Lord is truly blessing us with UNITY in the midst of our DIVERSITY as we journey with Him to advance His MISSION.