Dive Into Diversity

The great thing about the people God has made is this: we are all different enough to be interesting, but similar enough to connect. At heart, we are all made of the same stuff. Human experiences unite us, human concerns are common to us. And yet we are each unique. Knowing another person, when knowledge runs deeper than 'hello' on the station platform or 'is this seat taken?' adds to my total understanding of the world. Discovering the lives of others; hearing their perspectives; exploring my own assumptions through the lens of theirs: all these are enriching, empowering experiences. Which is why diversity is so important to God's idea of church. Saint paul, especially, draws attention to the nature of the church as unity-in-diversity. Emphasising classes and categories rather than individuals - male and female; slave and free; Jew and Gentile; Greek and Barbarian - Paul presents the church as an environment in which tribes in tension find the power to co-exist. In this redeemed community historic enemies become fellow-travellers. But this is a salad bowl, not a melting pot. The tribes are not homogenised into a bland mush, like play-dough colours mixed once to often. Rather, they are woven together into a beautiful picture - the image of God rediscovered in the colours of the human family. In this unity identity is retained: it is the unity of the collage, not the crowd. And Paul attributes this picture not only to his virtual notion of the universal church, but also to his actual vision of the local church: real people in real places displaying the wonder of unity-in-diversity. All cultures. All ages. All classes. All types. Genders and generations together. Each individual finding identity and thriving in community: this is Paul's description of the localised ecclesia - a deposit, in each town and city, of God's new and wondrous family. What changes might your local church need to journey from bland monochrome to glorious colour?