hello everyone welcome to this week's episode of community conversations i'm your host roger coulton did you go to a religious service this week during this week two major religions both christians and jews celebrated one of their hol weeks of the year but not everyone in belmont identifies with kristi any or judaism to many belmont residents this week is just another week how does a community such as bama embrace its religious diversity today we're going to talk about that question accordingly for today's show i have invited pastor dane housing pastor of the beacon community church to talk with us about the ups and downs of living in a community such as belmont that has lots of religious diversity pastor housing welcome to community conversations and thanks for taking time of out of your morning to come talk with us well thank you roger i'm just delighted to be here thank you for the opportunity to share  before we start talking about religious diversity i'd like to actually talk about the your church for a few minutes can you tell us about the beacon community church how long as it had been around how small or big as it fifty adults twenty children and we meet just up propeller od'd from the belmont media center at avalon dance and fitness we rent their on on sunday mornings and what you said that you have twenty kids  what kind of children's programming in particular do you have we do so we have toddlers with a big toddler room and there is singing and us a brief bible story that would go with that we have a pre k and a k class that is is more structured they have a more and more contents of the do a more extended bible study there and then we have an elementary class that is st through th grade that meets only during the sermon and so right before i get up and preach i usually preach about th minutes they will be dismissed and they have their class and then they come back after those thirty five minutes and join us for singing at the end what what distinguishes the beaking community church from other churches belmont is that a silly question i don't think it's a silly question i think people are curious about that when they go and look at a different church some people have a specific thing that they're looking at in terms of a faith community and so i would say our church desires to declare the gospel of jesus his perfect life his sacrificial death and his triumphant resurrection from the grave and so when you when you come on a sunday we sing about the message of jesus we preach about that we read about it in the bible so it shapes our community and so that message declared but then the message isn't just declared it's displayed in the community and so we want to be a church that it's just not about sundays but we're involved through all the other days of the week displaying the very character of jesus in our community through loving acts of service kindness generosity just ways that we can bless people and and display the character of jesus in our community so display and declare who jesus is and that is some manifested in your name i have to yell you that i i'm intrigued by your knee but scuse me by your name the beacon community church it's  not like it's the st baptist church nor the united methodist church but it seems like there has been not that not everybody puts thought into their name but the beacon community church seems to have a particular thought behind it we do and i'll tell you a short story about that we actually came up with a short list of names roughly two years ago it was the spring of two thousand and fifteen we were about to start six months out and we came up with a short list of names and then we asked the community we polled the community one saturday morning to see what they would what if a new church was starting in town what name appeals to them the most because we wanted to be a church that's about the community and so we simply talked about one hundred people one saturday morning in march people in cushing square belmont center and waverly square and just asked of these three names what do you like the most in faraway beacon community church was the one that they have heard which was interesting we did the short list of names all dealt with light and community we knew that we one of the scripture verses in matthew chapter five that shapes our our our ethos as a church is nobody lights a lamp and puts it under a basket but they put it on the table so that the light can shine to everybody in the house in the same way let your light shine before others so that people can see and give glory to your father who is in heaven and so we want to be a church that shines light into the community and so that's why we went with beacon and it's very boston beacon hill beacon street right so yeah well before we move away from that i was reading the other day about the the conflict between the progressive community and the evangelical community and i think that everyone no matter which part of the divide you're on there there are people believe there is that conflict there and yet what i was reading about was how the religious community really and i well let me finish thought the religious community  really has a commitment to community service one of the aspects of dom and i was involved with was building the habitat for humanity yes and habitat for humanity it was organized and it is run by evangelical christians yes right so community service is one big aspect of the beacon community church it is and we  love to have our heads and hearts wrapped around the people in the community in ways that we can just serve tangibly so we we love to serve coffee to commuters on wednesday morning and belmont center and thursdays in waverly we have a monthly free movie for for families at studio cinema jimbaran montes been wonderful renting for low cost for us so that we