Racial Diversity

APCM Racial Diversity report 2023

Our aspiration is to be a radically welcoming church with a congregation and leadership team which is reflective of Coventry. We recognise that we still have a long way to go, but we are committed to pursuing Gospel-centred racial justice and racial equality.

Racial diversity matters to God and so it matters to us.

Every human being, of every race, is created by God in His image (Gen 1:27).
People of all races bear the image of God and reflect something of who God is.

So the Church is called to celebrate and affirm racial diversity, and to pursue racial equality and justice in the world

All people, from all races and cultures, are fallen. One way this fallenness manifests is through racism, which is a sin, because it fails to acknowledge - and even defaces – the image of God in other people.

So the Church is called to repent of the sin of racism and all the ways we have, knowingly or unknowingly, colluded with it.

By his death, Jesus reconciled people of every race first to God, and second, to one another (Eph. 2:13-15). The Church is therefore a new community, whose members are bound together by the grace they have each received from Jesus (Gal. 3:26-28). Our racial distinctiveness remains, but the ‘dividing wall’ of racial hostility has been abolished at the cross (Eph. 2:14) and we are ‘one in Christ Jesus’ (Gal. 3:28)

So the Church is called to become a community of radical racial reconciliation and unity.

Throughout the whole Bible there is a prophetic vision of all nations worshipping together. In the book of Revelation, we glimpse heaven and see people ‘from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb (Jesus)’ and worshipping God (Rev. 7:9).

So the Church is called to anticipate the coming kingdom in the here and now, as people from different races worship God together.

The Bible envisages a community of radical racial unity. In this community ongoing repentance leads to true reconciliation, racial diversity is affirmed and celebrated, Christians worship and serve together, and pursue racial justice in the world. This is the kind of community we are seeking to become and these are the practical actions we are taking.

Action

Audit & Practical Action:

Here are some of the actions we have taken to date;

Delivered unconscious bias training for the Staff team
Hosted listening circles to hear personal experiences of racism from the congregation
Established a racial diversity working group (more detail below)
Held an All Nations Sunday to celebrate the different cultures of our church

Our aims to take things further this year are;

Implementing a program to train and release people from diverse backgrounds into hosting Sunday Gatherings
Release Black and Brown preachers through representation at each Talktastic
Aim to include ethnic minority representation in Worship and production at each service
Increase racial diversity on the PCC
Add PCC & Staff representation to the racial diversity working group
Invite a non-white guest speaker to preach at church. (We normally have 3 guests a year).
Explicitly encourage applications to staff posts from non-white backgrounds

Education

Conversation, Speaking Up & Advocacy:

In 2020 a working group was established to help keep the conversation around racial justice alive and hold the church accountable on this issue. This group is made up of congregation members as well as representation from the staff team and PCC.
If you would like to be part of championing this issue within the church people speak to; Ebenezer Chinyati (PCC) or Andy Shelton (Staff).

We are committed to using our voice and creating space to celebrate racial diversity. Our aims for the year ahead are;