One pastor wondered out loud, “How in the world can my church of 240 members have over 500 different opinions?” Another pastor complained, “These days ministry is more about herding cats than shepherding sheep.”

One of the most enriching and fatiguing things about church life these days is the enormous diversity of thought and opinions within most local congregations.

During my last five or so years of full-time service as a pastor, I often scratched my head and wondered why I felt more fatigued than I did during my early years of ministry. There were likely many contributing factors including my age, my length of tenure, and what Paul called “the daily pressure of my concern for the churches” (II Corinthians 11:28). But it dawned on me that a part of this new mental fatigue that most pastors experience is produced by the continual task of navigating diversity within the church, a challenge for which most pastors are neither trained nor prepared.

To further process my notion, I started listing the ways the church is more diverse today than it was when I began my first tenure as a pastor. I quickly identified 10 areas of church ministry that illustrate this proliferation of diversity:

1. Generational diversity: There are now 4-6 generations present on any given Sunday in many multi-generational churches.

2. Translation diversity: Rather than one standard Bible translation, members of my congregation read a variety of different Bible translations in hard print and on their smart devices, and I am sure there are a dozen or more different translations being referenced each time I preach.

3. Racial and ethnic diversity: There are a growing number of races, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds present within most healthy congregations.

4. Worship time diversity: Many churches have multiple worship services on Sunday, throughout the weekend, or during the week. Such a congregation seldom, if ever, meets together, creating an environment where many members never meet each other.

5. Worship style diversity: Our church hosts three Sunday morning worship services, two in English and one in Vietnamese, and each involves a different style of worship. Without proactive pastoral leadership and cohesive missional unity, stylistic differences can breed conflict and competition within a church family.

6. Curriculum diversity: Rather than a standard denominational literature, there are multiple curricula used by Sunday School and Bible study groups in our church. And small groups often choose their own material, which may or may not correlate with the mission and doctrine of that particular local church.

7. Missional partnership diversity: Rather than having a singular missional partnership, many of our churches contribute to and network with multiple mission partners. The last time I counted, our church partnered with or contributed to 48 different entities or agencies through designated and undesignated giving.

8. Denominational background diversity: Years ago, it was a rare occurrence for a person to join our church from a different denomination, but today there are persons from various denominational traditions represented in our congregation. Almost half of the new members of the Baptist church I served came from non-Baptist background.

9. Political diversity: In my first church, I would venture to say that the congregation was pretty evenly divided between the two primary political parties, but they never brought their political differences to church. Today congregants may be affiliated with political parties, subsidiary groups within each party, PACS, and lobbying groups, and many readily articulate their political biases at church, often claiming that their perspective is the only “true Christian perspective.”

10. Theological diversity: Multiple strands of theological influence, from both academic and folk theology, are represented in the DNA of most local congregations. And church members read from a unique mix of pop authors and scholars.

Unfortunately, there was no course offered in seminary on “Navigating Diversity.” Churches basically are going to do one of two things in regard to diversity. They will either limit diversity, by becoming a highly homogenized church. For example, they will focus on ministry to one or two generations, “only” allow one Bible translation, or only promote one theological perspective. Or they will embrace their diversity and leverage it for kingdom purposes.

Does this expanded diversity have a positive or negative affect on the congregation? I think it depends on how ministers and ministry leaders circumnavigate the diversity.

From a potentially negative perspective, there are many ways diversity makes ministry more challenging:
1) Communication becomes more challenging because the words that seem to be healthy and benign to one group of people can serve as emotional triggers to others.
2) Planning a program of discipleship, ministry initiatives, or activities for a diverse congregation can become cumbersome.
3) Navigating the tension created by extraordinary diversity can weary the staff.
4) The greater the diversity, the greater the potential for conflict.

But from a positive perspective, a high level of diversity provides many kingdom opportunities and benefits:
1) Those in a diverse congregation can learn to respect varying points of view.
2) Multiple generations, ethnicities, and spiritual backgrounds tend to provide multiple perspectives that enrich the overall ministry of the church.
3) If a diverse congregation is diligent “to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace” (Ephesians 4:3), that congregation can be a powerful witness to the transformative power of the gospel.
4) A diverse congregation usually is comprised of diverse spiritual gifts, talents, and skill sets.
5) A highly diverse congregation is a vivid picture of the diversity of God’s universal family. Like the colors and images in a church’s stained glass windows, diversity becomes a prism through which the light of Christ paints a portrait of the love of God.

Local churches are more diverse today than at any point in history. And indications are that diversity will continue to increase exponentially. To effectively navigate diversity, it is imperative for any church, especially a highly diverse congregation, to share a common commitment to following Jesus, to look to the Bible as their spiritual compass, and to covenant to engage in worship and ministry in a sphere of mutual respect.

Ministers and church leaders are discovering that negotiating and arbitrating diversity in a “big tent church” is highly demanding and a task that can never be put on cruise control. Navigating diversity requires non-partisan pastoral guidance and a high bandwidth of grace within a local congregation.

I believe that when a church embraces their diversity and learns to navigate it wisely that church may discover that, like a wellspring, their diversity gushes with untapped kingdom potential.

((Barry Howard is the retired senior pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. He currently serves as a coach, consultant, and columnist with the Center for Healthy Churches. He enjoys golf, reading, and gardening.)