Navigating difference and diversity in US American churches remains among the biggest and most important challenges for ministry leadership today.
Individual churches remain segregated spaces. And yet many chaplaincy and non-profit ministry settings put leaders in places where they serve people from many ethnic, socio-economic, and cultural demographics.
In my conversation with Dr. Eric Barreto today we talk about the coming shifts within both churches and seminaries that come with a tipping point called 2040. IN that year the United States is projected to no longer have a single majority of any ethnic group. According to Dr. Juan Martinez, many seminaries have already reached this tipping point. Seminary eduction — as a whole — will be there in this decade.
We have a lot to learn about leading in richly diverse ministry settings. In every day life in the United States, problems arise that are grounded in the ancient and ongoing sins of white supremacy and take shape in millions of small aggressions, like erasing the presence of women of color, and huge injustices, like mass incarceration and wrongful convictions putting men of color on death row.
Ministry is not exempt from these harms. It is deeply entangled in these harms.
Ministry settings from churches, seminaries, and hospitals, to non-profits, military bases and advocacy groups are still riddled by patterns of relating, and structures of privilege that do daily harm. Just because we say we value love and justice, equality and grace, does not solve the problems that have been festering for centuries. The colony and the country were founded on beliefs that led to the genocide of native people and quickly built on the labors of enslaved people, largely stolen from the African continent. Once a country the US engaged in one bloody war after another.
This is all ancient history! No. This is all living breathing history and as ministers called to be and bear and point to the love and mercy of God, we need to become fully aware of both the cultural past and the coming future. Both take shape in our ministries every day.
In today’s 3MMM conversation with Eric, we talk about how to navigate the difference and diversity of people in our care. He says we need to shift our posture from fear and anxiety to hope and curiosity if we are going to lead people into meaningful change.
How are you approaching the people and unfolding stories in your ministry with fear? with anxiety? with hope? with curiosity?
Let’s talk to one another and stir up curiosity and hope for our lives of leadership. Let us find courage to release our fears and anxieties for the sake of loving God’s beautiful and broken world.
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