can just bless families we love to serve meals at the fire department we clean up pleasant street every year with belmont citizens forum so any way that we can serve we want to be involved in that let's talk about religious diversity you know down there is in or i think it rises to the level of an organization the way that my religious council are you a part of that i have connected with them through a friend joe zahra who i believe he's he's the pastor at plymouth congregational church and i gentlemen have worked tirelessly with belmont serves every columbus day and we have plugged in and served at burbank school landscaping as well as there is every other year there's a mission trip that churches can send students to i believe they've gone down to new orleans a time or two so that's every other year that church is concerned so belmont the belmont religious council i believe is oriented around serving together different churches coming together and serving in the community and outside our community as well and there are various ecumenical services in right i haven't been one there are we for the last two years have been a part of belmont is one that we which is not sponsored by the belmont religious council i know that's actually birth out of the belmont clergy association which cheryl minor at all saints church has spearheaded so once a month on a wednesday all the clergy get together across denominations across faith backgrounds at a church in belmont and they just basically have coffee and check in with one another it's a very collegial very friendship oriented but out of that they did they decided to play in the few years back an interfaith thanksgiving service and they have a different speaker each each year and so i was able to two years ago share a message at that service so that's that's not a belmont religious council sponsored it's actually the belmont clergy association they're closely related but sure sir and as a member of the clergy do you have an opinion i can't imagine you don't have an opinion about the way the benefits of ecumenical activities are interfaith activities i think it's very important to enter dialogue with people who think very differently than you for two reasons number one you're learning to love and serve and connect with other people which is which is inherently good but number two it helps you formulate and bolster your own understanding of your own faith to see to seek out the evidence for why you believe what you believe in so i don't think it's healthy to just circle up the wagons and cluster into your own little religious enclave where you're oblivious to what's going on outside and so to love and serve and connect with other people but also to understand your faith more necessitates you see seeing what other people believe in and  comparing that why do i believe what i believe what is the evidence for that so yeah i think it's healthy to dialogue with people who think differently than you one thing that it seems like that i've run into over the years is there's a a mission outreach to convert and there is a feeling that the conversation leads to conversion but what i hear you saying is that it's the  exchange that is important whether they're you know necessarily approach other people simply for conversion you want to exchange ideas and explore your own beliefs relative to others did i restate that you were trying to did and i would nuance that i think i tend to think the old door knocking for the purpose of conversion i understand why why people have done i think it can be inherently offensive  and off putting and actually counterproductive so roger i am in the evangelical camp and i do believe that the message of christianity is one that has the power for change and transformation and conversion i just think there are there are better avenues to to have somebody enter a conversation so that so that they can be transformed and i just don't think an aggressive ramrodding something down somebody who's throat is healthy nor is it helpful i think people have to explore the evidence and then consider that and continue to consider it in conversation with others in community and i believe god works through that and brings people to an understanding of his truth through do that so that's how i would passover started on monday and monday night and went through tuesday night can you talk about holy week for a minute sure it's well to let our listeners know where we are recording on a thursday so this is your monday thursday this is monday thursday our church doesn't have a monday thursday service we do have a good friday service but i have friends at pase and park congregational church and they're preparing for their monday thursday service as well which is always meaningful and it's a celebration of jesus last supper with his disciples oftentimes people will do a foot washing service as a part of monday thursday traditionally and they will celebrate the lord's supper so it is a tremendously important week it is a wonderfully rich week with meaning and importance and community orientation and so i was just inviting some some folks who are good friday service and so so you know we celebrate  the the death of jesus on good friday and how that that death brings about hope and the promise of forgiveness and eternal life for all who believe and his death is then vindicated on easter sunday when he rose from the grave physically and historically and so we will celebrate remember his death on friday and then we'll celebrate his resurrection on sunday and it's very much a community event we want to invite people to explore that with us and come and join us for a service and is there a for example a muslim equivalent to the christian holy week i would say they're the muslim equivalent would be what is their focal time in the year  their focal emphasis and i