Housing and Multiracial Congregations
Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink
Housing and Multiracial Congregations
Monday 15th February, 2021
The purpose of this weekly ‘Gospel and Culture’ blog is to assist pastors and Christian leaders to quickly understand ‘key’ issues of the day and how they might intersect with the Gospel, Church and with Christianity generally. It is essentially a ‘curated’ blog that raises between one and three current issues and directs you the reader to a reliable article, podcast and/or a website for further reading. It is my contribution to help us ‘think Christianly’ and to develop a Christian world-view. Jesus prayed for us in John 17, “I’m not asking you, Father, to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one………make them holy by your truth”.
House Prices
POV. House prices in NZ are out-of-control, right? Well I think so. Let me ask you this question if you are in doubt. When in your lifetime did house prices do what the graph below shows? House prices running away from wage increases and therefore household income making houses the most unaffordable in NZ’s history. And BTW this is truly an apolitical issue as it has happened under National and Labour alike. And I can’t see it easing any time soon. With demand outstripping supply by a country mile and unbelievably low interest rates it looks like it is here to say. According to Core Logic the average house price in NZ is $789,000. We have been told by Economists that in some places in NZ the price rise this year could be as high as 20%. That’s a whooping $158,000 increase in MV. That is going to make it harder and harder for the 35% of NZ’ers (and growing) who are renting to ever own their own home. Here is some more analysis written by Duncan Grieve.
Megachurches Are Becoming More Multiracial in the US. “We’ve known for some time that the larger the church, the more likely it is to be racially diverse, but the growth in racial diversity in megachurches is now of headline-making character. Two decades ago, only 21% of megachurches were multiracial, but that it not true any longer. More than half of them (58%) report being multiracial today, defined as having 20% or more minority presence in their congregation. In many ways, megachurches are leading the way toward what we hope is a future where multiracial churches are the norm. Their racial mix contrasts significantly with what churches of other sizes report. Back in 2005, only 7% of all congregations were multiracial. By 2019, that number had doubled to 16% of all congregations across all faith groups could be described as having at least 20% racial or ethnic diversity in their attending membership”. Source: Hartford Institute For Religion Research.
This is good news. I wonder if this is also true in NZ? What do you think?
There are NO copyright restrictions on this email update. Got some feedback about this Update, or anything in the news? Would you like us to cover a story then drop me a note at alan.vink@leadershipworx.org.nz Alan is the Director of LeadershipWorx and writes a letter to Pastors here on leadership and church life issues every Thursday.
