We Are Better Together

by Le Anne Clausen de Montes

This is addressed to fellow faith community leaders, both clergy and lay.

As a faith leader, you may find yourself feeling paralyzed by current events — afraid to preach or teach social justice, due to current political or media messages — afraid to get involved in your local community due to issues of church and state. And yet, these are essential to creating real change.

As faith leaders, we will always have “current political events” happening outside our congregations. We will always have forces of division and enmity in our world. There’s no such thing as a bad or good year in which to address the issues of the world, and to do so from a perspective that values nonviolence, shares resources equitably, and treats all people as worthy of dignity and respect.

We are better together — and I believe our society is becoming so isolated and divided that we forget this. The best way to respond to the divisiveness and suspicion being sown is to actively bring folks together, especially in our own neighborhoods, building relationships that will last beyond current events and issues.

What might this look like in the local congregation? Here are a few examples from my own setting.

Develop affordable ways to have fun together, to learn together, and to work together.

In this economy, many of us lack the money to travel to protests, conferences, or international delegations. It may be years before I can afford the level of activism I used to do. Rather than lament this, we can turn our creativity and passion to the places and people where we live. Many people have never had resources to travel for their activism. If you find yourself missing a march, spend the time visiting locally with the folks you may have otherwise left behind.

Churches are often afraid to get involved in public schools, due to the separation of church and state. But loving children enough to show up when they need you is a better testament to your faith than any words.

If you care about children and schools, start showing up. Many congregations today do not have their own youth programs, but can still make a difference with youth where they are. We’ve opened our facilities for weekly infant and preschool playgroups that serve families of diverse backgrounds. We’re adopting our two neighborhood schools with school supply and library book drives, hosting Scout programs, and serving as storytime volunteers.

Model guidelines for respectful dialogue within your congregation. Encourage your members to apply these skills to other places of public discussion.

When a minister in Florida recently attracted international attention by threatening to burn copies of the Qur’an on September 11th, we wondered what best we could do as ministers in our own community to bring about peace. We quickly decided to hold an “Introduction to the Qur’an” session for our Christian Education program. This proved so popular that we’ve scheduled additional sessions.

We hope to help our congregation understand the holidays and traditions of other traditions. We hope to help them understand issues like immigration, poverty, and other cultures and nations.

We realize that our members want to know about these things, and want someone to give them accurate information. We hope to eventually invite guest speakers of other faith traditions and also on other controversial issues, but for now as Christians, we need to “do our own work” first — especially working on anger, fear, and prejudices we may hold, so that we may be better hosts in the future.

We who are leaders of our faith communities must respond when another faith leader does wrong. When a preacher incites hate, we must incite love.

Le Anne Clausen de Montes, 32, is co-pastor of Iglesia San Juan Unido en Cristo/ St. John’s United Church of Christ, a bilingual/multicultural community of faith in Waukegan, Illinois. She previously served as director of Seminary Action and also of GlobalServe Coop/ Interfaith Volunteer Community.