Serving for several years in the former North Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church, racially diverse is not a way I would describe our denomination.

This week, I have been pleasantly surprised and encouraged by the racial diversity I have witnessed at this gathering.

Our Indiana delegation consists of 8 African-American and 2 Hispanic members. While that doesn’t sound like much, it seems almost mind-blowing. Our Annual Conference gatherings are so white. Having a racially diverse church leadership pool will help create more racial diversity in our local churches. That would be a welcome change.

Thankfully, the Indiana Conference is not the only delegation with a racially diverse make-up. Our general session gatherings are fairly diverse. We have a decent representation of a wide variety of racial groupings.

I needed to be reminded that the UMC isn’t just white and middle class. This gives me a glimpse of hope for our denomination!