In 2001, our church dedicated its new 3,200-seat worship center
in the same downtown location it had been since 1952. In an article
in the Kansas City Star entitled, “Urban Miracle,” our
senior pastor, Dr. George Westlake Jr., said, “I can’t
find anywhere in the Bible where it says to run to the suburbs
and leave the city to the devil!”
We never considered building
anywhere else. Church growth experts told us that a project
of this size was not feasible in the inner city or that the church
would need to be made up of either all white or middle-class
black congregants. Nevertheless, half of congregants come from
the community and half from the suburbs. (People drive from
as far as 40 miles away.) Forty percent of the congregation is
white, 40% is African-American and 20% is Hispanic.
The community
has taken notice of SFLC’s commitment to
diversity as well as its commitment to the inner city. The
Star article quoted Ed Schober, a senior vice president with
Bank of America, the church’s lending institution, “The
easiest thing for Sheffield to have done was to have abandoned
that site. We felt it 
was a courageous thing for them to
do to stay. We were struck by the fact that Sheffield has made
a strong commitment to the inner-city community.”
Moreover,
SFLC has made a unique commitment to diversity. By building
in the inner city, they proved to the entire community
that God is neither Jew nor Greek, white nor black, Hispanic
nor Asian, rich nor poor educated nor uneducated.
“We have
Ph.Ds sitting next to people who come from housing projects,” said
Pastor Westlake.
We are continually amazed at what God is doing!
Updated:
Monday, July 24, 2006 11:01 AM
