There's always that sense of because we're so racially defined, if you're trying to cross the boundaries you don't fit into any particular space.

Humor is so culturally based that when I try to tell a joke as me being a white American, if I tell other white Americans, they'll laugh. If I tell an African American, they might not laugh. In fact, they either might not find it funny, or they might find it offensive, and I didn't mean it to be offensive. So these are the sort of little things that build up over time, just like in a marriage. You know, the little things can build up over time.

We've had people say, "Now when I go to work, I don't feel uncomfortable talking to people of different races, and I go up and introduce myself, and I start making a new friend I wouldn't have done otherwise."

Absolutely, although every congregation will say, you know, every worship leader will say it's vital. It's very important, but again these are, you know, these are different cultural styles.

It was an all-white church. It was starting to decline. They had to hire a new pastor, and they hired him. But he came under the condition that "I want and I'm called to make this a multiethnic church." So they knew. He's interesting because he's part-Asian, part-white. He's married to a Hispanic woman, so that's their family and that's their vision.

It's the sad fact of how race still works in our country. We find that over and over again.

I think it's easier, I really do, because of not having that similar history, so that's why I think two-thirds of these mixed congregations are either white with Asian and Hispanic, or black with Asian and Hispanic.