Posted on

Black History Month & Recommended Resources

February is Black History Month. Last Sunday morning I read over some reasons, written on Meridian Hill DC pastor Duke Kwon’s social media post, why we ought to intentionally observe and celebrate Black History Month at Redemption Church. 

  1. To deepen fellowship with our black Christian sisters/brothers by honoring their family stories, learning about the historical and cultural contexts that shape who they are.

  2. To cultivate cross-cultural skills in order to love our black local neighbors more genuinely and more effectively; after all, we cannot love our neighbors well without knowing their stories and without sharing a “common memory” of the past.

  3. To learn more of the all too neglected history of the Black Church, recognizing that Black Church History is Church History.

  4. To model the gospel ethic of mutuality/interdependency by esteeming a subdominant culture—historically, one devalued/subjugated even in/by the Church—celebrating its people and achievements and witnessing its vast potential to fortify the ministry and mission of the Church.

  5. To grow in repentance for corporate sins committed against Black people, often in the name of Christ—sins past and present, of commission and omission—as a necessary step toward true reconciliation and interethnic unity in the Church.

I would add, for Redemption Church, that as we are praying to be a diverse community of believers representative of our community, celebrating and observing Black History Month intentionally is a practical step, however small, in that direction.

Therefore we are doing a couple of things this month with intention. 

First, we have asked a couple of our African-American friends to join us in continuing to preach through the book of Acts. We highly value their voice and perspective, and we want to deepen our fellowship with them. Here is a quick introduction:

  • John Farmer will join us this Sunday, February 11th. John is a pastoral intern at First Presbyterian Augusta, and he is the Paine College Director for Campus Outreach. John and I have been meeting to pray together regularly for several weeks, and he has become a friend and a real blessing to me personally. 
  • Dante Stewart will be with us on Sunday, February 25th. He is a student at Reformed Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Jasamine, live in Augusta, Georgia, where he teaches Bible at Heritage Academy Augusta. They are members of Crawford Avenue Baptist Church. Dante is a great writer, and he has published several articles – many are recommended below.

Secondly, I want to encourage you to spend some time utilizing a few suggested resources – books, articles, media – to learn about Black History and racial divisions in our culture in order to cultivate your ability to empathize, repent, and love cross-culturally.

There are certainly many more great resources out there, but here are just a hand full of suggestions from myself and others.

Books

Divided By Faith – By Michael Emerson And Christian Smith

United – By Trillia Newbell

God’s Very Good Idea – By Trillia Newbell And Catalina Echeverri

The Genesis Of Liberation – By Emerson Powery And Rodney Sadler

Free At Last? – By Carl Ellis

White Awake – By Daniel Hill And Brenda Salter McNeil

Articles

The Witness: A Black Chrisitan Collective “engages issues of religion, race, justice, and culture from a biblical perspective.” There are several resources there worth checking out. Here are a couple by our friend Dante Stewart:

Dante has also been published at The Gospel Coalition:

Monét Robinson, also one of Augusta’s own, recently had this excellent article published at Radical.net:

The C&MA posted an old Alliance Life article honoring several African-Americans who “played a significant role in early Alliance history”:

One of the most stirring articles I read last year was written by D.L. Mayfield at Christianity Today:

Media

If you’re more into listening than reading, here are a couple of good podcast recommendations:

Lastly, I recently attended an Acts 29 & Carolina Greenhouse sponsored event called Race, The Church, and The Gospel. Antony Frederick shared a “plea to my brothers and sisters in the faith that lead predominantly white Christian churches, denominations, networks, etc to pursue racial harmony on a “macro” level, with your African-American brothers and sisters.” You can watch the video here: 

 

 

 

 

Posted on

United? We Pray

This post was previously published at humblebeast.com and is reposted here with permission from the author.  

