My original desire was for this article to not be about race but about worship, and I hope you will see, in the end, that it is. Worship is not about singing or playing an instrument. Worship is how we live our lives and how we approach each day. It’s not about raising one’s hands or bowing in prayer, swaying and clapping or holding a hymnal, standing, sitting, or kneeling; but it is about posture—our posture of spiritual surrender, selflessly before our God. It is about denying ourselves, looking past our preferences or inhibitions (stretching our comfort zones), and reaching beyond our human situations to convene with the divine in hearts full of wonder, desire, celebration, gratitude, and praise. For a Christian, it is an essential, transformative spiritual discipline that we need to intentionally practice.

Our church, FBC Clinton, is a predominantly white congregation. It has historical ties to our sister congregation, Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church, a predominantly black congregation. When their long-time pastor finished his race, the funeral was held at our church because our sanctuary could hold more people. After the service his grandson and I talked about how, while a very sad occasion, it was also a wonderful and needed time of community worship. He complimented the audio-visual capabilities and said it would be good for the community to gather in worship more often like this, but the black churches in the county were all too small to hold such an event. From this conversation, and many after it, the annual GospelFest Community Night of Worship was born. Three years into its history, a community choir was formed, an additional step toward helping our community worship together.

Rev. Tony Campolo was an evangelist who often talked about Sunday morning being the most segregated hour in America. It’s funny how sociological pendulums swing. When I was little and heard this, it was immediate conviction; it was understood that we should be worshipping together. Back then (whether we had the courage to practice it or not), we understood a social responsibility to “cross the aisle” and work together in our community despite our differences—especially in church! Nowadays, we are often offended at the suggestion of assimilation, after all it implies something we’re doing is wrong—isn’t it our right to do things the way we want? How rude for someone to imply our ways are not the best! We shame anyone who encourages us to understand things that don’t fit our beliefs and refuse to sift the culture (that of man) from the truth (that of God) in our religion.

Race isn’t the only thing that segregates our society today. In a world where algorithms on our phones feed us only what we want to hear, we are becoming more and more polarized—entrenched in our ways of thinking and convinced that we are right in doing so. We are divided politically, socially, and economically. We can no longer have conversations to share ideas and talk about differences because conversations become so emotionally charged and heated. Religiously, we’re divided not only by the deity of Christ—we’re divided by our preferences of worship style, service time, and church building (and the business of doing “church” proves us even more aggressively divided). We worry more about what could be lost by assimilation than what will be gained. Many of us would quit our church before allowing someone to encourage us to worship in a way we don’t desire. We have become an idol; by “we” I mean our preferences and ensuring our first-world comfortability. When did we lose sight of what church is all about?

I think it breaks God’s heart to see His children divided by the differences He created to be our beautiful strengths. We should celebrate these differences among us, learn from them, and eagerly seek to get to know one another. When we embrace diversity—when we worship together, work together, and live for Christ together, we see a more complete picture of God and His Kingdom. God deserves the “together praise” of His beautifully diverse creation.

I hope you’ll join us for GospelFest this Sunday (Nov. 16), at 5:30 p.m. in FBC Clinton’s sanctuary. Please stay for the reception of fellowship to follow in the FBC Clinton’s FLC gym. – WilsonTaylor

“I dreamed I saw the people—they were imprisoned by their selves. Walls of pride and insecurity kept each other out and a wall of fear—it looked like hate to everybody. We’re not free from our selves; set us free from our selves and bring us together…We are made by the same God, we are owned by the same God, we are loved by the same God, so let us praise His name together…Together, Lord.” (“Together Praise” lyrics by WilsonTaylor)