By Amy Butler
While I’d bet this problem spans professional worlds, I know for sure that anybody who is responsible for a church staff will agree that good help is hard to find. Even the ridiculously high pay and indisputable glamour that come with working at a church are often not enough to attract conscientious, committed folks who do such shocking things as showing up for work when they are supposed to.
I’ve been around this block more times than I’d wish on my worst enemy, so when we began looking for a new staff member recently I confess I felt a bit of anxiety about the hiring process. The good news is that this story ends even better than I ever could have imagined, with the recent addition of Mohamed to our staff. Mohamed is a young, first-generation immigrant from Sudan who was one of the best students in an English-as-a-second-language class that Calvary offers. He happened to be looking for a job just when we were looking to hire someone, and the rest is history.
Working at Calvary has been something of a learning curve — a religious learning curve — for Mohamed and for all of us. A very devout Muslim, Mohamed’s well-used Quran comes with him to work every day. During the appointed times, he goes into the staff lounge and says his prayers. He talks freely and animatedly about his faith and his mosque, where he and his wife attend every single Friday. Mohamed is full of curiosity about what it means to be a Baptist and how a church functions, smiling and shaking his head in disbelief upon discovery of some of our quirks. Exploring our differences and similarities has become something of an adventure around here; topics of conversation in the church office now encompass everything — from the shocking realization that Baptists are not the only Christian churches that have women pastors to how Ramadan is going for him.
So when I recently began hearing news report after news report about the current controversy over the so-called “Ground Zero mosque,” I thought of Mohamed and started to get a little nervous. After all, Calvary is a little bit farther than two blocks from the Pentagon, site of another 9/11 attack, but not too much farther. And, did I mention Mohamed prays in our office? God forbid that Sarah Palin discover this scandal and tweet it to the whole world.
Honestly, until I heard all the ridiculousness in the news, it never even occurred to me that welcoming Mohamed to the church staff might be a problem. Does his practice of faith threaten or diminish mine? Are the prayers he offers in a quiet corner of the office harmful to the rest of us? What’s a church to do?
I’ve yet to find biblical directions for how best to address what, apparently, may be a scandalous outrage. Lacking those, I think I am going to go with a hunch I have: that if Jesus were here he would gratefully welcome Mohamed to the church staff (given the staff of disciples he had, I know he would certainly understand and appreciate excellent work). More than that, I think Jesus would extend a hand of friendship, engage in honest and respectful dialogue about faith and actively look for all the things we share in common rather than creating and fanning irrational fears that drive us apart.
As the ridiculous and blatant disregard for our country’s First Amendment continues to saturate the political scene, I just can’t get out of my mind the image of Mohamed quietly reading his Quran while he answers the telephone at Calvary’s front desk. Aside from the fact that I’m eternally grateful for a conscientious, dedicated employee, I admire Mohamed’s commitment to living his faith.
On the one hand, some may find it strange that this sort of thing is happening every day in a Baptist church.
On the other hand, respectfully welcoming Mohamed’s faith practice and presence on our staff may be one of the most Baptist things about us.