Does your congregation look like the people who live around it? If not, does it matter? How important is it that a church reflects its surrounding community?

For the latest Pastors’ Talk, Jonathan Leeman sat down with Mark Dever to chat about these questions and more.

SHOW NOTES:

– How hard should a pastor and a church work to reach different kinds of people? Changing music? Changing the way we preach or what we wear? (1:30)

– What about who’s up front? Who gets hired? For example, should white churches seek to hire non-white pastors in order to reach non-whites? (6:00)

– What counsel do you have for the pastor who leads a church that doesn’t look like its surrounding community? (10:15)

– In being deliberate about these things, isn’t there a risk of “inauthenticity”? (12:15)

– What’s the importance of a culture of discipling and evangelism, where members are consistently learning to love people across differences? (14:10)

– How should pastors be careful about the ways they speak publicly on these matters? (17:25)