In 1979, researcher and author Betsy Leondar-Wright was studying what enabled or inhibited cross class collaboration, particularly in the world of activism. The lived experience behind the question was that while she was well connected to professional middle class activist circles, those circles very rarely included many people from the populations those activists were trying to help. Even when members of their target populations were specifically recruited or invited they didn’t last long, and no one seemed to have a firm finger on why. The assumption was that it was something about the marginalized people invited, that they felt disempowered, tokenized, that they didn’t have the capacity to invest time or energy in the work, etc. 

She eventually summarized some of her findings in an article called “It’s not them – it’s us!” In it she gives a series of case studies of working class, minority status, or otherwise marginalized people being put off of professional activism work, not by their own shortcomings or ideological differences but by potlucks with bad food, embarrassing go-around questions, jargon-y language, long debates over side issues, and internal politics (good thing churches never have any of those issues).¹ 

She termed this constellation of habits, language, and expectations “inessential weirdness.” This was meant to differentiate it from “essential weirdness” which describes the inherently uncomfortable dynamics that can emerge from activism work where people are forced to name taboo subjects, acknowledge harm they’ve caused, and deal with imperfect solutions to messy problems. There is even “weirdness” that one community can feel is essential while another doesn’t (land acknowledgements, pronouns, opening prayer, the playing of the national anthem). 

But we all know there is a whole category of behavior, particularly in churches, that is the very definition of “inessential weirdness.” Unspoken rules about when to stand, sit, where you’re allowed to have coffee, when you have to be silent, what you can and cannot wear, say, or do. Meaningless platitudes with pre-prescribed appropriate responses (and I don’t mean “peace be with you,” I mean “bless her heart”), on top of congregation-specific weirdness. 

Just for kicks, here are some examples of congregation-specific inessential weirdness I’ve seen, limited only to worship services: 

• Making everyone in the service hold hands and sing a song, for which there are no lyrics to listed or posted anywhere 
• Having everyone sit down for unexplained 1-2 second moment of silence in between the benediction and the postlude, which is when you’re actually allowed to leave
• Inviting children to come up from to watch infant baptisms, but requiring them to stay behind a literal velvet rope the whole time
• Having everyone leave Christmas Eve candlelight services in the dark and in total silence (this one is both theologically confusing and also a safety hazard) 
• A monthly service where the music was entirely bluegrass, in a part of the country where bluegrass was neither historically relevant, nor culturally popular. 

Once you start adding in the inessential weirdness in Sunday School, in coffee hour, in committee meetings, you’ve created a labyrinth of indecipherable social cues and expectations that is downright hostile to new people, no matter how warmly you greeted them at the door. 

Most of my vocational ministry experience was as a youth minister, the most prolific creators and perpetrators of inessential weirdness in all of church world. If you had told me about this idea of inessential weirdness when I was a youth pastor, I would have gotten defensive. I would have told you how the silliness of games and gimmicks help break down barriers, disrupts social patterns, and create opportunities for play and joy and surprise through little moments of disorientation. And all of that is true… for some kids. For suburban, raised in church kids, who generally live comfortable and stable lives, creating some chaos is formative in a useful way. Quirkyness is not inherently bad. But when we are actively trying to invite or expand our group to include more marginalized people, we have to be conscious of how much they are already risking just by walking into the room, and save the goofy go-round question for when we know them better. That can be sad, that can mean displacing our preferences to make room for someone else, but if we feel called to make room for new people, it makes sense we’re going to have to clear out some space for them. 

Some weirdness is essential. Communion is weird, and it is essential. The public forgiveness of sins is weird, and it is essential. Communal singing, reading liturgy out loud together, much of what we do as church is essential weirdness. We are a weird bunch, and that’s ok, but let’s be willing to make it easier for those trying to join us, even if it means saving the weekly Mongolian Throat-singing for after service. 

This week, let’s save the weirdness for when we need it, and if you spot inessential weirdness, please send me your examples, I can’t wait to hear them. 

1. Betsy Leondar-Wright’s piece: https://classmatters.org/its-not-them-its-us/ ↩︎