 

United? We Pray is a new podcast that calls for prayer about racial divisions in churches. I (Isaac Adams) have the joy of hosting the first season with my sister, Trillia Newbell, who spoke at Humble Beast’s 2017 conference, Canvas. On the podcast, we won’t just be talking about prayer, we’ll actually be praying. Given all that could be said about race and the church, why start a podcast about prayer? Here are four reasons.

1. The Bible Commands prayer.

The last few years, decades, and centuries make clear that trials and complexities of race and racism often exceed our own wisdom and strength. God has limitless wisdom and strength, but we don’t. Yet in the Bible, when people realized their limitations, they often did something—they prayed. They prayed to the God who commands his children to cast their anxieties upon him because he cares for them (1 Pet. 5:7); the God who says “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask” (James 1:5).

The mandate throughout the Scriptures is clear: God’s people are to be a praying people. We must do more than pray if we are to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, but we cannot do less. The reality is that the unity of the church is no light matter. Satan has been after it since day one, and the early church in Acts 6 shows us this much—there we find an ethnic conflict threatening to divide the church. That division matters because Jesus said that the church’s unity would testify to his coming (John 13:35; 17:21). In short, the church has an adversary who hates its unity (Eph. 6:12). Christians war against him and his kingdom on our knees.

And so we pray.

2. Church history commends prayer.

Prayer is not a new thing. If you look throughout church history, you’ll find that the saints prayed. I’ll pick one example from history that inspired this podcast. In 1898, Francis Grimke, a black pastor in Washington D.C. preached a sermon called, “God and Prayer as Factors in the Struggle.” In this sermon, Grimke called the believers of his day to pray because “It is a serious matter for a nation when any body of people, however few, betake themselves not to revolt but to prayer.”

When we pray to God about matters of race, unity, and the church, we are echoing the cries of Christians through the centuries. To join in on those prayers is a privilege.

And so we pray.

3. Pastors know about prayer.

I am not a scholar; I don’t claim to be an expert on these difficult topics (that’s why I’m inviting my smart friends to come and do the talking!) That said, I am a pastor, so I should know something about prayer. So the goal of this podcast isn’t to pontificate, but rather to encourage weary Christians to pray during racial struggles; this podcast is not so much about finding solutions to racial strife, though we will pray for as much, as it is about recognizing the difficulty in finding those solutions and taking that difficulty before God almighty. We’ll have brief conversations on the podcast between one another, conversations horizontally if you will, but the most important conversation taking place will be the vertical conversation.

And so we pray.

4. Christians agree on prayer.  

Christians do not agree on how to respond to racial strife, but all Christians agree that we ought to rely upon God in prayer. Prayer humbles us and re-centers us. Prayer inspires hope, something in high demand these days, and ought to give us a holy excitement that God will do “more than we ask, think, or imagine” (Eph. 3:20-21). The reality that ought to stupefy us with gladness in prayer and make us zealous to pray is that God is more eager to give than we are to receive. We potentially have the entire freight of heaven behind our efforts if we would but ask.

And so we pray.

My Hope for the Podcast

So I started this podcast with the hope that it would encourage people to continue to rely upon God in prayer during racial struggles. My hope is that Christians would leave edified, challenged, and encouraged to pray for unity in their own churches and the Spirit of unity would better permeate their whole lives. So, if a Christian listens and is encouraged to more faithfully pray for their own congregation, I’m a happy man. My hope is that you would not only listen to the podcast, but that you’d pray with us, because it’s clear that we need God’s help.

Details & How You Can Help

Expect new episodes every other Wednesday. You can subscribe to the podcast, visit our website for more information, and follow us on twitter. You can help us by leaving a review on iTunes (every bit helps!), sharing the podcast with a friend, or contacting us via the website to let us know what topics we might consider praying for.

The unity of the church across ethnic lines is in question now in the minds of many brothers and sisters, but a day is coming when we’ll never question it again. Until that day, will you pray with us?

Posted on

Some Practice in Listening

Over the last several weeks we have published a series of blogs pushing us to lean into tension together and asking that we begin by practicing our listening skills.

