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I mean this as a genuine, serious question, with no criticism intended.
Dr. King is famously quoted as calling 11:00 on Sunday morning the most segregated hour in America, and it seems to be almost as true today as it was then. Things have gotten better, yes, as some larger churches seem to be better at attracting a more diverse congregation. But it remains that most churches do not have racial, ethnic, or economic diversity.
What can be done about it? What would make you want to go to a church where your race or ethnicity was not the majority?
What is your church doing about it? Does your church reach out to people from all walks of life, and how? How do you make people feel wanted and welcome when they are not the majority (whatever that may be)? For that matter, does your church actually want a diverse membership, or is everyone very comfortable with the way things are?
I appreciate all responses and look forward to a civil and enlightening conversation.
I mean this as a genuine, serious question, with no criticism intended.
Dr. King is famously quoted as calling 11:00 on Sunday morning the most segregated hour in America, and it seems to be almost as true today as it was then. Things have gotten better, yes, as some larger churches seem to be better at attracting a more diverse congregation. But it remains that most churches do not have racial, ethnic, or economic diversity.
What can be done about it? What would make you want to go to a church where your race or ethnicity was not the majority?
What is your church doing about it? Does your church reach out to people from all walks of life, and how? How do you make people feel wanted and welcome when they are not the majority (whatever that may be)? For that matter, does your church actually want a diverse membership, or is everyone very comfortable with the way things are?
I appreciate all responses and look forward to a civil and enlightening conversation.
I belong to a mega-church. We have people of all kinds and colors. Still, we're overwhelmingly white, as is our community. People will only go where they're comfortable.
The host community of the small local church tends to be segregated and thus the church remains also. A lot of the church growth comes from recent immigrants so for an example that segregated church full of people from one area of Nigeria is separate from the other small storefront with people from Cameron. Now that the present generation of the majority have proven that they will be happy under the leadership of a minority member it is only a matter of time. The bigger problem s that those folks also have largely abandoned church attendance so the the changes that are happening seems slow.
If religion is more segregated than the general secular institutions, it is because religion is focusing too much on separation, tribalism, specialness, the past, etc.
But if we change that, we change what many people are trying to protect using religion.
Either way, I don't happen to see willful segregation as egregious as is forcibly enforced segregation; all though segregation by itself is rather sickening, whether willful/beloved or not.
Don't worry. In he wake of the tsunami, when an equally huge wave of doubt began to rise, Christianity, Islam and Judaism found themseves standing shoulder to shoulder to fight back as one.
When (if ) irreligion gets to a bigger percentage than religion -supporters, and start politicians thinking of ways to get their vote, you'll soon find the various churches, never mind sects, dropping any differences they may have and getting together in one glutinous mass.
I mean this as a genuine, serious question, with no criticism intended.
The definition of church can be modified in such a manner that the segregation is removed. For example, redefining science as the belief in the existence of the sun will enable more segregation than its current definition does.
It can been seen as many different parts of the same church or many different things which share the name church. Whenever there is a distinction to be made with anything in such a situation, those two options are available to one.
The word church can be defined in a manner that is more reflective of its qualities. It is not expected that materialism will define church, religion, or Christianity in such a manner that actually reflects the relationship of those within those classifications with God.
I belong to a mega-church. We have people of all kinds and colors. Still, we're overwhelmingly white, as is our community. People will only go where they're comfortable.
People will AVOID the church as long as it demands PUNISHMENT, CALLS THEM SINNERS and DEMAND they change their life to fit the little god box create by humanity.
I mean this as a genuine, serious question, with no criticism intended.
Dr. King is famously quoted as calling 11:00 on Sunday morning the most segregated hour in America, and it seems to be almost as true today as it was then. Things have gotten better, yes, as some larger churches seem to be better at attracting a more diverse congregation. But it remains that most churches do not have racial, ethnic, or economic diversity.
What can be done about it? What would make you want to go to a church where your race or ethnicity was not the majority?
What is your church doing about it? Does your church reach out to people from all walks of life, and how? How do you make people feel wanted and welcome when they are not the majority (whatever that may be)? For that matter, does your church actually want a diverse membership, or is everyone very comfortable with the way things are?
I appreciate all responses and look forward to a civil and enlightening conversation.
if we all behaved as Dr. King did? wow, great stuff could happen then. For no-christ sake, I need to start with me.
In Reverend King's era Sunday at 1100 meant nobody was at work, even domestic workers were back with their families and the greater community was segregated housing wise. So because those workers were away the time was more segregated than America as a whole. Today housing segregation is ending, along with it segregated congregations in churches.
