So, yesterday I went to Conference-mandated Diversity Training. This is new; the training is not new, but the fact that the Conference mandates it now for all clergy (every four years, to my understanding) is new. This is the second workshop that we now have to take every four years. 
I’ll be honest: I went in with a bad attitude. I didn’t like being required to take training on something I am already fully in favor of and preach about. The kingdom of God, in my mind, is made up of all sorts of people...but it seems we spend far too much time trying to emphasize what divides us rather than celebrating who we are as diverse people in Christ. We focus on what makes us different rather than on the the strengths that come from those differences. When Paul wrote that there is no longer Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female (Galatians 3:28), he wasn’t discounting our uniqueness or our differences. He was celebrating the fact that, despite our differences, we can be and are united in Christ Jesus. But yesterday was another exercise in emphasizing our differences.
Here’s what I learned yesterday: There are a lot of different sorts of people in the world and we all have different feelings about those differences. Perspective matters. A lot.
What I didn’t learn, and what was somewhat frustrating, is how to confront, handle, encourage or discuss diversity in the local church setting. Not once in four hours did we talk about how any of this really impacts our ministry. Nor did we ever get to the page about “solutions” or “ways to deal with” diversity. I wanted to know how to encourage our local churches, most of which are all the same (no matter which ethnic group they represent), to embrace “the other”—or to at least be willing to talk about embracing the other (that’s probably a more realistic first step). How do we get our churches to embrace Paul’s vision of being one in Christ? We never got there, and like what seems to be the case in most of American society today, we spent all our time focused on defining the “issue” rather than moving forward. I hope, when I go back in four years, we will be ready to talk about Paul’s vision and discuss how to truly be diverse and yet one in Christ.