The Gift of Difference

This midweek message was adapted from a sermon originally delivered at First Congregational Church of Houston on October 18, 2026.

When I first started at Texas Impact, I was a Civic Engagement Fellow, helping get our Houston Faith Votes program off the ground. Its purpose was to mobilize faith communities and improve voter turnout in Houston.

In talking with these communities, we heard time and again that they did voter registration drives at their congregations, but most of the people in their pews were already registered. Everyone was registered, surely they were also voting. So they took their efforts outward, to farmers markets and PTO meetings. Their members understood the importance of voting, they said. They didn’t need to spend more time working on their own people.

But when we looked at turnout for these faith communities, most members were registered, yet they weren’t showing up when it mattered most. Many congregations had moved to external get-out-the-vote work without a deeper assessment of where they were internally. And internally, there was a lot of work to be done.

When I started that fellowship I had never done voter education work, and I had certainly never done it with faith communities. I had to quickly get familiar with the rules of participating in civic engagement as a faith community. For those wondering, the short answer, though I’m not a lawyer, is that as long as faith communities are doing get-out-the-vote work, or issue-based work surrounding their faith traditions and values, and are not endorsing candidates or having candidates speak from their pulpits, they should generally be fine.

Those rules, though, are not the same as asking people of faith to leave their faith at the door. There is no separating our values and beliefs from our role in holding our government accountable. The separation of church and state is meant to keep our government from privileging and proselytizing one point of view or religion onto people who would not otherwise practice that way.

The bigger learning curve was the reflection I needed to do. What is our place, as people of faith, in civic life? I knew I was opposed to faith leaders endorsing candidates from their pulpits. But what was different about asking people to vote based on our shared values in progressive communities? Was the only difference that I agreed with those values? If those were my boundaries for Christian nationalists, where were my boundaries for people I did agree with?

I learned from people who study Christian nationalism and far-right extremism. One difference cannot be overstated: when I encourage you to vote, it is not because I believe a congregation’s goal should be to create a monolithic institution in our civic life. It is because I believe every voice matters. So I’m not asking you to speak with one voice. I’m asking each of you to speak, in your own voice, shaped by the values we learn about and speak about here. Civic engagement becomes problematic when we participate in the hope that our government will mirror a church already seeking to be monolithic: one voice, one perspective, one identity, with anything that strays from that shut down. That is not the kind of civic participation we should seek as Christians.

In Acts 10:17-29, Cornelius, a Roman centurion who worships God but is not Jewish, has a vision that he is to send for Peter. Meanwhile, Peter has a vision of a sheet full of animals he considers unclean, and is told that nothing God has made should be considered unclean or unworthy of God’s salvation. When Peter arrives at Cornelius’s house, he says he knows it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with Gentiles, but God has shown him that any person who knows God is acceptable to God.

Many interpreters say the good news here is for the Gentiles: they’re not excluded, and all are welcome in God’s kingdom. That is good news. But another view is that the good news is what is happening in Peter. Peter is being transformed. He is learning that the Gentiles are also his family. Peter’s internal reckoning is the real transformation in this story. It is not about what we do with the people we can bring in. It’s about what we do internally to make us a place that people want to be.

For our congregations, that internal work is two things at once. It means making sure the people already in our pews are using their voices, not just registered but showing up. And it means asking whose voices are missing, and what we might need to change so that they can be heard. We can’t go out and ask people if they have a plan to vote before we examine whether we have one for ourselves. The work starts here.

Voting matters to me because I want our society to be like the kindom I envision. I want people to bring their full selves to the table, messy, chaotic, and imperfect. I want it to be full of new voices I haven’t heard before.

I hope you will make a pledge to vote and vote early! Early voting began on Monday and runs through October 30th. Don't wait! I know everyone's lives are busy, which means the longer you put it off, the more difficult it will be to make it happen. Praying, as Christ taught us, “kindom come, on earth as it is in Heaven” is a recitation of our faith in God’s plan and power. Voting is knowing that God has given us the power to change things ourselves.

I want to leave you with this, lest you get the wrong message from today. Those of us who do this work, whatever our politics, are not the heroes of this story. No matter the outcome of an election, we are not the ones bringing salvation with our message. All of us are the receivers of God’s message that no one is removed from God’s love and salvation. That is the Good news. We are Peter. We have heard the message. We will deliver it when and where we are asked. But we are the ones that need its transformative powers the most. Amen.