Annoyed by People of Every Hue

I have been annoyed by people of every skin color.

That’s what I was thinking, sitting in a room full of Christians I call family.

One unspoken discomfort we quietly endure in the family of God is open sharing time at public gatherings. It can be a joy. Or, it can be a form of spiritual waterboarding.

While some Christians are gifted with brevity, with awareness of their audiences’ interest level, and with the ability to edit unnecessary details,  other Christians are not. But, because we’re accustomed to sacrifice in the family of God, both kinds of Christians are invited to “share.”

Hence, the annoyance factor.

Occasionally, an entire assembly of intelligent, loving people are taken hostage by one oblivious sister (or brother) with the advantage of being the one gripping a microphone before a group of people called by God to patient endurance.

Each one sits squirming, not daring to make eye contact with others. We wonder if, just perhaps, if we can conjure up an ounce of genuine compassion, maybe God will notice and silence the sharer quickly.

That day, I’d already explored the full scope of my natural gracious compassion with the current speaker and she showed no sign of stopping so I knew I wasn’t fooling God. I just gave up pretending, hoping the Holy Spirit would suddenly flood me with a supernatural interest in rambling, tangential, personal details.

That’s when it occurred to me there are boring people of every skin color known to humanity.

The woman with the mic doesn’t share my skin color but I didn’t find her ethnic background a barrier to finding her endless, mind-numbing speech torturous to endure just like I would with a boring Caucasian woman.

That’s when I scanned the faces of the other worshipers and thought, “Why do we let other people tell us about our own faith experience?” This gathering of multiple ethnic backgrounds is my experience of Christianity. It has been my experience that the house of God is a place of racial reconciliation – not perfectly, and not without intentional effort, but under His cover, we do make progress, one relationship at a time.

The headline we usually see on the church is that “eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week.” To which I say, HEY! show up one Sunday, my friend and then come back midweek, to small group, to ministry meetings, and prayer circles and conferences and church family celebrations. Every color is represented in God’s family and inside His great heart is where we are most apt to learn to love.

In my experience, there have been some congregations of predominantly one ethnicity but every single one has been welcoming to those of other cultural backgrounds. Growing up loving Jesus meant for me that judgment and exclusion weren’t options. Christians of every color have universally taught me to love and accept my brothers and sisters of all backgrounds – even the boring ones (a characteristic, by the way, that can’t be spotted with the naked eye.)

In fact, it’s within this context of family that I’ve been free to cross bridges. To ask people from different countries or ethnic backgrounds to teach me about their experiences with God, with culture, and with racial divide. I’ve certainly been hurt within the church and so have my friends of other skin colors but that’s like saying my brother and I hurt one another growing up. We’re family. It happens. What better place to have our conversations than from within the boundaries of forgiveness, grace, mercy, compassion, and truth?

Within the Body of Christ, we’ve already openly confessed that we’re sinners, we’re guilty, we’re faulted, we’re broken, and we’re in need of salvation. Do we have prejudices? Yup. I, for one, struggle to love boring ramblers. But God gives me no other option than to listen to the testimony of my rambling brothers and sisters and, in fact, to learn to love everyone else He chooses to include in our great family.

And they’re stuck learning to love me. Even though I’m white. Even though I’m predisposed to love brief, tidy, pithy testimonies. Even though I’m impatient and sarcastic. Even though I rely heavily on the Holy Spirit for compassion for boring people.

When the boring woman stopped speaking, I heard sighs from people of every hue. Maybe her rambling speech was part of God’s plan to give us all another shared experience. Bored into bonding. Could be part of the plan.

Why don’t we tell more of our stories? Why don’t we speak out about the relationship building that happens in the church? Maybe we take it for granted. Maybe we’re convinced by the media it only happens in our little corner of Christianity. Maybe we’re afraid of the backlash. Could be, we’re afraid of being shouted down. We might be but that shouldn’t stop us.

Through Jesus Christ, people of different color experience communion. Sometimes, we bore one another but we tolerate even the boring people because, well, we’re family. C’mon. Click on the comments and tell a story.