fessor with a PhD will stay interested, with applications and culturally appropriate illustrations everyone will understand—across generations and socioeconomic levels. If I quote Shakespeare, some won’t get it; if I quote rap songs, others won’t get it. That’s why I try to include genuine research, context, grammar, and exegesis, but also use common illustrations and stories that people remember. The challenge is to find applications and illustrations that reach everybody.” Soma’s principles of ministry now guide the church. They are values that cross cultural boundaries: seminary years, through his ministry with the STEP Foundation’s Bridge Builders program, Ikki met his African American wife, Tara, as they both mentored South Dallas teens. Today, married eighteen years, they have two teenaged daughters. One year after graduation, the Somas moved to San Antonio, Texas, and planted a multicultural church. They focused on people. “As America becomes more post-Christian, it’s all about relationships,” Ikki said. “Tara and I, our leaders, and core group built friendships and invited those people to be part of the church. As it grew, those people invited their friends.” The members were diverse racially but alike in their middle-class education and income. Soma lamented the lack of economic diversity. After nine years of church planting, he joined the staff of a large, predominantly white San Antonio church. He was ministering there to an increasingly multiracial group of college students and young adults when he received the call to City of Refuge in Houston. Now Soma leads the church he dreamed of. The congregation is diverse not only racially and culturally but also educationally and economically. Even the theological and denominational traditions of the members differ. “We have new money, old money, no money. That’s what I love about City of Refuge,” he said. The challenge, however, has been in connecting from a music perspective and also from a preaching perspective. “A typical church has a common profiled member who, for example, lives in suburbs, is college-educated, and has a professional vocation. As the preacher develops a sermon, what he shares and the applications he makes have to be at that person’s level. The cookies are placed on that shelf. But,” Soma continued, “at City of Refuge, my challenge every week is to preach a message that the high-school dropout with a third-grade reading level can understand, but in such a way that the college pro-
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We must have unity that comes because of a Matthew 28:19 focus to make disciples of all ethnicities. If every Christian were caught up in that task, cultural differences would fall by the wayside. Racial reconciliation and diversity are by-products of preaching the gospel and people coming to faith in Christ. When men and women, boys and girls are vertically reconciled to God, then horizontal relationships with others can also be reconciled. We love because God first loved us. People need to love and be loved. Service to the community, to the less fortunate, and to our fellow believers expresses our compassion. Integrity, living out the gospel we espouse, is inherent in our Christian mission. We strive for excellence, believing that we must do the best we can with what we have. Everyone loves a great story, whether a narrative or a parable. The stories may be anecdotes borrowed from listening and reading, from newspapers and books, or personal experience. The Bible is the greatest story. One of the many books that influenced Soma is United by Faith. Coauthor Curtiss Paul DeYoung writes, “The first-century Christian church grew so rapidly precisely because it was so inclusive. The church inspired wonder because its leaders were able to form a community that cut across the rigid class and ethnic divisions that characterized the ancient Roman world. People said that if Jews, Greeks, Africans, slaves, men and women—the huge divides of that time period—could come together successfully, there must be something to this religion.” They were right. KAREN G. GIESEN (MABS, 1998; MACE, 2000; DMin, 2008) teaches at DTS-Houston as adjunct professor of Educational Ministries and Leadership. She worships at City of Refuge where she served on the pastoral search committee that called Ikki Soma (ThM, 1999).