I learn by running into things.
I grew up in South Carolina and its toxic, racist mythology. We had a rebel flag beach towel, and I thought nothing of it.
At the same time, I saw my father push back against the system in small ways. I looked on with fascination at his black and white photos of him serving as an Army paratrooper alongside Ethiopian soldiers in the 50s. Playing on his factory’s softball team in the early 70s, he was the roommate of the only non-white member of the team, a Mexican man named Ralph, as none of his other teammates were willing to share living space with him.
So, even as I routinely rode my bicycle back home from the neighborhood swimming pool with my confederate battle flag towel flowing behind me like a cape, I caught occasional glimpses of a different world.
I joined the Air Force at the age of 17. During my ten years in the military, I served under white, black, and Latino men. I was jarred by the racial slurs I heard when I was back home on leave.
A few years later, I began to read Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Richard Wright. I read them because I thought that’s what educated people did. And, to be completely honest, I did not know what they were writing about. While ministering in New York City and San Francisco, I worked alongside Asian American colleagues and congregants. At the end of the day, I no doubt congratulated myself for having risen above my racist roots.
It took me a long time to run into my own racism.
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In the summer of 2015, nine African Americans were murdered at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Though there have been centuries of racially driven violence towards African Americans in our country, this horrific incident grabbed my heart.
That Sunday, my wife and I worshiped at First AME Church in Seattle to offer solidarity. As I was getting dressed for church, I realized that I had never…ever…worshiped at an African American church. I immediately knew why:
Black churches were invisible to me. They simply did…not…matter.
At the service, I was dumbstruck. I felt like Isaiah during his vision of the heavenly throne room—a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips.
The warm welcome we received at First AME felt like Isaiah getting his lips touched by the hot coal from the altar of God. Something in me was being healed, though it burned deeply. The holiness and love of this congregation were cutting me to my core. I, a very unworthy man in that sanctuary, was being blessed by people who were invisible to me just a week before.
This led to a friendship with their pastor and a growing partnership between our two churches. It also unearthed further layers of how my culture had blinded me to churches like First AME.
I came up in the 90s and was drawn into the Presbyterian Church in America’s urban church planting movement. We used to routinely say things like, “We are bringing the gospel back to the city.” The fact is, the gospel hadn’t left the city. Only white people had.
First AME has been worshiping and serving in our neighborhood since 1888. Our church was planted 110 years later. Now, I was coming to this sister congregation not as a master or a benefactor, but as an eager student.
I was learning how to walk with God in new ways.
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On the first Sunday, we worshiped there, just four days after the massacre at Mother Emanuel, the congregation sang “Jesus Promised, He’ll Take Care of Me.” I had previously preached to my congregation the importance of holding lament and joy together and being open to both. Perhaps for the first time in my life, I was in a sanctuary full of people doing that very thing.
In addition, First AME has instinctively moved towards the pain of the city in not so much a programmatic way, but rather from an intuitive sense of “Well, this is just who we are and what we are about.” Their congregation, as naturally as many white churches would have a Bible study, feeds the hungry, houses people experiencing homelessness, and seeks to develop economic opportunities for people on the margins.
Ultimately, this had a strong influence on our bringing on an African American man, Jason, who served as our associate pastor for five years. As I look back, I can see how his leadership here shared similar contours as our discipleship under First AME.
Jason led us as a black pastor. As such, there were no bright, clean lines between sacred and secular. It was totally natural for him to bring various aspects of the brokenness in our city—from gun violence to educational inequities, to underfunded medical conditions like sickle cell—to the life of our congregation.
During the pandemic, shelters and other non-profits that fed hungry people were no longer able to prepare and serve food on-site. In addition, most of the restaurants in Seattle had to shut down dining room services, making their economic survival immediately precarious.
Jason brought these two groups of people together, and the church started hiring minority- and female-owned businesses to make food for the shelters. Church volunteers would pick up the food from the restaurants and deliver it to various non-profits across the city. In this way, two disparate groups of people—hungry people and restaurants facing dire operating conditions—were blessed.
This congregational breakthrough ultimately led to the formation of what we today call our “Serving the City” ministry. It is now a critical part of our congregation’s life and accounts for 10% of our annual budget.
To be sure, before Jason was one of our pastors, many people in our congregation would have agreed that caring for the poor is something that churches should do. However, we only started doing so in a significant manner under Jason’s leadership. With his guidance, our congregation now better reflects the heart of God.
For the dominant culture people in our church, we had to surrender control, efficiency, and predictability. As the church’s senior leader, I had to make room for someone who led in a radically different manner from me and, at times, in ways I didn’t fully understand. It also meant I had to “have Jason’s back” when there were conflicts and even be willing to let some folks leave our church during this time. And, personally, I was deeply inspired by his example of leading us into new territory even though the challenges of cross cultural leadership weighed heavily on him at times.
My father-in-law, who was in medical leadership for decades, talks about how he finally got to the point as a leader where he was willing to hire people who were more gifted than him. This is the way I feel about working with Jason. He exceeded me in so many ways, and I am grateful for the gift of his friendship, partnership in the gospel, and his leadership of me and our congregation.
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As for the future of C4SO, the phrase that is bubbling up in my heart is “community of repair”. Should I become bishop, I would want both the diocese and myself to continue to learn how to become a community of repair as we more deeply embrace the commitment to and practice of justice in our parishes and in the communities we serve. To be completely honest, I do not know exactly what that means or will entail, but I would look forward to walking down this road together.