Beginning September 10, 2017, the pastor is going to be
offering up an adult Sunday school class studying and looking to implement
Christian diversity among us. We begin with seven weeks of engaging exercises
covering 1. Answering God’s Call; 2. Prejudices, Perceptions, and Assumptions;
3. Comfort Zones and Going Beyond Them; 4. Leadership in a Time or Place of
Transition; 5. Open Heart, Open Hand, Let Go; 6. Walk Like Jesus Walked; and 7.
To Be a Good Neighbor. From there, we will plunge into a study of a terrific
book, Welcoming Community: Diversity that
Works. This is a start to a journey of understanding of all the diverse
people God has gifted us with, within our church walls, out in our community,
and throughout our American Baptist denomination.
This
is a study I hope everyone will take advantage of and add their unique
experience and perspective to in the months ahead as this impacts everyone,
without exception. Rev. Doug Avilesbernal compares and contrasts society’s
understanding of diversity with our understanding of Christian diversity. This
is useful in clearing up confusion. As Rev. Avilesbernal observes, our culture
understands diversity as being merely tolerant of others, and today that is
exactly where most diversity training programs will leave you. This approach
allows people of different backgrounds (ethnic, national, regional, however one
chooses to divide humanity) to move toward one another without actively
disliking each other, but only to the point of tolerating each other. While
tolerance is a good thing, as far as it goes, it only allows us to stay out of
each other’s way. That’s not what Christ had in mind for us, and certainly not
how he approached other people.
Christian
diversity, by contrast, is more complicated. Christian diversity welcomes
different people because it is instead rooted in Jesus’ command that we love
one another as ourselves. This is an approach that allows our church community
to welcome and integrate differences into our community and enjoy the riches
that such inclusion bring, riches that are blessings flowing from God and
through others. It is a wonderful thing to strive for and a challenging thing
to achieve. Churches that make the attempt and succeed are far stronger, far more
joyful, and far greater blessed.
For posts exploring the necessity for such classes today, see: https://lansdownebaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2017/08/american-baptist-resolution-on.html, https://lansdownebaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2017/08/american-baptist-home-mission-societies.html, and https://lansdownebaptistchurch.blogspot.com/2017/08/siblings.html
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