Diversity’s Resource Challenges

My church is a very diverse one in many ways, most notably in age,
socio-economics, ethnicity, and religious background. It's a
wonderful thing that we all praise God for, but it's not without its
challenges. You might think I'd be referring to misunderstanding and
tension and things of that sort, and certainly we have our share of
such conflicts.

But sometimes it's purely a matter of resource allocation. There are
any number of celebrations and events that our church can host and has
hosted over the years: Easter breakfasts, meals for the hungry, Maundy
Thursday service, and the list goes on and on. There are any number
of ministries and groups that our church can have and has had over the
years: homeless Bible studies, small groups for young singles, toddler
worship, and the list goes on and on.

Each of these activities is meaningful to somebody, but the church
budget can easily be strained and peoples' schedules easily taxed if
we try to do them all. The challenge is, if indeed we need to prune,
what do we prune without someone feeling like something important to
them has been unceremonially and abruptly cut. A church that strives
for diversity must be sensitive to the diverse needs of its group, but
a church that seeks to be a good steward of its material resources
must be able to make tough priority decisions.

(Some of the same dynamics come into play for cities and states. It
is a wonderful thing to have a geographic region that is swimming in
diversity, but it can make things hard for the budget officers and
lead politicians to figure out what gets a fiscal bump up and what
needs to get cut. Now that I've studied what it's like to be on the
government side, I'm much more sympathetic to headlines about
important programs having their budgets cut or zeroed out. It's not
always the right decision, but it's not always the wrong one, either.)

What I've liked about our church is that we've tried to be as broad as
possible in offering outlets for the myriads of people and groups
represented within our congregation. And we've tried to organize
these many activities under a few core themes and principles, so that
people don't get lost in so many things that they lose sight of the
important few things.

Mostly, we just keep on celebrating. And when you have a congregation
as diverse as ours, that celebration might look funny to outsiders
(heck, sometimes I laugh out loud myself), but it sure as heck is
pleasing to God.