Your Church Is More Politically Mixed Than You Think

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the political and cultural diversity within churches, highlighting the disparity between pastors' assumptions and the reality of their congregations' beliefs. He emphasizes the importance of pastors understanding the diverse perspectives of their congregants and encourages open dialogue to better lead through political differences. • Many pastors believe a smaller percentage of their congregation votes differently than they do, when the actual number is closer to 40-50%. • Churches are more politically and culturally diverse today compared to 25-30 years ago. • Pastors often lead an 'imaginary version' of their church without understanding the true diversity of beliefs within their congregation. • The most politically mixed environments pastors may encounter are likely within their church services. • Encourages pastors to have open conversations and listen without trying to convince others, to better understand differing perspectives. • Promotes self-awareness among church leaders regarding the varied political and informational influences within their congregations.

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Transcript

The Hidden Vote Split In Church

Why This Cultural Moment Matters

Pastors Get Stuck In Bubbles

How Church Diversity Has Changed

When People Disagree On Facts

Stop Pastoring An Imaginary Church

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Quick gut check today. What percentage of your church voted differently than you did in the past election? I asked this question every once in a while to some pastors, and I must say that the answer usually comes back somewhere around 20% or so, they say. Yeah. The actual number, at least according to some of the recent polling that's been done in churches, is that it's probably closer to 40 or 50%. So if 40 or 50% of your church voted differently than you did, guess what? You're pastoring people who you assume agree with you, and a lot of them just don't. And that's what we're going to talk about. We're in a little bit of a series this week, prompted by the events this past weekend at the White House Correspondence Dinner. This is not a political podcast today or this week, but we do want to address how these kind of things that are happening in our culture and some of the cultural trends that we're seeing in churches are showing up and how we can lead through them. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistry staffing.com and your host right here every weekday on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Okay, guys and gals, the bubble is real. And chances are you're in one too. And here's what I've noticed. Pastors think that they're the most aware person in the room when it comes to political diversity. And most of the times we're not. We're talking to the people who talk to us. We're talking to the people who agree with us. We're talking to the people who feel safe enough to bring their politics to church and have those conversations with us. But guess what? There's a whole bunch of other people that are sitting in our pews and in our seats on Sunday mornings and on the weekend. They're but they're sitting quietly, they're listening to you for clues. They're deciding every week whether you're a safe person to be honest with. And let me just throw in here. I think this is how, if I could say how culturally churches have changed. When I grew up in a smaller church, obviously, but let's say even 25 years ago or 30 years ago, which I know for some of you young'uns, that's a long time ago. But some of you, you remember it like it was yesterday, 25, 30 years ago, most churches were pretty monolithic, right? Everybody believed the same thing theologically, everybody fell into the same path politically. A lot of them, a lot of the people that came to our churches were the same race. Not a lot of diversity in many churches 25 or 30 years ago. And everybody thought the same way, and that's just not the same anymore. 25, fast forward 25 or 30 years to today, there are a lot of different people attending our churches, and if we go in just thinking that everyone's the same, it's we're deceiving ourselves. And that's part of what's changed. It used to be that your people maybe disagreed here or there about a policy, and that was okay with you. You'd rather that they everybody believed the way you did on everything and agreed with your policy, right? But it now it's not just that they disagree with the policies, it's that they disagree with the facts. And if you have small groups in your churches, I'm guessing that this has come up before. A small group leader will come and say, Wow, we nearly lost our small group on Thursday night because we got somebody brought this up as a prayer quest, and the next thing you know, we're talking about politics, and I couldn't believe how diverse our group was. Two members of the same small group can describe the same news event uh in completely different terms. One person watched the coverage that emphasized one thing, maybe on one news channel, another person watched coverage that emphasized something else on another news channel. A third spent the weekend in a Facebook group that's not even on the radar of the first two. And they're not just on different sides. Sometimes people aren't in the same room anymore. And that's the new reality in a lot of our churches, and that's the reality that we have to lead through. So most of church pastors and church staff members really need to take a little bit of a priority of who is coming to your church and how they think on different things. And I need I want permission to be honest with you today. Okay, and you might not agree with everything that I say. That's absolutely fine. Most church leaders, let me back that off. A lot of pastors, a lot of church leaders have never really actually taken stock of their congregation's political and informational diversity. A lot of times we assume, we project, we pastor an imaginary version of our church. Why don't you try this? Okay. Picture the eight or ten people you'd consider your most committed members.

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Okay?

Sunday Morning As The Divided Room

Practical Steps To Lead Better

Email Us And Get The Newsletter

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Eight or ten people that you think are all in, they're your most committed members, committed members. Now, now I want you to do this. Do I actually know where each one of those people land? Do I know what podcasts they listen to? Do I know what shaped how they processed this past weekend? And if you don't know those people well enough to know those kind of things about them, you're flying blind. Now listen, I'm not saying you have to be neutral on everything. I'm not saying that the gospel doesn't have political implications. It absolutely does. I'm saying that you can't pastor people you don't actually know. And most of us, let me walk it back again, a lot of us don't know our people as well as we think we'd we do. So here's the bottom line for today. The most politically mixed room in your week this week, the most political divided room that you're gonna be in this week is probably gonna be on Sunday morning. It's probably your church. And you need to lead like that's true because chances are it is. So what do you do with this? What do you do with this? Todd, you're telling me that my church is all on a different page. And I think in a large degree in a lot of churches, that is true. What do you do with it? This week, maybe have an honest conversation, maybe a cup of coffee with someone in your church who maybe you suspect, maybe doesn't see the world exactly like you. And I don't want you to try to convince them of anything. I just want you to listen to them. Maybe in your next staff meeting, ask the team this question who in our church do we think disagrees with us politically? Are we sure the conversation will surprise you? And uh, you have to be careful when you ask questions like this, particularly even in a closed, in a small staff meeting, you're pulling things out from people that you don't really necessarily maybe even want to go there. But it's important to have the conversation just to know that you are leading every week a diverse group of people. So that's the thought for today. Tomorrow, we're gonna be talking about the pulpit, about what you say, about what it's for, what it's not for, especially during weeks like this. All right, I hope that was helpful to you. I would love to hear if you've got a story from this week, something a member said to you, something you're navigating, something you're trying to work through, send me an email, podcast at chemistry staffing, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. And also I've been mentioning this, head over to Church Leadership Radar, churchleadership radar.com. We've got a brand new email, daily email newsletter that has a lot of great things, a lot of great resources every day for church staff. But I think hopefully over time we'll make you a better church staff member. It's churchleadership radar.com. All right, see you tomorrow. Thanks for joining us.