would probably i could be wrong on this but probably say the month of fasting i don't ramadan which i believe is later this summer so that would be their emphasis very much like passover young poor russia perspective or is it my feeling is that it's got quite a bit of diversity to it i think it is quite diverse i know historically i've studied up on this it was predominately the predominant  religious group would be roman catholics i think that there is compared to twenty or thirty years ago there is there is more diversity now i've seen that with the belmont clergy association just in conversations people  been here way longer than i have and they're probably the people to ask i've only been serving here for about two years but i do gather that there's there's growing diversity within the town is does a community as  community benefit from religious diversity in your opinion i know are there ways that it manifests itself i guess that's the other way too and i would say you asked the question early on in our conversation about just the benefit of interfacing with people who think or is it so i do i do think that that that is is good for a community to begin to think what do people believe and why do they believe that and what is the evidence for that so i am all about exploration and education because in my opinion christianity is a reasoned faith it is a thought through it's a researched faith and so we want to think what is the evidence for this death and resurrection of jesus that we're about to celebrate over the next couple days is that historically true is that accurate and so i'm all about exploring and dialoguing and connecting with other people and asking them why do you believe what you believe what would what has led you to that what influences have shaped you so i yes i think that entering dialogue and having conversations with people is a healthy thing and let me try to spit back what what i think i just heard because i'm learning as sure i listen to you so this this is wonderful the diversity presents different perspectives and different people have different bases for their right perspectives so to the extent that there is an interaction there for you not only learn about the basis for the other person's belief but you can test your own beliefs against that basis agreed and and i think that to spin that just one to turn that a little bit more i think if we're not interacting with others sometimes that that comes out of a place of fear and insecurity of our own understanding in our own kind of conviction like maybe maybe a lot of sure as i as i want to say what do we do we kind of turn inward and we don't want to be challenged we don't want to be we don't want to be  ultimately helps your own understanding of your own faith if you can be challenged and ask questions about that and to be begin to develop a healthy defense of yeah this is why i believe what i what i believe so yeah it's it's healthy to have a conversation and to take this another step and i don't want to go too far because i sure it could get us off track here but what what you're just talking about isn't true simply for religion but it could be ending days w asian countries mandarin speaking cantonese speaking korean speaking i've noticed just in driving around town there are several churches who are historic churches they've been here for a long time they have a sunday morning service but they rent their facility out in the afternoon to what appears to be a maybe a korean service there are i know all saints and i believe united methodist church as well has a congregation of  emphasis in the in the afternoons there so i have seen that and i think it's a it's a wonderful thing we've loved interacting with people in our own congregation from the different countries that's great i want to remind our listeners that we are talking today with pastor dane helsing pastor housing is pastor of the beacon community church here in belmont in pastor house and again i want to thank you for  for joining us i want to change directions a little here it's it still has to do with diversity and and acceptance but are you familiar with the the hate has no home here campaign i've heard of i've heard of it truthfully i haven't read up on it as much but i have heard about it and it's an interesting campaign that in that it got it was started at an elementary home here and the phrase was actually developed by a rd grader in the right you would think that you know that's got to be an ad agency somewhere but a rd grader in chicago came came up with sometimes facilitate being very connected insular you are insular that's the word do you find particular challenges or particular opportunities for being in a small town belmont is a small town i mean twenty five thousand people four now square miles it's not very big but it's close enough to boston what i found is there are enough people who are regularly moving in along the road corridor because they jump on the seventy three dollars bus and they go down to harvard for a grad program or an internship or professorship and so i found that belmont can also be as a stablished as it is it can also be very have internationals coming through people from different faith backgrounds coming through so i don't necessarily see heavy rooted insular ism in belmont i think there is there is just there is growing diversity in the town so i i don't necessarily see great barriers to i think there are there are some who maybe have been here for thirty or forty years and they've asked well why do we need a new church you know so we had a little bit of you know come up against sort of some impediments and that regard you know and why don't you answer that and why does why did because you're not the only new say are connected to some kind of faith community i would guess and this is strictly a gas twenty