How to Build Relationships Across Differences
Diversity is more than who is in the room. It is also who is heard, who belongs, and whose relationships shape the decisions we make.
When I was a child, I spent much of the time I can remember living abroad. I was a military kid in Naples, Italy, and later Augsburg and Berlin, Germany. In Naples, we lived in an apartment building with marble floors, pillars, and a small balcony within arm’s reach of our neighbors. We would meet one another on the balconies, and Italian grandparents reached across to pinch my cheek. I didn’t understand much of what they said, but I understood the warmth and kindness in their voices. From those earliest memories, I associated people who spoke languages different from mine with curiosity, fun, and friendship.
After Italy, we moved to Germany, where I started school. Many families in our military apartments were cross-cultural families. Some of my friends spoke or understood more than English, and many had mothers from countries where their fathers had served.
Our schools were full of American children from many ethnic backgrounds. Some of our teachers were German, including my third-grade teacher. She frightened us a little, and we privately wondered whether she might be the witch from Hansel and Gretel.
We attended church services on base in a building that was otherwise vacant on weekends. It wasn’t a traditional church building; it was a metal military structure. Yet our services brought together military families, international spouses, and visiting speakers from around the world. The room was a kaleidoscope of people, clothing, languages, and potluck dishes from many cultures.
I had no idea this kind of immersion was not “normal” everywhere. I didn’t know how much I would miss it when we packed to return to the United States.
When Diversity Disappeared
Imagine my surprise when I returned to the United States and found myself in a school class made up almost entirely of white children. The church we attended was also almost entirely white, except for one Mexican American soldier. I was even more confused when my father became nervous if we spent too much time in the part of our neighborhood where Black families lived.
America felt different and confusing, and I didn’t like it. Of course, I was experiencing culture shock. I spoke with a heavy German accent and didn’t understand the ways people did things here. I felt lonely and out of place.
Since leaving Germany, I have often tried to recreate the kind of environment I remembered: a place where people who don’t look or think alike can share friendships, joy, and learning. Homogeneity felt boring to me. I wanted to know more people and experience more cultures.
Looking back, I can see that I had experienced more than diversity. I had experienced social integration. I didn’t simply share classrooms, neighborhoods, and community spaces with people from different backgrounds. I also had opportunities for meaningful interaction, friendship, and relationships. I was too young to understand the difference, but I knew I loved it.
When we moved to North Carolina, I encountered a different reality. I heard the “N” word at church. Over the years, wherever I have lived in the United States, I have noticed patterns of social separation in schools, churches, and workplaces.
Laws can change what is legally permitted, but they cannot instantly change culture, habits, assumptions, or the relationships people choose to build. The history of civil rights in America includes meaningful progress, resistance, and setbacks. Formal barriers have changed, but social separation and unequal access to influence have not simply disappeared.
That is why I believe we need to ask ourselves a question that goes beyond whether our organizations look diverse: Are we still socially segregated?
Diversity Is Not the Same as Integration
Some houses of worship have embraced the aspiration of “looking like heaven” by becoming more multicultural. That desire can be a meaningful starting point. But looking diverse is not the same as being socially or professionally integrated.
There is a difference between counting people from different ethnic backgrounds in a congregation or workplace and building relationships in which people know one another, learn from one another, and have a meaningful voice. An organization may include people from many backgrounds while leaving its decisions, leadership, and opportunities in the hands of a narrow group.
We cannot settle for the optics of diversity. Diversity without meaningful participation can become tokenism: people are present, but their perspectives and contributions are not welcomed or valued. If a church or business is diverse in appearance but does not provide people from different backgrounds opportunities to lead, teach, manage, influence decisions, and develop their gifts, it has more work to do.
For Christians, this is not merely an organizational question. It is a question of whether our practices reflect the dignity and value Scripture assigns to every human being. We must learn new ways to love, lead, develop people, and build our organizations.
Who Is Missing From the Conversation?
One consequence of social segregation is that important decisions are often shaped in informal conversations. Leaders exchange ideas over meals, during social gatherings, in hallways, and among trusted friends. If our social circles are largely homogeneous, we may rarely hear from people whose experiences differ from our own.
If you are a leader, employer, pastor, or public official, ask yourself: How well do I know people whose ethnic backgrounds, education, national origins, economic circumstances, or life experiences differ from mine? Do I have meaningful relationships with them? Do I know their abilities, concerns, needs, and ideas? Or am I making decisions about people I rarely know personally?
Intentional relationships do not automatically eliminate bias or guarantee fairness. But they can help us notice assumptions, understand experiences we might otherwise overlook, and make better-informed decisions. Relationships give us the opportunity to listen, learn, and recognize strengths that may remain invisible when we stay within familiar circles.
