March 2, 2010: A Time To Blend

One of my favorite things about the Sunday School class I'm teaching is that it has no targeted demographic. Everyone is equally welcome.

I have attended and led demographically-targeted groups before. Years ago I belonged to a "Homebuilders" class that was designed for couples in their 30s raising children. Then I taught the seniors class for people 65 and older. I pastored a church of English-speaking Chinese people. I met my wife at a church singles group. Currently on Saturday mornings I go to Bravehearts, which is for men only.

I cannot deny that there is a time and a place for dividing people into their natural affinities regarding age, gender, race and marital status. These segregations are particularly useful when addressing concerns that only certain groups have. But I also think that our knee-jerk tendency to "divide and target" can be a little dangerous. Often it leads to bad things and prevents good things.

Remember that whenever you target you also exclude. Let's say you want to have a couples' group. Great - but make sure you understand that by limiting your group to couples you have just shut out the widows. Trust me, widows know this. My mother at 55 and my wife at 40 both experienced a loss of fellowship with married people when their husbands died. "But don't they have a widows' group they can go to?" Maybe, but some bereaved women don't want to go to the widows' group. I know that my mother definitely preferred mixed company. She spoke sometimes about how much she missed masculine conversation once she lost access to it through Dad.

Secondly, whenever we establish tightly constrained demographic groups we deny ourselves and others the benefits of cross pollination. We make it difficult, for example, to fulfill the mandate of Titus 2:4, which says that older women should train younger women. In some churches, the only time that 70-year-old Nancy and 25-year-old Brittany are in the same room is when they are worshiping in the sanctuary - and then they are not relating to each other but to God. We've got to get those two to cross paths somewhere (in informal settings) so that, as necessary, Nancy can set Brittany straight.

Thirdly, sorting people into their demographic niches has a powerful tendency to promote division. Division must not be tolerated, and we have to keep sniffing it out and stomping on it. You will recall that St. Paul, who had worked so hard to proclaim the Christ who broke down the "dividing wall of hostility" between Jews and Gentiles (Ephesians 2:14), went all medieval on St. Peter when his co-apostle started sitting at the "Jews Only" table (Galatians 2:11-14). And Paul's reaction to the economic division of Christian brothers and sisters was at least as strong: when rich people shut poor people out of their private Eucharist in 1 Corinthians 11:20-22, Paul told them that they weren't eating the Lord's Supper at all. He also told them that they were being judged by God (verse 30).

Naturally occurring affinity groups can become demonically exclusionary cliques a lot faster than you think.

It is good for a church to take steps to manifest by overt and tangible means the truth of Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." Go ahead and divide into your niche groups for set purposes - as is sometimes prudent and necessary - but then jump out of them again as soon as you can. Mix and blend. And, if you would be so kind, please say a prayer that the 10:30 Chapel Class at Grace Pointe Church would have

1) At least a 50-year age span.
2) A smorgasbord of races.
3) The destitute and the filthy rich.
4) Single, married, divorced and widowed people.
5) Sinners and saints.

Thank you.