One church, many voices—what unity in diversity can do

By: Leandro Palacios, Director of Communications

In the first weeks of February of 2026, I had the privilege of attending the International Writers’ Summit in the city of Roxas, in the heart of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. This was a unique event organized by the Community of Christ World Church and facilitated by the Spiritual Formations Team. About seventy leaders, musicians, artists, and young voices representing twenty-four countries around the world where our church is established — from Brazil to Nepal and from Canada to French Polynesia — gathered together. Every day we met to create worship resources — including music, poems, prayers, and sermon helps — that speak from the perspectives of people living in different places, who are of different genders, ages, and ethnic backgrounds, among many other diversities that made each participant truly unique.

This was a life-changing opportunity for all those attending because we were able to experience the real diversity that exists within our church. Yes, we are one church. No matter where it is found, Community of Christ shares nine Enduring Principles, five Mission Initiatives, as well as a set of basic beliefs and an honest approach to history and scripture. Our statement on scripture, in particular, calls us to recognize that behind the words we read in the Bible, there are human authors shaped by the circumstances they were facing in the time and place of composition. This is what we call the context of scripture.

To understand a specific passage of scripture, we need to make sure we understand the context, including who the author was, who they were writing to, where they lived, and what was happening in that part of the world at the time. When we understand the context, ancient texts that can sound obscure and challenging begin to speak to us in the present tense, allowing us to hear the living voice of God, which always addresses our own lives and our own context. Because our church exists today in so many places around the world, the living voice of God speaks to each one of us, addressing our context. As a result, for someone in Liberia or Australia, the beliefs and values we share will be lived, felt, and expressed very differently from someone in Norway or Honduras. One God, one scripture, but a living voice that acquires particular meaning according to the challenges and joys of life in diverse places.

I learned about the importance of context during my seminary education. Not only for reading the Bible, but also for understanding the ideas that theologians propose — we must understand who they are and what their context was. However, it wasn’t until I participated in the Writers’ Summit that I finally got a real taste of what this means. The diverse context of each one of the participants was expressed in fullness, unapologetically, and with absolute joy. The many languages and accents, the typical attire and hairstyles, the different rhythms of the songs each one sang, and above all, the stories we shared — and how scripture has provided guidance, comfort, and inspiration in the face of challenges I myself had never experienced, or in some cases even imagined.

The Writers’ Summit was intense. I felt overwhelmed by emotions, from moments of outrage and exhaustion to moments of absolute, almost inexplicable joy — whether by doing something I had always looked at with suspicion, or by making a deep connection with someone very different from myself. All these feelings are expressed in the material we created together. The Spiritual Formations Team is currently compiling all this content, and these resources will be available in the near future. And yet, in the middle of all that diversity, something else became clear. We did not become the same. We did not lose our accents, our rhythms, our preferences, or our stories. But we began to share what Paul calls “the same mind.” Not the same opinions, not the same personalities, but a common orientation — a willingness to listen, to learn, to serve one another. Despite our differences, there was a shared commitment to humility, to curiosity, and to letting go of the need to conform or to impose our understanding. That common mind did not erase diversity; it allowed us to tangibly experience the presence of the Spirit among us. I want to share with you a little poem that I composed by compiling perceptions that stood out to others as we visited a market in the city of Roxas. Diverse eyes, ears, and noses noticed different things, and we were asked to describe God by bringing some of these observations: 

​God is not just something you feel
When you are overwhelmed with awe
As you contemplate the wonders of nature 
And all the great things that humans have done.
God is also a woman holding three dead chicken,
Something sweet and gelatinous,
Unnicely odor from the drainage,
Voice of the voiceless,
Soft hand of a new friend.

Watch on YouTube