About a month ago I attended the Just Gospel Conference in Atlanta with a few others from our congregation. To say the least, it would be difficult to unpack all of the insights that we gained during those few days. If I had to bring back one thing to share, I don’t think it would be any single point that was made – although the wisdom imparted was rich and plentiful. Instead, I would say that the most impactful part of the conference was the format; how it led me to listen empathetically and to be postured so that understanding could be received  over mere information. 

With that in mind, I would encourage you to carve out some time to listen to one or more of the following panel discussions from the conference. Practice listening. I’d love to hear back from you personally with thoughts and questions as you strive to listen well and allow the Holy Spirit to inform your heart with the gospel.

There are several sessions available if you’d like to check out more from the conference, but here are a few to get started with:

 

A Different Approach for Addressing Abortions – A discussion with Thabiti Anyabwile and Roland Warren.

 

The Black Church and Prophetic Witness – A panel discussion with Kevin Smith, Eric Washington, Tony Carter, and Mika Edmondson.

 

Women’s Voices on Issues of Justice – A panel discussion with Christina Edmondson, Zakiya Jackson, Jadine Johnson, Trillia Newbell, Dennae Pierre.

 

Saving Our Sons – A panel discussion with Louis Love, Eric Mason, and Bobby Manning.

 

Caring for Orphans – A panel discussion with Thabiti Anyabwile, Vermon Pierre and Dennae Pierre.

 

 

 

Posted on

Get Perspective

This is the third installment in a series of blogs meant to push us toward leaning into the Holy Spirit and engaging areas of tension.

Check out the first two posts here:

In my first post on this subject I said that tension was built in to us by being uniquely created by God to live in relationship with each other.  Each of us having our own gifts, talents, and skills – along with our individual backgrounds and stories – means we all have different, but valuable, perspectives and insights.

Look at what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7; 12-13 (ESV):

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good… For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

Here’s the point, we together are being made into the body of Christ. Not one of us alone has all it takes to display Christ in ourselves to the world around us. No, Christ is best revealed through us to the world as we relate to one another, value one another, and work with one another for the “common good.” It takes each one of us to make the whole body.

We need each other and not just so that we can make use of the skills that each person brings to the table. Paul exhorts the Philippians to “strive side-by-side for the faith of the gospel” (Phil. 1:28 ESV). We need to continually convince one another of the truth that God is for us and not against us, and His ways are better than ours.

Our perspectives are all different. We come from different places. We have carried different burdens – some that we tend to keep trying to carry alone instead of laying them at the cross of Christ. And it is with our varied perspectives that we can help each other see the gospel in new light where we have been blind. We must strive together to bring the gospel to bear in our actual lives and in how we live in this world together.

As we believe that God’s ways can be trusted and that He is for us, we can be obedient to pursue true community with one another. The tension will come. We are bound to rub each other wrong as we continually fight to put away ourselves and learn to love the way that God loves. This is The Hidden Battle that Reggie expanded on in his previous post. As we lean into the tensions of community our own idols will be surfaced, and we need to be able to speak the gospel over ourselves and each other. I truly believe that as we obediently practice community like this we will be led to increasingly submit all of life to the empowering presence and Lordship of Jesus Christ individually and as a church.  

So, perhaps we have talked enough about how good it is to lean into tension, although there is much more to be said for sure. Over the next several weeks we will be using this series as a place to practice listening in on the perspectives of others.

We have to do the work of listening first.

Francis Schaeffer was once asked how he would spend an hour if it was all the time he had to share the gospel with somebody. He responded that he would listen for 55 minutes and then, with the remaining 5 minutes, say something meaningful.

It is important to listen to people whose experiences are different than our own. I want to challenge us to listen intentionally as people share over the next several posts. If what you hear offends you, be careful to test the tension and lean into it by doing the heart work that Reggie challenged us with and by pushing to listen for the heart of the person who is sharing. My prayer is that these posts will be used to bring the gospel to bear in our own lives and allow us to learn where and how the gospel needs to be proclaimed in our community.