Racism and Segregated Sundays: What We Need to Talk About (A Guest Post)
"The most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. offered this tragic insight decades ago.
Not much has changed since.
How did we get here? Why do we stay here?
Flat-out racism is a cause, to be sure.
But racism is not the only cause.
This guest post by Backstory Preaching mentor, the Rev. Dr. Melinda Quivik, raises questions helpful to the conversation about how we address our segregated Sundays.
“When have you been hurt by racism?”
Sometimes our bodies have a chronic problem that requires chronic physical therapy. Racism is a chronic problem of our hearts that also requires chronic treatment. I call this treatment “chronic spiritual therapy” that we engage together as the Body of Christ.
Because the whole Body has been hurt.
On Preaching Politics and the Way of Christian Love: The Example of Bishop Curry
Preachers find themselves in a conundrum: listeners perceive sermon messages that address the ills of our current culture—like racism, climate change, or wearing masks—as subjects unbecoming to the pulpit. I want to offer an example of a recent sermon that effectively navigates this challenge. Read on to see how preachers can cast a vision for God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, particularly as it relates to our present struggles.
“If Anyone Has Ears to Hear, Listen (to the Gospel)”
As preachers, how do we tell when we’re crossing over from gaining essential knowledge for preaching into the world’s sorrow to too much information? How do we help our listeners discern the same? Ask these three questions.
Preaching to Remove White-Colored Glasses
There are distinct stages of transformation, and our listeners are going to be somewhere on this spectrum, just as we are. Call them into work beyond their current stage, and they may resist change even more. Instead, we need to shift our preaching to meet folks at the stage they’re at in order to move them to the next.
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