A call to diversity at my church?
I am terribly torn. I have felt a growing distance between my church and where I stand in honest beliefes. Overall, church would not be such a lonely place if there were some type of diversity there. I could more easily stand to be different, if there were others there who were not nessesarily like me, but at least others who were different. It is one thing to feel alone, it is quite another to feel alone because everyone else around you has got the very same opinions about where you went wrong. I could deal with many people thinking I am errant if they thought so for a diverse arrangment of reasons.
An odd twist to this, is that I feel like the worst thing I could do at this point would to leave the fellowship of my church when the current lack of diversity is precisly the problem. But then, maybe mono-cultural churches should die off as their one-culture controled faith fades? I am leaning toward believing this.
I don't know what to do, and I feel like a coward of imeanse proportions for saying and doing nothing. Perhaps worse yet, I occational say a little when its convienient and consistantly do nothing. There is talk of doing something outreach oriented, and I have much hope for where that could lead us, but as of right now, when I am most honest about how I feel we are doing as a church, I believe we are dying. Our faith has become our culture. We can not accept others outside of this culture because they express their faith in the unaceptable terms of another culture, which to a mono-cultural church sounds like the dangerous herecy of a different or degenerate faith. Whether it encounters ideological, racial, gender, economic or gererational diversity, our church seems intent on a onesize fits all veiw. I just don't know what to do, I am praying for an opportunity to call people toward something higher and better rather than calling out bitterness. I know we are a group who has not been given any opportunity to see that we have forced all of God's flutes, pianos, and violins into trying to sound and act like trupets. But when I try to sound like a trumpet I sound and feel like that shitty trumpet imitation on a casio keyboard from Wallmart.
I know that we have not been told that the Kingdom of God is a symphony orchestra rather than a trumpet cannon. We have not been told that most any genuine instrument is better than that fake Casio trumpet. Welcome to faith in the age of synthesizers.
That being the case, how much longer should one wait? Does a time come when someone who has been there since the early years of our church decide to call out an invitation to play a new song? Do we start encouraging the people to find new instruments that didn't feel welcome? Do we dare to encourage the female instruments to play as loudly as the men? If the men continue complaining, shall we encourage the even more females to play in order to compensate and play louder to cover up the complaining?
I do not want to play the role of an arrogant and pretentious conductor, but right now I feel like I play the role of a coward who has hidden his lamp under a basket because it did not shine in the same way as others.
An odd twist to this, is that I feel like the worst thing I could do at this point would to leave the fellowship of my church when the current lack of diversity is precisly the problem. But then, maybe mono-cultural churches should die off as their one-culture controled faith fades? I am leaning toward believing this.
I don't know what to do, and I feel like a coward of imeanse proportions for saying and doing nothing. Perhaps worse yet, I occational say a little when its convienient and consistantly do nothing. There is talk of doing something outreach oriented, and I have much hope for where that could lead us, but as of right now, when I am most honest about how I feel we are doing as a church, I believe we are dying. Our faith has become our culture. We can not accept others outside of this culture because they express their faith in the unaceptable terms of another culture, which to a mono-cultural church sounds like the dangerous herecy of a different or degenerate faith. Whether it encounters ideological, racial, gender, economic or gererational diversity, our church seems intent on a onesize fits all veiw. I just don't know what to do, I am praying for an opportunity to call people toward something higher and better rather than calling out bitterness. I know we are a group who has not been given any opportunity to see that we have forced all of God's flutes, pianos, and violins into trying to sound and act like trupets. But when I try to sound like a trumpet I sound and feel like that shitty trumpet imitation on a casio keyboard from Wallmart.
I know that we have not been told that the Kingdom of God is a symphony orchestra rather than a trumpet cannon. We have not been told that most any genuine instrument is better than that fake Casio trumpet. Welcome to faith in the age of synthesizers.
That being the case, how much longer should one wait? Does a time come when someone who has been there since the early years of our church decide to call out an invitation to play a new song? Do we start encouraging the people to find new instruments that didn't feel welcome? Do we dare to encourage the female instruments to play as loudly as the men? If the men continue complaining, shall we encourage the even more females to play in order to compensate and play louder to cover up the complaining?
I do not want to play the role of an arrogant and pretentious conductor, but right now I feel like I play the role of a coward who has hidden his lamp under a basket because it did not shine in the same way as others.
posted by Post_Fidelitas at 2:15 PM
1 Comments:
Right on, brother. I often feel the same way.
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