Church and the Red Splots

An important encounter happened recently as my wife and I walked back to our car at the conclusion of a funeral in a small Minnesota farming town.   The town, I’ll call it, Crucible, had been a small farming community of Scandinavian (mostly Norwegian) immigrants.  It had a maximum population of a bit over 600 in the mid 1940s.  It had dropped to a low of 250 a few years ago as a result of the change from many small farms to much fewer bigger farms in the territory plus the recent financial recession.  Recently, partly as a result of an influx of immigrants from the South Pacific Islands, the town’s population has increased to about 370. 

As my wife and I walked to the car, the first thing we saw was three Black young adults in gym shorts and shirts walking by on their way to join their friends at the school.  As they passed right by us going the opposite direction, they didn’t catch our eye at first, but responded as my wife said “hello guys”. 

A few feet further along our walk, a man dressed in a suit came up to us and said, “Come here, I want to show you something.” (We didn’t who he was for sure but because he was dressed up we assumed that he had been at the funeral and perhaps knew me as one of the speakers.)  He pointed to the black topped roadway about five feet away where there was about a four inch splot of dark red. 

As I first looked, I thought the red splot might be dried blood and he was going to tell us about a recent tragedy.  But instead, he said, “This is what they do.”  It was said in a way that the red splot was identified as definitive evidence of the whole situation.  Then he went on, “We love them to death, but these immigrants come here and eat their “betel nut leaves” and then spit out the juice like this all over town. 

Our interpreter of his changing town went on to say something in a way that was clearly not meant to be a statement about statistics.  It was a comment about his own and “his” town’s changing life -- and his confusion, fear, or anger -- not really sure what was the underlying emotion.  Anyway, he said, “We used to be a town of Norwegians and some Swedes, but now we are only 40% of the population.”  He stopped his comments at that point as if what he just said explained the entire state of affairs and his apparent quandary.

Frankly, I don’t know more about the town of Crucible, or the interracial dynamics in the town, but the encounter that day reminded me of the late 60s at St. Olaf College when there were huge changes going on in the culture of our student body as a new array of illegal drugs permeated the campus.  The drugs caused “strange” behaviors in the students and created a difficult challenge for the staff who were supposed to deal properly with this new world;  we were confused, fearful and sometimes angry (because we didn’t know what to do to be helpful).

Steve Miles, the student body president, suggested that some of the staff should get a quick education on the new drugs in town and how to go about being helpful – no matter the cost.  The St. Olaf College President, Sid Rand, agreed with Steve and consequently sent me to the University of Chicago for three-days of classes addressing the issues we were facing. 

Soon policies and educational efforts on campus evolved that made a positive difference.  I’m not arguing that our new set of approaches alleviated all the problems by any means, but with the help of many students it lowered the student and staff level of fear, confusion, and anger so that we were better able to address many issues on campus in an intelligent and rational manner.

Given the amazing stories of change coming from our churches, why can’t they serve themselves and the communities in which they are located as leaders asking good questions and hosting discussions for exploring multiple routes toward some kind of resolution. 

First, teams of congregation and community members could attend education sessions (in central locations and/or online) to learn more about the situations they are facing and together share ideas for addressing what needs to be done in their locality. 

The issues addressed would of course need to be contextual to the situation of any given church and its community.  For some the issue might be a dwindling number of parishioners, for others the drug use of some members of the church or community, for others an influx of immigrants in town, for others concern about texting and driving by the young, and for others the draw of gangs.  The possibilities are endless, and our churches would seem to be the most significant organizations in most communities to get the process started and bring a measure of hope.

This is, it seems to me, doing God’s work.

Bruce