Blind Spot

Today is the Martin Luther King Jr national holiday and I have a few thoughts about, what I think is, a major church leadership blindspot in the U.S.. I wonder how many white churches around the country mentioned anything about the MLK holiday this past weekend, though they would on Memorial Day, Labor Day, Independance Day or even Valentines Day? (I do understand how Haiti dominated the unplanned programming of services). How many pastoral staffs included today as important when they planned their calendar? Did they close their office as the schools in their community have today? You may think I'm a little too strong with these questions, but please let me explain why I think this is a blind spot.

The mission of the church includes a continual pursuit to establish the good news of Jesus Christ within the community that the local church is established. Right outside the doors of every church, in every town in America, are schools that are the one place where the entire community is represented. The schools my sons attend are a fair representation of the people who are living in our area, their friend's names are Juan, Mohammed, Vang, Josh. My boys are growing up in a world where ethnic and cultural diversity is normal, where their friendships are not restricted by the color of their skin. This is moving closer (though still a long way to go) to MLK's "I have a dream" speech. The apostle Paul had a similar dream when he wrote to influence the Jewish church to accept the Gentiles as part of the same family. Both dreams are closer to reality in the schools than they are in the church unless we take intentional steps to address the inequity between community and church.  This is why the MLK Holiday represents an opportunity to address changes we need to make on the church side of things.

I can hear the dismissal from some who would say "MLK wasn't an entirely moral man, why should we honor or listen to his advice?" We honor a murderer in Moses, an adulterer in David, a persecuter and murderer in Paul but we can't gleen the gold from a preacher who has brought so much to our nation's recent history? The message was, and still is, bigger than the man in this case. When we treat a day like the MLK Holiday as no big deal we present a picture of indifference about the things that matter to the leaders in the very community that we're trying establish the kingdom of God. Schools take this day seriously, I don't think we should blow it off. I have much more in my head on this subject, maybe for a future blog..