BUILDING TRUST IN THE WILDERNESS

SPEAKING TO THE CHURCH’S LEADERSHIP

The first step in preparing the church to address racism as a church is to speak to the church’s leadership. With their support, you will be in a much better position to respond to the multiple positions and diverse feelings that will exist in the congregation. Before you gather them together, you need to be clear about your purpose and the faith that under-girds those intentions.

You are about to enter a wilderness of uncertainty with lots of potential pitfalls and unexpected events along the way. As Viktor Frankl tells us in Man’s Search for Meaning, If you give a person a why, they can endure almost any how, but take away the why, and all barriers become insurmountable.  For the people of Israel, as they crossed the wilderness in Exodus, what enabled them to keep traveling was God’s invitation to travel to a Promised Land. That was the WHY that enabled them to confront the HOW of hunger, thirst, snakes, and hostile tribes.

BEGIN WITH YOURSELF

Knowing full well that like Moses experienced with Israel, you will not have full agreement in the church as you proceed in this wilderness journey of racism, first be clear about your own vision.

            Begin by writing ten short sentences describing what you understand to be God’s call for your congregation in their anti-racism ministry. Take time to look at your ten sentences and refine them until you are satisfied that they reflect what you would want for your church.

Don’t be in a hurry, but when you are ready, here is your next personal step.

            Looking at each of your ten statements, identify a key theological issue that under-girds each of your ten statements. For example, one of your statements is that you envision a congregation that can creatively deal with conflict when they discuss volatile issues. Your theological statement might be that we learn to love those who differ with us and be prepared to forgive them seventy times seven times.

SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

As the spiritual leader of the congregation, these are the statements and theological ideas you will share with your leadership. It will probably be best if this is the only item on the agenda. At your meeting, work with them to refine the ten statements into a vision for the church that they can support. They can change, alter, or add to the statements, but each must be accompanied with a theological rationale. Your goal together is to envision steps towards a more faithful congregation.

During this discussion, you can demonstrate another important feature of the process you are envisioning—Active Listening.

As each person expresses their thoughts, you simply reflect back the content by saying:

“So what I hear you saying is…..”
Or
“Let me make sure I’ve got this right…”

and then summarize their most important statements.

What you are doing is demonstrating an approach that you recommend for the entire church conversation. More on this later on.