Multiethnic Conversations: an eight-week journey toward unity in your church

by Mark DeYmaz, Oneya Fennell Okuwobi

IT ALL BEGINS WITH CONVERSATION

This powerful resource is a proven catalyst for transforming Christian minds, attitudes, and actions into enthusiastically embracing cultural change.

Structured with eight weeks of daily readings and thought-provoking questions, this attractive and accessible workbook is an excellent facilitator for engaging open and authentic group discussion in the local church. As the centerpiece tool of the Mosaix Global Network (www.mosaix.info), this book has already been instrumental in bringing together within churches so many ethnicities that, by the world?s standards, seem irreconcilable. It all begins with conversation.

Mark DeYmaz is the founding pastor and directional leader of the Mosaic Church of Arkansas and the cofounder and President of the Mosaix Global Network. He is the author of Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church and Leading a Heathy Multi-Ethnic Church.

Oneya Fennell Okuwobi serves as the Director of Cultural Inclusion at Peoples Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. She also directs City Cohorts for the Mosaix Global Network.

Genres: Race, Faith

163 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 24, 2016

Reviews

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great small group resource for promoting multi-ethnic church through relationships.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book to read with a group. There are many opportunities for journaling and discussion.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Designed to spark thoughtful reflection and conversations around a topic that has become taboo, this guide is all about awareness. This isn't a book of answers. The focus is not on an in-depth diagnosis of the current state of affairs. Instead, there's bold statements and equally bold questions, some of which may make you uncomfortable. The Church has an opportunity to model unity within community like never before and that begins with conversations. Though not the emphasis of the book, I found the greatest insight personally to be my lack of meaningful relationships within my own cultural group. I actually score quite high on relationships across multiple ethnic groups except my own. This could be easily overlooked except for the personal inventory exercise included within the book. I'd recommend completing these exercises and sharing them as part of a group. The time spent together exploring the materials each week would help set the foundation for a shared vision of the future.

[Beverly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this with my Care Circle as a Bible study over the past seven months. It was tough in the beginning as we touched on topics previously never discussed in a group setting, like how we felt about racial issues, etc. We are a mixed group half Black and the other half White. We learned tons more about each other and I think our group feels safer and we are moving closer to God’s design for mankind.

[Evan Hoekzema · Rating 4 out of 5]

Went through this book with a cohort around racial reconciliation and it had some great insights. I’m more of a book person, than a workbook (which this is), but I also get that with the nature of these conversations you can’t blow through them, you have to sit in them for them to really start to click and eventually bear fruit. Lots of engagement with Scripture, some great stats around systemic racism and overall a great book 👍

[Jeni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Used this as a jumping-off point for our church's racial reconciliation group. So we didn't use it as intended. But it did give us a lot of thought-provoking discussion topics, regarding ethnicity, history (both general and church), and some good exercises to measure your racial competence.

[RAFAEL ESTRELLA · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best in this area, so far

I have been using this book, with small groups (about 4 to 5 groups per year). The conversations that result from the use of this book are very good. I have learned from the students as much as they have learned by these conversations.

[Mike Jorgensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful discussion guide. It is not a conventional book, but would proabbly have some benefit to reading it by yourself. I recommend it for church small groups.