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Presentation focuses on building diverse congregations
By LINDA M. LINONIS
YOUNGSTOWN
During a presentation on “Inter-Cultural Ministry Expanding the Welcome Table,” the Rev. Dr. Sterling Morse told participants that the path to “building and supporting diverse congregations and worshipping communities” had three steps — orientation, disorientation and new orientation.
The coordinator for Intercultural Ministries at Presbyterian Mission Agency, Louisville, Ky., addressed a recent conference sponsored by the Diversity Task Force at First Presbyterian Church, 201 Wick Ave. About 35 attended. The speaker prompted smiles and some laughs when he said that he “contends the revolution begins at the kiddie table.”
He said the cycle is familiar in churches — children leave, adults remain, but children sometimes return to the church after the previous generation is gone. “The dinner table is where we teach culture,” he said. “Some churches have a variety of cultures, but usually there is a dominant one.”
The Rev. Mr. Morse said congregations are “oriented to ... this is the way we’ve always done it.” He said generation after generation continues, and it is relatively peaceful.
Disorientation, he said, “throws off the environment.” “Trying to figure out other people is the challenge,” he said. “We have to collide first.”
The question is, Mr. Morse said, “What is each prepared to give up to become one?”
Mr. Morse continued that if “people believe God has a calling on life of the church no matter what the culture, status, lifestyle, it is incumbent on the church to make space.”
Progress, he stated, has “necessary losses.”
The new orientation is a multi-cultural and diverse church.
Mr. Morse said there was “such hope” in the 1965-75 time frame, when cultural diversity was sought after. “But we have hit a wall somewhere along the line,” he said.
He offered this story — some football fans with season tickets have sat next to one another for decades. “They root for the same team,” he said, “but they don’t know one another. The same happens in church.”
A multicultural and diverse congregation “values tolerance” and “appreciates distinctive foods, music, dance and dress that are the expressions of culture.”
Mr. Morse said members within some congregations “share space but remain isolated from one another — there is polite interaction.”
The problem, he continued, is that “power differentials” are seldom addressed.
An intercultural congregation that works “connects, inspires, equips leaders and members.” He said some congregations adopt the “Alamo motif.” “They’re waiting it out to the end,” he said, “But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Mr. Morse said a study predicted that by 2045 there will be no dominant race or culture in America. “The future of the church is multicultural,” he said.
He said true intercultural ministry shows that people are involved in one another’s lives, have compassionate relationships, and there is focus on relationship building and not survival. “Racial, ethnic and cultural power imbalances are addressed,” he said.
Mr. Morse suggested congregations follow the example of Jesus. “Jesus built his braintrust in the community, not the leadership,” he said. “And the Gospel teaches us there must be love.”
Mr. Morse admitted “there are no easy answers,” but intercultural churches must “embrace transformational leaders.” He said there will be resistance and voices to dissuade leaders, but they must retain their vision. “Jesus maintained his vision and mission and remained true to His calling,” Mr. Morse said.
He told that group that his talk was “to plant seeds.” “Jesus called us to be fisherman of men and women,” he said. “We have become too particular — we want it clean, scaled and filleted — we don’t want to go into the water.”
Mr. Morse said congregations must be prepared to “experience birthing pangs in order to change, and they must stay faithful in the process.
“Establishing intercultural relationships take bold initiative and a measure of self-sacrifice. This is difficult but doable. It doesn’t come without sacrifice and change in ways of thinking and doing.
“Being cross-cultural promotes the spirit of inclusion that becomes a way of life,” he said.
Donna Sloan, Diversity Task Force moderator, said the church formed the task force in 2013 because the congregation “felt the need to become more diverse than we are.”
Sloan said she received positive feedback from participants. She said at First Presbyterian, the task force will “come up with a strategic plan and have measurable goals so that progress can be determined.”
She said some ideas include pulpit and choir exchanges with other denominations. Sloan said though integration has come in education and employment, most churches are segregated on Sundays.
Sloan, who came to the Valley about 10 years ago from New England, said she became a member of First Presbyterian because she saw it as an “open congregation concerned with social issues.” She is a retired ordained minister in the Swedenborgian Church.