Bryan Loritts - Right Color, Wrong Culture: The Type of Leader Your Organization Needs to Become Multiethnic

I deeply believe that the future of churches in America will be more multiethnicnot merely to force it as a way to overcome racism or because it will be a reflection of heaven, but because America has a generation that views race differently and is populating cities by the thousands. They are looking for churches and leadership that will intentionally reflect their geographical and relational reality.

My good friend Bryan is speaking from a place of intentionality in this fable that addresses these issues. I believe he is forging a new path for a new frontier of ministry of which the church hasnt come near to scratching the surface. When he speaks on this issue I listen! You should as well.

ERIC MASON, founder and lead pastor of Epiphany Fellowship, Philadelphia, and president, Thriving Ministry

There are few opportunities today that are better to demonstrate the power of the gospel than for people of different races and classes to worship together. Right Color, Wrong Culture is an important call to this modern-day sign of the reality of God in our world.

DAVID MONTAGUE, president, Memphis Teacher Residency

From the time I moved to St Louis to plant The Journey, I had a great desire to see a church reflect our city ethnically as well as foreshadow heaven where every tongue and tribe will eternally worship. By Gods grace He is fulfilling this desire. My big regret is not having access and coaching from Bryan Loritts and his groundbreaking book Right Color, Wrong Culture when we started. If you are a ministry leader you need to understand the difference between ethnicity and culture. Bryan helps us with an easy-to-read fable that exposes our misconceptions and empowers us to lead in our multiethnic world.

DARRIN PATRICK, lead pastor of The Journey, St. Louis, vice president of Acts 29, chaplain to the St. Louis Cardinals, author, The Dudes Guide to Manhood, Church Planter, and Replant.

2014 by
BRYAN LORITTS

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright 2000, 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth & Associates, Inc.

Edited by Ginger Kolbaba
Interior design: Ragont Design
Cover design: Erik M. Peterson
Cover photo of puzzle pieces copyright 2010 by Alex Slobodkin/iStock. All rights reserved.
Author photo: Alex Ginsburg Photographics

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Loritts, Bryan C.
Right color, wrong culture : the type of leader every organization needs to become multiethnic / Bryan Loritts.
pages cm
Summary: Increasingly, leaders recognize the benefit of multiethnic organizations and are compelled to hire diverse individuals who will help them reflect a new America. In this fable of self-discovery and change, Bryan Loritts explores the central, critical problem leaders often encounter when transitioning their church, business or organization to reflect a multiethnic reality. In Right Color, Wrong Culture you enter into a conversation between individuals who are grappling with changing neighborhoods while struggling to remain relevant within communities growing in diversity. You journey with Gary and Peter as they challenge those around them to reach beyond what is comfortable and restructure their leadership team. Known for his passion to build diversity in organizations, Bryan Loritts equips individuals with the tools necessary to recognize and value the culture thats often hidden behind race and color. This will allow you to identify the right person needed in order for your organizations to become multiethnic. -- Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-0-8024-1173-0 (paperback)
1. Leadership--United States--Religious aspects--Christianity. 2. Multiculturalism--United States--Religious aspects--Christianity I. Title.
BV4597.53.L43L67 2014
253--dc23

2014011334

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To my beloved sons in whom I am well pleased: Quentin Crawford Loritts, Myles Benavides Loritts, and Jaden William Loritts

To my parents: Crawford and Karen Loritts, faithful soldiers of the cross, and a model of Christ-exalting diversity

To the great people of Fellowship Memphis: Youve given the world a little taste of heaven

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P eter Williams stood behind the pulpit of the Springdale Community Church and looked out over the sea of faces. He had helped found this church more than a decade ago, and today would be the last time hed preach to these people hed come to see as family.

He placed his hands on each side of the pulpit, as hed done so many times before, and began to speak.

Friends, today He stopped. A lump formed in his throat. No one would describe Peter as an overly emotional man. Words like insightful, compassionate, and catalytic were more accurate, but not emotional. Today was different.

God, you really pulled this off, he thought. The church was trending upward, the vision had been cast, leaders had been raised up and now were poised to be unleashed, and Peter had aspirations of helping other churches and organizations experience the little slice of heaven he had enjoyed over the last twelve years. It was time. But it wasnt easy.

He blinked hard and smiled as he scanned every face in the crowd. Black. White. Hispanic. Young. Old. All worshiping together. His dreamGods missionhad become a reality.

And it had happened in the most unlikely of places: Birmingham, Alabamaor as some people still referred to it as Bombingham, where in the spring of 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his army locked horns with city commissioner T. Eugene Bull Connor. And where the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed, killing four little girls, one of whom was decapitated by the blast.