Bridge Over Troubled Water

Our NDP Story Gets The Stones Rolling

Perception is always open to interpretation. Finding the water's edge of where our responsibility begins and ends isn't always easy. Were we suggesting coordinators of the National Day of Prayer purposefully and capriciously omitted pastors of traditional black churches? Absolutely not. I actually have no idea what their process is, and thus am not trying to place their process in any particular context. We are, however, stating a fact: no pastors of traditional black churches are on the program. Again. Which doesn't make us martyrs. After all, our traditional black churches do not (and possibly have not ever) invited Vanguard, New Life, Calvary, etc. over, either. We often have "citywide" events to which invitations to leading white churches are not extended. And that's the sentence that got left out of the printed article about all of this: we're taking these progressive white churches to task, but our hands aren't clean, either.

The fact is, we're all just comfortable being whatever we are and going our separate ways on Sunday. My suspicion, my opinion, about all of this, is they--the NDP organizers--simply forgot. I'd be surprised if the subject of traditional black churches even came up, let alone that it came up and was rejected by a snickering, mustache-twirling Pastor Kelly Williams. It's absurd to think Williams, or anybody else, planned to not invite us. My best guess is, we just don't turn up on their radar. And that's mostly our own fault because they don't turn up on ours.

My most informed guess about all of this is Thursday's NDP event at Vanguard is being coordinated by a group of local pastors, a "pastors merge," that few if any black pastors are even aware of. I think the notion that a national event, coordinated at the city level by this group, requires participants to be active members of a group they've never heard of is a little ridiculous. I mean, if Rick Warren happens to be in town Thursday, you can't convince me these same men would not welcome Warren to participate in their event. The idea that someone as foundational to the social infrastructure of this city as Pastor James H. McMearn or Roosevelt Dunn, Bishop of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction of Colorado, or Cleveland Thompson, pastor of the city's largest black congregation, need to join these guys' club in order to be allowed to pray at a nationally coordinated event is patently absurd.

But, perception being largely in the ear of the hearer, I'm sure I'm either getting the facts wrong or that it all somehow makes perfect sense from their point of view. None of which makes Pastor Williams or anyone else associated with the NDP a "bad" guy, but I maintain they've made a bad choice. Had they welcomed Bishop Dunn, Pastors McMearn or Thompson, they'd have seen a coming together that would have added a great deal to the event. A mass choir would have galvanized the fractured churches within our own community.

They blew it. Not just an opportunity to improve the NDP, not just an opportunity to improve race relations in the Springs, but a real and genuine ministerial opportunity of unknown proportions that could change the landscape of the city forever. Go into ALL the world. Not just your buddies in the merge. I mean, who knows what might have become of this had they only made a few phone calls. That Bishop Dunn, who supervises nearly 100 churches statewide, is not in their pastor's merge is a really flimsy excuse. Which is not to say they need an excuse--invite whom you feel led to invite. But don't try and snow me about how you'd muzzle Rick Warren if he were here, merge or no merge.

We've invited Pastor Williams to issue a formal statement on the matter at his convenience and will post any such statement, unedited, here.

Fear Of A Black Church

Trapped Beneath The Glass Steeple

Blacks aren't threatened by white folks coming to their church. We doubt very many whites will want to stay. In fact, many black churches would, frankly, love to have more whites join. But, in my experience, there's been an undercurrent of hostility present in white churches. Like, make yourself comfortable. But not too comfortable. There's this forked tongue thing going on: a cold welcome. An odd tension that seems present at any white church I visit. A paranoia that I might just take them up on their invitation and actually stay. Which leads me to wonder what, exactly, are they afraid of.

The fear of a black church, from many whites’

viewpoint, is likely not even racial so much as it is economic. Having an investor's mindset, many whites view the arrival of blacks at their church in terms of value depreciation. The very best sense of multiculturalism never needs to be announced. A truly multicultural church never has to actually call itself “multicultural.” A truly multicultural church will be all things to all people, that all visitors might find something of themselves there in your worship, in your smile, in your love. And they’ll know they’ve come home. Meanwhile, the black church whites should fear is the black church of Martin Luther King. The black church of Rosa Parks and James Meredith. But that black church is long gone now.   READ ESSAY  TOP OF PAGE