“We need to talk.”

Even writing those words gives me a bit of an uneasy feeling in my stomach :) Growing up, whenever I’d hear those words from a parent, teacher, pastor, or employer, it usually meant that I was in some kind of trouble. Something wasn’t right. And I was about to find out what.

It was almost always an uncomfortable experience. But it was also very often needed, because without confronting whatever it was directly, I would have gone on indefinitely either ignoring the issue or being totally ignorant of it.

So church, I think we need to talk… with each other and with God. About diversity. About racism. About difficult things that are happening around us. About difficult things that are happening even within us.

Late last year, Susan Smith brought this idea to the Board. She found this series of videos on Youtube about Biblical Diversity, and we’ve received permission to share them here.

For the next several weeks, we’ll post a video here and invite you to watch it, leave your own comments, read what others are writing, respond to them… basically, have a church-wide small group without the real-time “group” component. Watch and respond at any time during the week.

Here’s an introductory video from the series:

Here are some conversation starters for this week.

Keep in mind that this is not a private, password protected area. Anyone with the link can view what we share here.

What can we do to better understand each other - and to better understand those we have limited contact with?
What does it mean to treat people the way God treats us?
How can we live this out in a meaningful way in pandemic times?