DORR Training Challenges Stereotypes

About people from various backgrounds, including current missionaries, spent two days this week considering the sin of racism and how it applies to their own lives and the world at large as they underwent the Dance of Racial Reconciliation Training (DORR) in the Grand Rapids, MI., office of the Christian Reformed Church.

Developed and offered by the CRC's Office of Race Relations, the program is put on at different times for employees of the CRC and is also available to churches, schools, and other institutions and organizations in the CRC. Synod several years ago created the Office of Race Relations.

"This workshop was created about four years ago by the Office of Race Relations," said Rev. Esteban Lugo, director of the Office of Race Relations when the program began on Monday morning Nov. 9.

As for why they call it DORR, he said, "Dance makes it lively. Dance requires cooperation and coordination. Everyone is involved in the process. It takes people coming together from different ethnicities to make DORR work … You will be asked to understand racism from your own point of view. You will be asked to identify racism and see it at work on different levels."

This year the DORR program and Widening the Circle (as it is called by the CRC in Canada) have been presented to people in more than a dozen settings — on college campuses, in churches, in CRC offices, and for specific groups. Esteban Lugo also led a group of 50 people, mostly missionaries, through the training this year in Nicaragua.

"We talk and teach about the kingdom value of diversity," said Lugo.

Led by three facilitators, the two-day training particularly focused on what the Bible has to say about racism, as well as how the Bible promotes unity among all people. Workbook exercises, hands-on exercises, one of which included using Play-Doh and also a drama put on by participants, took place.

Additionally, the program involved the showing of videos, personal testimonies, and prayer. Overall, facilitators led participants through a journey into their own hearts, helping each person better understand how racism plays out on the institutional level as well as in individual lives. In the end, participants were asked to consider how they can address racism and try to eradicate it in themselves and in the world around them.

"Racism is sin. Nothing more, nothing less," said Lugo. "DORR is about sharing and experiencing and learning together. We ask you to get out of your comfort zones and let the spirit guide you… Only God by his Holy Spirit can change someone’s heart."

There is generally some cost for individual churches and some organizations to go through the training. But a great deal of the cost to pay for the program – more than 80 percent — is covered by Ministry Shares.

The Ministry Shares program is an arrangement by which large, small and medium-sized CRC congregations across the United States and Canada contribute a suggested, per-member amount to help fund denominational ministries. Ministry shares provide a steady stream of funding without the overhead costs associated with multi-million-dollar fundraising campaigns. The bulk of the Office of Race Relations budget comes from this source.

Among the first activities offered at this week’s training was a look at Bible passages that spoke of God creating everyone in his own image and likeness, how foreigners are the same before the Lord – in other words, God plays no favorites. Participants also read about how Christ died for the forgiveness of sins for all and how Simon Peter came to the realization that the message of love and unity contained in Christ’s teachings was for everyone, Jews and Gentiles alike.

Participants also viewed photographers that showed such things as a march by the Ku Klux Klan and images from the Holocaust.

The facilitators included Fred Hayward, an electrician and a member of Oakdale Park CRC in Grand Rapids, Joyce G. Jackson, a teacher and member of Roosevelt Park CRC in Grand Rapids, and Pastor Laudir Lugo, pastor of the Revival Temple, a non-denominational church in the Chicago area. He is also Esteban Lugo's son.

DORR training modules are for everyone in the CRC. People in leadership capacities of various communities are strongly encouraged to attend—the seminary and seminary students, denominational agency staff, urban congregations in changing neighborhoods, pastors and council members, youth pastors, campus ministers, missionaries, small group leaders, church planters, members of the Board of Trustees, college professors, executive staff, antiracism teams, youth groups and Sunday school teachers, and Christian educators/school teachers, says the DORR website.

In order to try to wipe racism in its many forms from our lives, we need to "be strategic about it," said Hayward at this week’s training. "It goes beyond good intent and sincere desire." It also involves, he said, confronting and realizing that many people are stereotyped in the world, and it is important to get beyond stereotypes in order to establish relationships with and better understand others.

No one is immune from stereotyping and from racism. Racism is woven into the hearts of all people, meaning people from all ethnic and racial groups can be judgmental and cruel to others, said Jackson. "Racism comes from all races. God calls us to change and to take action," she said.

Laudir Lugo added: "God calls us to be reconcilers. But reconciling is a big word … Salvation includes all of this," he said.

Two of the most challenging videos included one that showed a news story in which a TV crew followed a black and white man around in an unfamiliar city as they sought housing, transportation, jobs, and visited various stores and other places. It was stunning how differently and unfairly the black man was treated in almost all of the situations than the white man, people in the class agreed.

The other video came from Trinity Christian College outside Chicago in which students of various races spoke of how they had been treated on campus.

"The essence (mission) of the church is to proclaim the message of salvation in Jesus Christ. The intended consequence of this is to gather the nations, build peace in the communities we live in, become disciples and make disciples, and be one body united by one Spirit serving one Lord (Matt. 28, I Cor. 12)," says the DORR website.

For more information, visit: Race Relations.