Cultivating a community of diversity is hard. It takes specific leadership skills I don’t have enough of yet, and I want to know what those skills are and how to acquire them.
Inviting people into a group where they are the minority (ethnic, gender, age), for example, requires careful attention to the smallest of details in order to minimize the likelihood that the minority group feels singled out and less important than everyone else. Because if that happens, the ship is sunk even before it’s left the harbor.
I think cultivating and leading teams of diverse individuals is quickly becoming an essential skill set for innovative church leadership, and I’m pretty aware that I don’t have that skill set in abundance. How to get it?
Maybe Facebook’s diversity training videos, now public, would be a good place to start?
YoRocko! 
I can’t claim that I have these skills either, but I will say that the experience that changed the way I think about diversity was the year I lived in Jerusalem as a minority—not just as a foreign student but (more importantly for my development) as a minority among predominantly Jewish students from the US. I guess I’m saying that immersion experiences and extensive time spent as a minority are transforming and eye opening.
This makes me pause: “requires careful attention to the smallest of details.”
Man, we cannot pay enough attention. We can’t. We hurt each other every day in ways big and small.
But if we keep the love bank stocked, it is easily healed. It comes down to love.
believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.1 john 3:23
I think Christena Cleveland has a lot of good to say to us on these matters. Check out her excellent book if you haven’t already. She was one of the participants at the recent Fuller Forum. http://www.amazon.com/Christena-Cleveland/e/B00EWB0BWU/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1438709480&sr=1-2-ent
Thanks Ron!