Church Diversity: Sunday — The Most Segregated Day of the Week

Scott Williams. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Press, 2011. 190 pp. (Paperback). 

The idea that Sunday is the most segregated day of the week is not a new one. Author Scott Williams calls it “gut-wrenching reality,” offering this book as a guide to confronting the need for cultural diversity in the church. 

Think you know what’s coming? Think again — the author, an African–American, isn’t just referring to predominately white churches, but all churches that are not ethnically diverse. He writes that churches that continue to consciously segregate themselves into ethnic groups with arguments such as “it’s the only piece of culture that we have left” are missing the mark. “They are incongruent,” the author insists, “with who Jesus is and what the gospel is all about.”

The book contains vignettes of what the author calls “churches ahead of the curve” in encouraging diversity, an honest look at the problem of diversity in worship, and a chapter on practical ways to encourage diversity in churches. 

Intense, edgy and at times in-your-face, the book challenges us to get out of the comfortable place we are in and turn our “Great Omission” into the Great Commission.