July 6, 2020

UMC Implicit Bias Training

What we don’t think we think is the topic of an online course offered by the United Methodist Church Commission on Race and Religion designed for church leaders and congregations. The training is designed to enable us to recognize our own biases (we all have them), question them, and ultimately transform them. The cost is $20 and the time commitment is approximately 8 hours.

The United Methodist Church is a worldwide church called to reach more people, younger people, and more diverse people for Jesus Christ and the transformation of the world. Even though church leaders have explicitly stated that this is our goal, we look around at the U.S. church and find that it remains over 90% white; we see that tribalism and xenophobia still occurs in Central Conferences; and many of us still have trouble figuring out why cross-racial/cross-cultural (CRCC) ministry settings aren’t as successful as we would hope. How is it that even with explicit progress and goal charts, a stated values commitment, and the good intentions behind them we still end up with different outcomes than we intended? Implicit bias is what sometimes stands in the way. By looking at “what we don’t think we think” we can get to one root of the problem between our intended goals and the actual outcomes.

UMC Implicit Bias Training

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