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On Saturday I was reminded how multi-cultural the church of Jesus Christ really is.  Hope for the Nations in Leeds had organised a street festival in the downtown shopping area of Leeds.  There were stalls that represented a variety of ethnic churches but more importantly a stage area with a whole series of music, dancing and drumming from the rich variety that is the Christian church in Leeds. 

Amongst the stalls, Israel was next to Iran – hardly possible in the secular world, but in the Christian world, very possible!  As I was watching the reaction of the crowds to all this activity I was struck by the very obvious difference in the response of ethnic groups as compared with white indigenous people.  Anyone from an ethnic group, whatever their religion, clearly grasped the nature of the event and seemed to respond warmly to it.  The indigenous population seemed to me to be largely bemused by it all. 

While this was all going on, a women brought a young Ethiopian man to the Ethiopian pastor, whose guest I was.  “Pastor, can you pray with this man – he wants to accept Jesus into his life.”  This young man, whom the pastor had never met before, had been witnessed to by friends and now was led in a prayer of commitment on the streets of Leeds.  The contrast between the spiritual fervour of the ethnic population and the indifference and bemusement of the white English folk was both fascinating and disturbing.  I was left asking myself, “how can we harness the evident energy of the ethnic church to make a difference amongst the white indigenous population?”