For many years, the Christian Reformed Church has designated the week preceding the first Sunday in October as All Nations Heritage Week, focusing on celebrating the unity of faith and diversity of race among the body of Christ. The week culminates on All Nations Heritage Sunday with a special emphasis on race relations.
The Christian Reformed family is becoming an All-Nations family. As a denomination, we are beginning to catch the vision of people from all tribes and languages and nations standing before the throne of God.
Each year during All Nations Heritage Week we celebrate our growing fulfillment of the vision.
John’s vision in Revelation 7 is enough to take our breath away: “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (vs. 9).
John seems to describe a world different from our own. Our world is painfully divided, often along these very lines of nation, tribe, people and language. Violence and war often are waged along lines of ethnicity and race. John’s heavenly vision seems remote.
But there is another reality: Christ’s church already spans across all these lines of division. People bow the knee to Christ already from virtually every nation, tribe, people, and language in the world. The worldwide church of Jesus Christ is powerful testimony to the healing, reconciling power of the gospel!
The Christian Reformed Church is one small part of that worldwide church. Our church family includes 14 ethnic groups that identify themselves as Christian Reformed. Our denomination’s ministries reach around the world and across the world’s greatest ethnic and ideological divisions.
On All Nations Heritage Sunday, your gifts and prayers enable Race Relations to offer student scholarships to continue building leadership for an increasingly diverse denomination in an increasingly diverse world.
Thank You!
The Ministry of Race Relations has been mandated by synod of the Christian Reformed Church to eradicate racism, develop multiethnic leaders, and promote reconciliation.
All Nations Heritage Week Resources:
