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A Safe Space to Gather

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Jessica Tate is curating a series that will reflect experiences of living in diverse community. Over the course of the month, we’ll notice practices that enable diverse communities to thrive and we’ll reflect on the promise of Christ in whom there is no Jew nor Greek, no male nor female, no slave nor free and what that promise means for our lives today. We invite you to share your own thoughts on Facebook and Twitter! 

by Leslie King

There is so much important work being done on diversity across our nation. Whether in public rallies, conversations on college campuses, city governance meetings, or around our family dinner tables, we all recognize the diversity challenge is not simple. Not only do we realize the unfinished work of the Civil Rights movement, we are also experiencing the disenfranchisement of the white working class that seeks to insert itself into the diversity conversation. More than ever, diversity requires intentionality and integrity.  

Intentionality found the First Presbyterian Church of Waco, just recently on August 20, when the Democratic and Republican parties of our county, led by an intelligent young millennial, requested to use the “safe space” of our sanctuary for a public gathering for racial unity. With intention, the political parties wanted to stand together and declare honor and respect for the diverse world in which we live.  

In the wake of their request, First Presbyterian engaged their own intentionality. Ask anyone in Waco: we are not a venue and we think critically about the way our space is shared. Will it strengthen the common good? We had to admit, it felt good to be asked to use the space. In the wake of Charlottesville, we all wanted to do something to respond. But our Session asked deeper questions, like who would be involved in such a gathering for racial unity? We knew that this was more a “left-leaning” sort of event. The request had been from both parties, but who specifically would be speaking and what would the message be? Would this be a biased gathering about diversity with an anemic call from like-minded voices?  

The organizers wrestled with our questions and with the details of the event. They made a courageous decision. They did not look for middle of the road mindsets. Each invited speaker was strong and passionate from a specific perspective. The event agenda revealed a balance between Democrat and Republican mindsets. Confirmed speakers gathered for a pre-event dinner where they discussed tone, etiquette, and content. All were given a time limit. As the evening arrived, individuals from so many walks of Waco life arrived to the sanctuary. A couple of news channels and the local paper were represented. Each speaker approached the podium with a tentativeness. Their posture and opening remarks confessed appreciation for the unusual opportunity to speak to such a diverse group of people. The tone was respectful and the content was provocative.  

The president of the local Republican club began his speech, “I am the most conservative person in this room. I believe we pull ourselves up by our boot straps. But I have come learn that many people are never even allowed to imagine their possibilities. Racism is real and we must work to eliminate it.” The Democratic party chair began her speech with a tender voice, “It has always been my dream to share a podium with the Republican party chair. I’m so glad to be here tonight.” The NAACP president of Waco cited a local Anglo pastor as the best example of leadership for a multi-cultural bi-lingual congregation.  As we listened to each speech, the room seemed to fill with the Spirit. Not only were we were talking about diversity, we were modeling and identifying concrete examples of it in our own community.       

The two political parties asked First Presbyterian for our sanctuary that it might be a “safe space.” We agreed to share our space that we might all address our biases and pursue diversity. Those organizers rose to the challenge of our questions. Diversity’s spirit manifested itself. By the end of the evening, we were no longer were as concerned about feeling safe because our confidence and trust were growing.  

Leslie King received her BA from Kansas University (’91) and her Masters of Divinity from McCormick Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Chicago (‘94). In 2010 she completed her Doctor of Ministry at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City Missouri with an emphasis in Spirituality and Organizational Change. She has been married to DJ King since November of 1996. They are the parents of three children: Cody, Katie, and Claire. Leslie enjoys reading, quilting, walking her dogs by the lake and the Texas heat. 

Neuroplasticity: Life in the Church in 2017

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Jessica Tate is curating a series that will reflect experiences of living in diverse community. Over the course of the month, we’ll notice practices that enable diverse communities to thrive and we’ll reflect on the promise of Christ in whom there is no Jew nor Greek, no male nor female, no slave nor free and what that promise means for our lives today. We invite you to share your own thoughts on Facebook and Twitter! 

by Anna Pinckney Straight

How do you know things? I don’t have an answer for that, but I’ve always known that my call was to serve churches in the middle. Not in the middle of all of the action, but in the theological and political middle. Churches with members both liberal and conservative, progressive and traditional. 

My first two calls fit this description. In those first ten years of ministry, I made lots of mistakes, but I also began developing patterns and practices for navigating and closing those gaps between people. It sounds incredibly obvious, but the Bible had to be at the center. In preaching and in teaching I stayed as faithful as I could to those texts and waited until the text called me to speak a word that might be considered divisive, and if people were upset we could talk about the text.

It didn’t always work. I was inexperienced. I had lessons to learn that could only be learned over time. I took way too much way too personally. Sometimes, people who were upset would leave. I tried my best to give them permission and a blessing to do what they felt called to do. But… there were also many who stayed, and many who arrived. They were important partners in the ongoing discernment of God’s will for our theologies, prayers, and actions.

I never preached something I didn’t need to hear and I loved the people the best way I knew how.

Then, after spending the last 10 years in a more progressive congregation, I knew it was time for me to return to the middle, to a diverse church. Called to a solo pastorate in West Virginia, I moved. Two months before the 2016 election. 

Be careful what you ask for. 

It’s different, now. The landscape has changed. The politics are different. The lines are sharper. I see it in my own family — we’ve always been different, but we used to be able to talk about it. Now, those conversations are fewer and, in some relationships, non-existent. Some of it is me. I am dug in. Lives are on the line. Love is on the line. The “middle” seems to have evaporated. And, the old ways of crossing the divide in a middle congregation aren’t working anymore. The patterns and practices that used to bring about engagement and depth have evaporated. Dissipated. Disappeared. 

Some of this is because I’m still new in this congregation. I don’t have the trust that will come across the years. They don’t know my heart, yet — how diligently I pray for Jesus to take my agenda and replace it with his own. 

I don’t know their hearts yet either. You can’t replace the time it takes to get to know a people’s stories. And this is West Virginia — a region with its own, very particular ethos (if you like Hilbilly Elegy it’s a good sign that you aren’t from here).

Neuroplasticity is what I am clinging to. Like the brain creating new pathways after a stroke to do what needs to be done. Surely the church can be neuroplastic, too. Surely Jesus can help us to find new ways to enter into the conversations we need to be having, the actions we need to be taking.

Some of this work isn’t radical. I resist talking about politicians – those I like and those I don’t. I splurge on talking about issues. Health care. Strangers. Sharing. Caring.

I’m bolder in preaching. There is less tolerance than ever before for sermons that don’t connect. People are feeling the urgency of these days, so simplistic truisms aren’t going to cut it. (Maybe they never did?) These bold strokes are messier and the aim is not nearly as precise, so I depend on grace more than ever before.

I won’t deny being discouraged. It feels like our congregations have been kicked back to the beginning of the chutes and ladders board. But when I’m at my lowest I see members of the church teach me as they care for one another. The “blue” member delivering cookies to the “red” member.  The “red” member reaching out her hand to the “blue” member grieving a recent loss. Not because they are indifferent or ignorant of their differences, but because they are leaning on the bonds of baptism. And they keep showing up. Relentlessly. Hopefully. They need this place of faith. And that means finding a way forward, a way that is, for me, right now, more obscured than a valley holding the dense fog of the morning.

These people have welcomed me — someone who has “come from away” to a place where almost nothing is as important AS place. They’ve welcomed me with love and care, hope and faith. And I’m loving them as best I know how.  Will it be enough? I don’t know. I’m praying harder than ever for the Holy Spirit to prop me up in all of my leaning places.   

Anna Pinckney Straight is pastor of Old Stone Presbyterian Church in Lewisburg, WV. She also serves on the NEXT Church advisory team.