My Wife the Pastor, or Diversity in Leadership, or Why are tall white guys with college educations so often church leaders, or Its Friday and I’m glad

17Jun05

Hum….

I guess the title kinda says it. “My Wife the Pastor, or Diversity in Leadership, or Why are tall white guys with college educations so often church leaders, or Its Friday and I’m glad”

But really.

My Wife the Pastor – I don’t blog a ton about my family. There are probably good and bad reasons for that, but just in case you aren’t aware MY WIFE ROCKS. Not only is she a great wife, friend, lover, but she is also a wonderful mom (or “mamma” as Cloey says). Cloey is already growing up fast at 19.5 months of age. We can already see a depth of compassion, joy, people-loving, and sensitivity in her that will blossom someday into an amazing adult woman (presently she’s an amazing toddler).

But I really want to say is that my wife is a pastor. She has been ordained by a thousand phone calls and emails of friends who need her listening ear. Last night she spent 3 hours on the phone with a friend that she hasn’t talk to in 3 years and was in need of some serious pastoral care – the kinda that only Sarah could give.

Which got me thinking. Well, that’s not true. I must confess. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Why are so many leaders of churches tall-white-male-middleclass-college-educated-(goatee-optional-but-preferred-tatoo-very-optional-but-indicator-of-true-pomo/emerg___-status). I’m not the first, nor the most articulate, to notice. Somebody else did a while back, but I don’t remember where.

Anyway. The point is there are probably lots of really cogent sociological/cultural/spiritual/emotional reasons for the fact. Not that they are good or bad, they are just explanations. But I really don’t care too much at the moment about them. I don’t really need to understand it. What I do want is to move beyond it.

And I’m not talking about the National Church. I’m not talking about Emergent or VineyardUSA or whatever. Those may be important, but that’s somebody else’s deal. I’m talking about VC.

Vineyard Central.

I’d love to see us as a Community of Faith – a People of God – to have a beautifully diverse leadership with people of both genders and several races/ethnicities/cultures/socio-economies at the table.

But here’s the problem. I’m not allowed to say that. I’m really not. Because it is just some tall-white-middleclass-college-educated-male sounding Politically Correct, Culturally Relevant, and/or (at the very worst) me asserting my subsummed dominance as a person-o-privelege over the less fortunate (whatever that means) so as to assimilate them into MY power-structure.

I’m not allowed to say it because, well, I’m not credible.

But I don’t know whatelse to say.

I don’t want this diversity as a means for cultural-superiority, political-(or eccelsial/ecumenical)-correctness, or cultural-relevance to a pluralistic world. (remember, I can’t say that… or this) What I do want is a Wholistic Body of Christ. I want my community to be strong, vibrant, colorful, healthy, and fertile. We do that best when we are not just listening-to, but deeply informed/influenced by persons of diversity that are joined in Christ.

We can’t do this thing alone and we need to hear (and obey) the Spirit’s whisper that comes through others and the other and The Other. But I don’t know how to get there.

I don’t know how to get there without being pedantic (a new favorite word of mine). I don’t know how to get there authentically.

Diversity for diversity’s sake? No.

Diversity for my sake. I need the other. I can’t be me without it.

Oh, and its SO Friday.

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