This is a guided tour through music and arts coming from various Christian worship traditions around the world, plus a few other things of related interest such as multicultural musics.
Welcoming and Inclusive Worship, by Katelin Hansen
My acquaintance Katelin Hansen lives in Columbus, Ohio, where she is part of the Ubuntu Choir for All People.
She blogs on topics related to Christianity and race, at ‘By Their Strange Fruit.’ It’s the place to go for weekly provocative reading on ethnic identities and Christianity in America!
http://bytheirstrangefruit.blogspot.com/
Her blog post on May 28 is
Welcoming and Inclusive Worship
http://bytheirstrangefruit.blogspot.com/2012/05/inclusive-worship.html
“Here, we begin a new series to explore how to facilitate disparate cultures’ coming together in communal worship for the sake of justice and reconciliation.
How can predominantly white Christian churches and organizations become safer places of worship for people of color? Many Christians truly have a desire to be more inclusive. Yet time and again, a brave POC will come to worship, and then never come back. This scenario plays out in bible studies, fellowship, and churches all over the country. So what is going on?”
Katelin suggests several things to consider - here are the summary statement:
1) Congregational Buy-In
2) Leadership reflective of multicultural affirmation.
3) Affirmation, not appropriation/ homogenization
4) Intentionality at the front door
5) Stand for justice and reconciliation in the broader community
6) Ethnicity-specific ministries and fellowship
Katelin does a great job at starting to unpack each of these primary points in her blog post; read the entire post here, and also check out the comments being left by her blog readers:
http://bytheirstrangefruit.blogspot.com/2012/05/inclusive-worship.html
