Leroy Barber:: Letting God’s People Shine

This Sunday we are honored to have Leroy Barber join us at Cascade with a team of interns from The Voices Project. At Voices they are training, supporting and promoting leaders of color to shape and influence the culture. 

Some of you may wonder why we feel it is important to bring in a leader and organization that is all about creating, training and supporting leaders of color. What does this have to do with church? What does this have to do with the Bible? Shouldn't Sunday morning be dedicated to preaching God's word?

 The prayer that Jesus taught his followers features this brilliant line (found in Matthew 6), "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

Later in a vision that John had on Patmos that became the book of Revelation, it says "After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb."

The vision John had is a picture of heaven and what is so stark about the vision is how different it is from our experience on earth. Most of us gravitate towards people who are very similar to us. We struggle to understand different cultures, socio-economic status and experiences than our own. We love to share that, "oh, you too!" moments with people because they tell us that there are connections there to be pursued. 

God who created all people is calling us to both receive and enjoy the comfort that comes from common stories and experiences, while also pushing to learn and experience stories very foreign to our own. This is how we build bridges to one another for the sake of the larger community of God that we've been created for. 

This Sunday is vital to doing church. This is living out our understanding of what it is to know and love God and know and love all people created in God's image. We see a bit of God's bigger picture when leaders of color are allowed to exercise their God-given gifts on earth as they will be in heaven.