Now local church leaders still worry about the perceived segregation in large part because their belief that in telling their truth everybody within range should be in his church. But there remain other factors involved before you get to the point of stealing the saved from other churches in order for one local body to be the exact ethnic demographic mix of its local area. Besides language differences and immigrant community churches I see the opposite of the most segregated part of society tag that is still pushed upon to American Christianity.
I mean this as a genuine, serious question, with no criticism intended.
Dr. King is famously quoted as calling 11:00 on Sunday morning the most segregated hour in America, and it seems to be almost as true today as it was then. Things have gotten better, yes, as some larger churches seem to be better at attracting a more diverse congregation. But it remains that most churches do not have racial, ethnic, or economic diversity.
What can be done about it? What would make you want to go to a church where your race or ethnicity was not the majority?
What is your church doing about it? Does your church reach out to people from all walks of life, and how? How do you make people feel wanted and welcome when they are not the majority (whatever that may be)? For that matter, does your church actually want a diverse membership, or is everyone very comfortable with the way things are?
I appreciate all responses and look forward to a civil and enlightening conversation.
Well, I think it's a complex question that has a complex answer. Even the term 'segregated' is freighted with ghost of Jim Crow, implying that the church ushers bar those of a different skin color from entering. Tragically, that was often the case 60 years ago. Today, nothing could be further from the truth in my experience.
The practice of faith is as much cultural as spiritual, taking into account music, language, and what gets emphasized in the teachings. This should be obvious to anyone who has visited a variety of different churches. The Catholics are markedly different from the Anglicans who are different from the Greek Orthodox who are different from the Lutherans, Baptists, Church of God, Church of Christ, Pentecostalists, Methodist, Quakers, AME, Unitarians and whatever massive Church of What's Happening Now is conveniently located, complete with coffee shop, on the main drag of your town.
We attend a high-church Episcopal service on Sundays, complete with organ, choir, Rite I of the Book of Common Prayer, and the standard hymns of the faith going back over 1000 years. I mean, the language of our service is riddled with thees, thous, and thys (Which by the way, are expressions of intimacy with God, not formality. Much like German or Russian, these once were personal pronouns used to address a lover, a family member of a very close personal friend, which makes theological sense once you really think about it).
We have a number of active African-American members, one of whom is training to become our deacon, but our congregation is largely white. Certainly not by design, because we do our best to welcome newcomers. But people attend our church because they have a decided preference in our approach to worship. Meanwhile, there are other Episcopal Churches that are more loosey-goosey with guitar strumming and the whatnot. We live within three minutes of one of those and drive right past it to our more traditional church eight miles away. Yet we have outreach to our surrounding community with two different homeless ministries, an ongoing GED program, health clinics, a rural ministry, a nutrition clinic in Haiti, a prison ministry, and a ministry for helping mentally challenged mainstream into the world at large with life skills. While not specifically designed to recruit new members, those programs have indeed resulted in some joining us, and we have welcomed them with open arms.
Meanwhile, if you attend a predominantly African-American church, the entire style of worship is different. I can't begin to count the number of times I've attended funerals, weddings, confirmations, and other occasions at traditional African-American churches. The music is different. And the style of preaching is decidedly different from my church. No less valid than the church I attend. Just different.
The same is true of predominantly white fundamentalist churches. I attended a funeral for a good friend and employee at a rural fundamentalist church. The preacher spent the entirety of his sermon talking about hell and damnation, not grace and salvation and God's eternal love. Again, not my cup of tea. Yet when, on a whim, she previously attended a Good Friday service at my church with us, I don't think she cared too much for its formality.
And then you have the modern megachurch with praise music, complete with hipster preachers in skinny-leg jeans. That stuff makes me break out into hives. But there are others, white and black alike, who find that style of worship resonates with them. Go into a megachurch and you'll find a more diverse congregation than traditional white or black churches. Yet, my friends who attend megachurches find quieter, meditative approach of liturgical churches to be boring when I think the precise opposite.
Finally, there are the Catholic churches. If you are Catholic, you are expected to attend the church nearest you, your preferences for the priest, the music, and everything else being of no consequence. So you'll find a fairly diverse congregation in a Catholic church simply because your parish is based on your geography.
In other words, most people choose their churches today based on where they feel most at home.
So I would offer that people attend churches based on a number of factors, from the theology of a denomination to the style of worship that takes place. With that in mind, I think that the racial makeup of a church has a great deal more to do with how people want to worship rather than whom they want to worship with. Even Paul spoke to the belief that Christianity's genius lay in how it spoke to different people in different ways according to different needs.
Last edited by MinivanDriver; 06-29-2017 at 09:35 AM..
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) irreligion gets to a bigger percentage than religion -supporters, and start politicians thinking of ways to get their vote, you'll soon find the various churches, never mind sects, dropping any differences they may have and getting together in one glutinous mass.
