Meet one of my greatest Ministry friends – Bernard Kendrick. Bernard (I call him ~ “Bishop”) is the Sr. Pastor of Glad Tidings Apostolic Assembly Church. The church is located here in the same town where Westbrook is and their Ministry Center is just literally down the street from us. We have been ministry friends from the day that we moved to this area to plant Westbrook. Bernard is quite a few years older than I am. Bernard’s been in the game for a lot longer than I have (he even was bi-vocational for about 25 years, Pastoring and working a day job at Fed Ex). And he also has me in the WISDOM column. What’s even more cool~ is that he is from a different cultural background as well as a different spiritual background. Even still we have become best of friends. Bernard is often the first one I look up when I am down. He is the one who makes me laugh when I want to cry. Bernard has many times been the first one to my prayer rescue when I wanted to give up. And to top it all off, he doesn’t look like me. He has a darker skin hue and he is our greatest supporter when it comes to building a multi-cultural church. Glad Tidings is primarily African –American in attendance but Bernard is blessed beyond measure at our intentional approach to being multi-cultural. I am always honored and welcomed when I speak at Glad Tidings church and the same can be said about him.

Here’s what I’ve learned in this quest: If you want to have a multi-cultural church you have to cultivate friendships with people who don’t look like you. Are you intentional about that? Have you/Are you willing to cross racial lines to become friends with the people that you want to reach? It’s not going to happen until you start there!