Christian Pastors Focus Group
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Christian Pastors Focus Group
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coming together . And since the pandemic , sometimes the lines are a mile or so long , but they ’ re there , and they ’ re faithful and it couldn ’ t happen without the Christian community and the willingness to work alongside us .
• The love community takes peacemakers in a consistent understanding that a peacemaker is about reconciliation and it can ’ t be a real reconciliation without justice . And I think what ’ s important in the Christian community is yes be a place of love , but it has to also be a place of truth . That statement that the long moral arc of the universe bends towards justice . And so the Christian community has to be a place that helps people understand how to really be peacemakers but recognizing that being a peacemaker , I mean , King was a peacemaker and it got him killed . So , realizing that being a peacemaker doesn ’ t mean that everything will be hunky dory . It ’ s like you ’ re walking in that space of telling the truth and calling things into account . Always with the desire to work with reconciliation .
• We have a chance to show the power of the gospel as we come together and embrace and it . We have Black churches , white churches , Asian churches , Hispanic churches . We have multi ethnic churches and when all of those come together , and that was some of what we saw with the March , but other activities that we do , we do anything in unity with service project something and people of all different colors socio economic levels and backgrounds and then they have something in common than you ’ re always wondering what brings these groups together .
• I would just add that Dr . King , you know , years , decades ago said that the most segregated hour during the week is 11am on Sunday mornings and , you know , again , the needle has moved , but it ’ s got a lot more movement and inclusion . Inclusion and acceptance . Acceptance like meeting people where they are and allowing them the space to come into the Beloved Community feeling we welcome their voices .
• The needs are unique here just because of the culture that we have . And so I think one of the challenges is how do we bring people together . So , and you were talking about inclusion , radical inclusion and I ’ ve just noticed a lot of churches who have great intentions of being radically inclusive , but just the way they operate naturally helps or keeps people from a different culture feeling like “ I don ’ t know if I have a voice .” That we ’ re not really aware of is just the air we breathe in the denomination . We ’ re part or the church were a part of , or whatever . So I think one of the key challenges is going to be how do we distinguish what is uniquely Christian that we don ’ t change or adjust and then what is just cultural that we can be flexible on so that we can come together and stay true to what we need to stay true to then flex where we need to flex . I think that ’ s going to be a challenge for us in determining what is genuinely biblical and then what is cultural if I think about who we are as a church .
• When you Americanize of Christianity and you can come so Americanized that you forget what your role is . That ’ s helping people understand what it means to be a Christian . So I guess one of the big challenges is that , and I know maybe the Baptist churches don ’ t have this but you know I ’ m in a denomination when we have still even trying to struggle with identity , who ’ s in and who ’ s out was doing that whole human sexuality struggle .
• I know the three guys here . We ’ re trying that multi-ethnic churches . That ’ s our desire . We want our churches to look like our city . But going back to what Jason ’ s concern was about the Christian pastors might know each other and be friends and brothers and sisters , but the churches aren ’ t because we ’ re coming together for maybe one or two events a year that a lot of times are reactionary to what ’ s happened , instead of just being , “ let ’ s get together just fellowship worship , pray ,” and we got that segregation happening . That ’ s kind of the broad picture for me . But then you get down to the more that narrow picture what Jason was discussing it just I can ’ t tell you how many different definitions of a Christian , you can probably find in the city of Arlington . And so what someone on the southeast side says a Christian is you can come up on another side and what one church
Unity Council Report 106