Looking soberly at the actualities, it seems churches in the mainline denominations are not often able to achieve our desired racial, ethnic and class diversity goals. Birds of a feather. . . This is lamentable, because we need each other across the human spectrum.
But maybe there is another door we could try by which to effect the wider representation we want in our congregations. It would proceed by setting an example of diversity. How?
I would suggest that churches promote the development of a public forum or open platform within the church in which participants would come to articulate their views, their spiritualities, their personal theologies, if you will. If such opportunities existed, individuals would come to know each other better through the kind of expression that is only possible in a public setting. And thus the diversity of thought and experience (already) in the congregation would emerge in fuller, more explicit dimensions.
Some meetings already provide for this, such as Bible study, the book group, and the discussion group, except those tend to have a classroom feel and can be dominated by the leader. Moreover, the purpose being of a didactic nature, dialogue is focused on a very specific object–the text–from which we wish to learn.
Suppose a question posed was more broad and the participation more general, then invite people to stand and express their thoughts. Not on points of church business or policy, but on a spiritual topic. And suppose speakers rose not to persuade or to opine but to declaim, as Hannah Arendt put it, in “the specifically human way of answering, talking back, and measuring up to whatever happened or was done.” To declare without any other ulterior purpose than to make oneself known.
What if we opened the floor for worshipers to reflect publicly about the sermon? I mean, in the worship service, following the sermon itself, not a sermon talk-back during the coffee hour. I know a church in which, every Sunday after the sermon, the preacher sits down and remains silent while members of the congregation stand in their places either to comment on the sermon or just to share with others the movement the sermon prompted in the heart of the listener. The preacher doesn’t respond, other than to make requested clarifications, lest the sermon continue!
Or, in Quaker fashion, let a verse of scripture be read, then hear what people are moved to respond spontaneously.
A question related to the Christian life (“Who is Christ to me?”), or to life in the city (“Why is Roxbury still Roxbury?”), or to personal life (“What is it like to age?”) will also prompt significant responses.
In any case, providing the occasion of public speech is an occasion for self-searching and for making oneself clear. In the process, an individual reveals his or her individuality and establishes a distinct identity in the eyes of others. It is in this sense, as Hannah Arendt claims, that through public speech an individual attains “distinction,” meaning differentiation from one’s peers, not excelling over them but showing who you really and inexchangeably are, not the best.
It is my thought that a public forum establishes an expectation of diversity which might just lay the necessary groundwork for the kinds of diversity (racial and ethnic) that we want to attract. It develops our appetite for difference and would counteract the appearance to the outside observer of an internal uniformity and perhaps signal that this is a safe place to be different.
What sort of events at your church has opened the congregation to each other?
