My hometown of Milwaukee is like most urban American cities, seething with racial tensions, poverty and other social issues.

I regularly gather with Christian clergy and church lay leaders to pray for our city. We put aside our differences and work together to unify, empower and mobilize believers. We are committed to tearing down racial walls and building bridges of peace by living out Christ’s ministry of reconciliation.

Politics and platitudes can’t breathe life into our deeply divided inner cities. But Jesus can. Only the light of His truth can penetrate the shadows of human conflict and bring hope to this nation and the world. The change we seek will not occur as a result of government but only as God’s people pray.

God promises in 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

You and I cannot ignore the problems because we assume they do not reside in our respective communities. In his historic Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

The practice of praying and working together for the good of all is biblical. In Jeremiah 29, God called the exiled Israelites in Babylon to build homes in the city, raise their families there and pray for the prosperity of the community. As the Church goes, so goes the city.

Unity is God’s will for Christians, and that unity should point others to Christ. Jesus prayed to the Father for believers through the ages, saying, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:22–23).

The central call of the Church is to love God, love our neighbors and live out the gospel of reconciliation — even across personal, racial and congregational lines. I invite you to join me and other Christian leaders in declaring that it is no longer okay for Sunday morning to be the most segregated time in America.

We cannot be content with the status quo of living along dividing lines. God is calling us to break down racial barriers and preach the good news to our cities — and to
all creation.

 This column originally appeared in the February-March 2016 issue of Influence magazine. To learn more about the Christian reconciliation movement in Milwaukee, visit MilwaukeeDeclaration.com.