Who Gets to Lead and Contribute?
In some Christian communities, a continuing debate concerns whether women are biblically qualified to pastor, preach, and lead ministries. Some denominations restrict women from these roles. As a result, women who believe they are called and gifted to teach or preach may be overlooked, excluded from leadership development, or denied opportunities for theological education and service.
Whatever one’s interpretation of particular passages of Scripture, it is worth asking what happens when an entire group is excluded from the rooms where decisions are made. We may miss gifts, wisdom, and leadership that could strengthen the whole community.
A similar pattern has operated in racial history. Scripture has been interpreted and misused to defend systems that benefited those with power. In the United States, the so-called “Curse of Ham” was used to justify enslavement and racial hierarchy, despite the harm and distortion involved in that interpretation. In Loving Our Neighbors, I explore this history and the ways religious arguments have been used to defend oppression.
These examples are not identical, and the histories behind them deserve careful attention. But both raise a question for Christian communities: Are our interpretations and practices helping people use their gifts, or are they closing doors that should be open?
With this history, American churches have work to do—not only to acknowledge past wrongs, but to repair harm and create communities where people from different backgrounds can participate meaningfully at every level.
We cannot simply sit beside someone at church and congratulate ourselves that our congregation “looks like heaven.” We need to sit across the dinner table, visit one another in hospitals, meet in bowling alleys, share ordinary life, and develop relationships deep enough to challenge our assumptions. We need to understand that our brothers and sisters in Christ may see and experience the world differently from us.
What Can We Learn From One Another?
I believe every human being and every culture has something to teach us about God and about being human.
Recently, my friend Kim returned from a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. As we talked about her travels, she described the humility and kindness she experienced among Cambodian people. She said they were among the kindest and gentlest people she had ever met.
Our conversation led us to consider the contrast between the kindness she witnessed and the ways people sometimes behave in American culture—even in communities that identify strongly as Christian. We wondered what we might learn from people whose religious or political identities differ from our own. Sometimes we may recognize qualities we associate with the love of God in people who do not describe themselves as Christians, while failing to practice those same qualities in our own communities.
That should make us humble, not defensive. We have something to learn, and our hearts may need softening.
If we want our churches to reflect the kingdom of God, we must love people as God loves them. We need to move beyond brief Sunday conversations and make room for friendship, service, mutual care, and the ordinary experiences through which trust grows.
From Being Present to Belonging
What might happen if we intentionally developed real friendships beyond our familiar social and ethnic circles? What could we learn about our neighbors—and about ourselves and the assumptions we carry?
What might happen if organizations built teams that included people with different experiences and ways of thinking, and then ensured those people had genuine influence over decisions? Research on diverse teams often points to potential benefits such as broader perspectives and innovation, but these benefits are not automatic. They depend on inclusion, equitable participation, and the ability to work across differences.
Representation matters. Relationships matter. And the opportunity to contribute matters.
It is not enough to invite people into a room if they are not heard once they arrive. It is not enough to celebrate diversity if people cannot grow, lead, or influence the future of the organization. We need to move from mere presence to participation, from participation to belonging, and from belonging to shared responsibility.
The Church Can Help Lead the Way
Churches and business leaders have played roles in creating and maintaining systems of segregation and racial exclusion in American history. I believe the church can also help lead the work of repair—not by simply changing appearances, but by learning to practice the love, justice, humility, and mutual care that Jesus taught.
That work begins with honest reflection and repentance. It continues through relationships that cross familiar boundaries, leadership that makes room for gifts from every part of the community, and decisions shaped by listening to people whose experiences may differ from our own.
I believe the church should be leading the way toward meaningful inclusion and social integration—not only within congregations, but throughout society. If we are unwilling to learn to love as Christ loved, our words about faith will ring hollow. Our buildings and institutions may remain, but their purpose is diminished when the people inside them do not practice the love they proclaim.
We have a choice. We can continue to be satisfied with appearances, or we can do the deeper work of loving, including, developing, discipling, and leading people across cultural differences.
So I’ll ask again: Are you still socially segregated?
Not simply, “Are there people who look different from you in the room?” but “Do you know them? Do you listen to them? Do you share life with them? Do they have a voice in the decisions that affect them? Are you willing to be changed by what you learn?”
What might change in our families, churches, workplaces, and communities if we moved beyond the optics of diversity and began building relationships that reflect the dignity God has given every person?
The first step may be as simple—and as challenging—as choosing to know someone whose life has been different from our own.