Racism

Today I've been thinking about part of Eric Park's recent blog entry recapping General Conference. What got me thinking (other than the brilliant summary of "Iron Man"!) were the words about the UMC being a divided church in so many ways, one of which is in the matter of racism. This was brought to my attention on Sunday, in a subtle, yet real, way. For the children's message, the presenter did an outstanding job sharing "The Wordless Book" with all of the kids, and after sharing it, she gave all of them their own wordless book to use. I think this is a great tool to use for evangelism for kids, and I think the presenter did a great job with the lesson. I'm sure that racism was the furthest thing from her mind. However, here goes the presentation: "Ok everyone, this is a wordless book where each color represents something. First, Gold represents the streets of gold in heaven. Black represents..." (think about this a minute) ... "sin." White, of course represents purity that comes from the Red blood that Jesus shed for us. You see where I'm going with this? I don't know how else to present the wordless book, but I would guess that a black person sitting in the congregation (which we do have occasionally, but not this particular Sunday), would take notice of this representation. Some might think I'm being overly sensitive to this, but let's face it, I'm usually not sensitive enough. I don't know what alternative way there would be to present something like the wordless book, but perhaps we should come up with something. There are other subtle examples out there as well, I'm sure. What are we doing to overcome racism in our own lives, and in our congregations? I look forward to attending the training and learning what I can do.