This article was originally published as a blog post on the Evangelical Free Church parent site here on November 30, 2021. Written by April Warfield.
The Holy Spirit transforms through tension. We just need the courage to listen.
It’s summer in Los Angeles and I’m preparing to serve on a college missions trip. Before serving, we intentionally prayed for diversity in the team, that God would provide diverse people from different backgrounds to share His good news. God answered that prayer and blessed us with a diverse group of majority culture and ethnic minorities together. Needless to say, we were very excited. Many of us even met beforehand as we raised support, so we grew acquainted with each other before meeting in Los Angeles.
A female student (let’s call her Becky) was on our trip and she loved America; her love for this country was on the tip of her tongue, every day, every hour. But, in our diverse group there was also a female Native American student (we’ll call her Ava). Ava’s shy and not saying anything, but Becky’s enthusiasm for America was clearly weighing on her, because her feelings about America weren’t the same as the majority culture. The Fourth of July was coming, and the group felt the tension in the air.
One of the group members came to me and mentioned how something was wrong with Ava. How she was acting differently than when we started together. So, we sat down and talked about it. We learned this was the first time in her life she would have spent Independence Day outside of her community, with her family on the reservation. It’s a different day to Native Americans than for many other Americans and honestly, for most of our group.
After learning this, some in the group wanted to cancel our Fourth of July celebration for the sake of community. But this didn’t sit well with Becky; she had been eagerly waiting to spend July 4th in Los Angeles. She, and others, wanted to go to a Dodgers game and see fireworks.
In that tension, the group had to figure this out: How do we acknowledge cultural backgrounds, honor one another and stay on mission?
“As the EFCA works to unify all people together under the banner of Christ, from every racial, ethnic, socioeconomic group and beyond, conflict has naturally risen; if we don’t find biblical ways to deal with it, it has the real ability to threaten Christian witness and unity. ”
