Live Post - Diversity

I have never done this - write to the blog live. Normally I write a post on a Word document, edit it, then publish it to the post. Not today. Too much going on, too many topics flooding the mind. So I decided to just sit down and write to you.

A sermon yesterday morning dealt with change and dealing with it. Wishing for no change means total stasis. No change. No activity. Mere existence. Dormancy.

We need to embrace change. It proves we are alive. It is the stuff life is made of. If no change is happening, our live is winding down to death. That is true for organizations as well. If an organization - company, hobby group, church - is not changing, it is dead, or the walking dead.

Change is challenge. Challenge is exercise for the whole person and the whole organization. We must respond to change, the challenge. We gain insight, ideas and whet the intellect from this activity. It breathes new life and interest into the organism we call 'life.'

There are two distinct changes I think most churches need to embrace.  This goes for all other organizations as well.  Here are the two:

First, knowing our purpose or mission is dandy, but if it does not make room for what is going on in society all around us, then our mission or creed is no longer relevant. All religions, for example, came into being pre-history as mankind attempted to make sense of its existence. Over millennia creeds refined to what we see today as Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhism, Taoism, and so forth. They all emerged from history as changing dynamos. They were and are a product of a changing history and morphing social order in cultures around the globe. All different from our own.

All different from our own. But each is a part of us.

We must accommodate these differences, this diversity, somehow to remain relevant in the world.
 Second, the world society and American society changes over time to look increasingly diverse. In skin color, gender, gender orientation, culture, cuisine, thinking and much more, we are diverse. We should become more diverse in our organizations and churches to reflect that diversity. If we don't, we remain an increasingly isolated ghetto of sameness.

If our companies, schools and churches do not look or seem diverse, then our social structures are dying. Simple test: stand before a representative gathering of your organization - company employee meeting, church service, or school assembly - look out on the sea of faces; do they all look alike or do they show a rich diversity? Are you aware of more diversity beneath the skin and superficial surface?

If your church looks all white, or all black, or all brown, then your church is not diverse. Same with your school or company. These organizations are living artificially. They are not living with the full challenge of social change and integration of differences.

If we wish to be members of private clubs and filtered societies, then I guess change is not welcome. On the other hand, if we wish to be alive, dynamic and expansive in possibilities, we need to seek diversity and actively integrate it into our lives.

The future of mankind rests in this activity. Are we currently up to this challenge?

August 12, 2019