Christ Church in Bloomfield/Glen Ridge is included in this article.
[International Business Times] Mark DeYmaz was a youth pastor for a megachurch in Little Rock, Arkansas, in the 1990s when he realized the 5,000 people in the pews all looked alike. “The only minorities were the janitors,” DeYmaz said about the nearly all-white Protestant evangelical church. That realization led him to leave his post in 2001 and found Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas, with the aim to bring diverse people together to worship as one.
One of the latest instances of churches looking to bridge the racial divide is taking place in Jacksonville, Florida. In January, Ridgewood Baptist Church, a predominantly white church in suburban Orange Park, will merge with the predominantly black Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church, citing financial troubles.
Christ Episcopal Church in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, experienced a similar merger seven years ago when it welcomed the predominantly African-American and Caribbean-American members of Trinity Church in Montclair, which shut down. Now, the church is more diverse than ever -- and not just in terms of race.