or thirty percent i would argue that it's scuse me much less than that really  yes and i think for us as we think about it again i'm coming from the christian background we believe that the message of christianity the message of who jesus is and what he's done of hope and forgiveness through his death and resurrection is for everybody and so it troubles me to know in a town twenty five thousand people even if ten percent of them there's a lot of work there's a lot of work to do and so that's at the end of the day for us you know  i think there is great need and there's great opportunity to be able to share that message and to show that message and community to declare and display and so that's how i typically answer that there's a lot of people who i think might be interested in having a conversation about about christianity and i'd like to go back to that the analogy that i drew a few minutes ago between religion and politics yes one hears in politics today that the animosity that is so prevalent in politics is actually driving people away from politics and participation and civic engagement is some of the religious animosity and feel free to disagree with me when i assert that as a fact but does the religious animosity drive people away from religion altogether i think so roger and i think one of the ways that this manifests is if you walk into a church and automatically you hear another people group castigated lots of foolish things historically lots of harmful things lots of hateful things and i think we need to own that ask forgiveness from god for those things and walk forward in newness of of life and and seek to change that and so has the hatred the vitriol yes it's destructive and it drives people away i've had conversations with people in town who have grew up maybe affiliated with a certain church but they've largely largely fallen away from that because of some harms and hurts and abuses and so forth and so yes roger the animosity the vitriol it's harmful there's no question one thing that that i'm a fan of as you've heard is the notion of not only billet just diversity but moving from in my mind this is a pretty clear cut line but the notion of moving from diversity to pluralism and what i mean when i talk about that distinction is diversity simply means that you have a bunch of different religions a bunch that's a term of art and pluralism implies which is a town such as due to move from diversity to pluralism i mean i think that there's an important nuance here in talking about pluralism so i have jesus had conversations with all kinds of different people and he always did that in a gracious manner and he always upheld the dignity of the other person that he was talking to but he also challenged what they believed and asked why they believe that and what if if you continue in that belief what does that actually lead to so roger i'm not of the belief some people can use the analogy pluralism there are many paths up the same mountain i'm not of that of that you're not of that i'm not of that persuasion i don't think that's fair i don't think that that's fair to what different faith backgrounds actually believe there are there are very competing claims for example if you look at what a christian what somebody from a jewish background or from a muslim background the similarities in there but there are also great differences for example of who jesus is and what jesus has done very different backgrounds very different persuasions about that they can't all be right right so so i i think we have to respect the differences of them and not act like it's a hodgepodge and it's all it all goes to the same place it's all the same meaning i think that that washes out the distinctiveness of each each faith so we have to acknowledge the differences and then examine the evidence and let people come to an understanding or conclusion of their own so i'm not comfortable with oh it's just a hodgepodge of pluralism and it all comes out in the well you're flattening the distinctiveness among those different faith me choose judaism and and muslims islam as an example that we don't have to agree on jerusalem to agree on how to build schools in vietnam is that something that your work with community service would seem yes i agree with that yeah i think so belmont serves for example i joy that outreach because you have people who are religious and irreligious people who are jewish christian muslim they're all serving the town together and i think that that's that's that's a great that's a great picture of partnership  so yeah i think that if we can come together a partner together and do meaningful service in the community though we have great differences as well in terms of the nitty gritty of the various faith persuasions so but i think there are things that we can definitely partner together and be a blessing to people in the town so we can accept the differences we don't deny the differences between the different religions in order to work together on things like that right that's what i heard you say right yeah dialogue about those differences and and then research those differences and come to an understanding what what is truth what is how do i move forward in the wisest possible way given what i've joining us i would like to thank you the listeners for tuning in we've been talking today with pastor dane housing pastor housing is pastor of the beacon community church here and one of the two most recent churches to join our belmont community you can listen to our community conversations podcast by accessing it online at the b m c podcast network media dot org and you can also download us from i tunes by searching for the b m c podcast network i'm your host roger coulton i will talk with you again in two weeks thank you for listening thank you roger i enjoyed it you have a great set up