On Interracial Marriage

In the summer of 1991 I remember taking my seat at the Union City movie theaters to take in the latest Spike Lee Joint, Jungle Fever.  For months I had anxiously awaited this film that explores the intricacies of interracial relationships, not because I was a Spike Lee fan, but because I was doing my own bit of exploration.

The film dives head first in the heart rending tale of an African American family that is on the brink of destruction.  Depending on one’s worldview Flipper, the lead character, finds himself in the amorphous position of protagonist/antagonist.  He has not only committed the sin of adultery, but to the ire of his black wife and her girlfriends (along with the millions of black women who took in the movie) has done so with a white woman.  At the same time his brother is addicted to another “white substance”- crack cocaine, and will stop at nothing to get his latest fix, even dancing for his mother, to the complete disgust of his father who ultimately shoots and kills him. 

Spike Lee’s juxtaposition of these two brothers- one an upwardly mobile architect, the other comprising the lowest rung of African American life- is masterful and heartbreaking all at once.  Leaving the theater it was impossible to not see them both as equal accomplices to the crime of murdering the black family.  It was their addiction to the “white substances” of society that decimated the Black family unit.  This maybe reading too much into it, but how can one not see that Spike is not for interracial relationships?

I was eighteen when I saw Jungle Fever.  Just days before I had graduated high school where I wrestled with my own sense of identity.  As a man I was growing in my fascination with the opposite sex, and had experienced the sheer joy and disappointment of dating.  In that oh so tender age of life, my esteem was tied into how many women I went out with and beyond. 

As a black man, the issues of identity in a southern diverse high school went much deeper.  I soon caught on that it wasn’t just good enough to date, but that the varsity side of the manhood team were those black men who were “savvy and substantial” enough to score not just black women but white women as well.  We at Creekside High had bought into the lie that those with the most “game” could bypass black women and fell a “much bigger prize”- white women.

So off I went.  The first white girlfriend (if you call it that) I had was my freshman year.  Under clandestine circumstances we would rendezvous at the local theater where we wouldn’t get caught in the light of day.  When her father finally found out, he promptly called my home and called me a “black son of a bitch,” and forced his daughter to move hundreds of miles away to Savannah, Georgia to live with her mother.  I was devastated, but I continued the hunt.  After all, not being secure in who I was as a black man, much more as  a follower of Jesus, I was unaware that my pursuit was not really after a white woman, but validation, significance and esteem.

Two months after Jungle Fever I found myself settling into my dorm there at college.  Shortly thereafter I was wounded by evangelical racism- being called a nigger by one of my classmates who was preparing for a life of gospel ministry.  My failure to forgive stored up the flood waters of bitterness, and unleashed in me a pro-black bitterness that sought to now find identity not in the cross of Jesus Christ, but in the color of my skin.  I was a black nationalist of the Stokley Carmichael variety.  No more white women for me.  Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud.

After graduation I was determined to no longer be around whites, and so I settled into life at a large, all black church in southern California where I continued to exclusively date my Nubian queens.  They were black and beautiful (still are).  I soon discovered that my prominent position, along with the scarcity of other Jesus loving black men in my context swung the pendulum favorably in my direction, which lead me to constantly seek to upgrade along the way.  I wasn’t a dog, but I could be beyond choosy, a privilege I soon discovered many black women did not have then, nor now. 

Then she walked in.  I first laid eyes on the woman who is now my wife on a Sunday morning at church.  Her olive skin and finely textured black hair made me pause and forget all of the familiar worship songs we sung that day.  I would later discover that Korie is half Irish and half Mexican, and soon I was a goner, totally intoxicated with her.  It’s here where I was faced with a dilemma.  I was in love with her, at church, but in a sea of black women I knew that the better part of wisdom demanded that we keep our relationship a secret.  I intuitively felt what Dr. Ralph Richard Banks said when he wrote, “Almost two-thirds of black women felt upset when black men married or dated white women.  They felt unappreciated, inadequate, unwanted.  As one twenty-nine year old black woman in Los Angeles says in another Ebony article, ‘Every time I turn around and I see a fine Brother dating outside his race, I just feel disgusted.  I feel like, what’s wrong with us?  Why do you choose her over me?’” (From the book, Is Marriage for White People).  So just as I had arranged secret dates with my first girlfriend, Korie and I would steal away to such places as the Santa Monica Pier to get to know each other.

You know the saints can’t hold water, so when our relationship began to ease into the light, people, and mainly the Sistah’s, weren’t happy.  What’s wrong with us?  Why is it that all the successful Black men have to go outside their own race?  These questions and more cut me deeply, not only because I felt as if there was some legitimacy to their questions, but more so because they were coming from my spiritual family who claimed to worship the Great Reconciler.  Doesn’t my identity in Christ trump ethnic loyalties?

Korie and I made an agreement.  We decided that our ethnicities would not be ignored, and at the same time would not become the ultimate focus of our relationship.  If we were out somewhere and we saw people staring, giving us the evil side eye and whispering about us, we were just going to assume that we had spilled some ketchup or something on our shirts.  Looking for racism under every rock, and assuming the worst in people is just a miserable way to live. 

Now some fifteen years and three kids later, we have a strong and vibrant relationship both in light of and in spite of our ethnic differences, and these truths have helped us to navigate our interracial relationship to the glory of God:

1. What does the Word say?  Korie and I want to build our marriage and family on the Word of God.  And nowhere in the Bible is God against interracial relationships.  In I Samuel 11, God’s concern with Solomon and all of his women (many of whom were of a different ethnicity) had nothing to do with the differences in culture or ethnicity, but everything to do with these foreign women leading him astray from his commitment to God and into idolatry.  In fact, God was so ticked off at the racism of Moses’ contemporaries that he struck them with leprosy when they sought to castigate him for his Black wife.

2. We must fight daily to keep our identity in Christ.  Korie and I have experienced some hurtful things because of our interracial marriage.  Jack and Jill, a popular African American social club, denied us entrance, because Korie is not African American.  This club has its historical roots in desiring to keep prominent African American’s in close social standing with each other (Lawrence Graham, Our Kind of People).  My wife has at times mourned the fact that relationships with Black women have become arduous because of her not being Black.  On and on we can go, yet we must keep coming back to the essential truth that we don’t hang our ultimate joys or disappointments on the color of our skin, or the ignorance of others.  Our lives are hidden in Christ. 

3. Intentional exposure.  Our three boys are half African American, a quarter Irish, and a quarter Mexican.  They are beginning to wrestle with their own sense of identity, and it’s scary and fun to watch all at the same time.  Each has their natural leanings.  One child clearly identifies more with African American’s.  If he walks into a room and there’s one Black child in a room of fifty that’s who he’s going to kick it with.  Another son leans more towards Whites, even saying that he finds White girls more attractive.  And our other son is just a love everybody person.  Korie and I sit back and listen to them, only butting in when their perspective needs to be aligned to the cross. 

But more than that, we feel it is our joyful obligation to ensure that they are exposed to all of their ethnicities.  No, we can’t pick their friends, but we do ensure that between their activities, schools and church that they are constantly in touch with people from all walks of life.  As I write these words, two of my sons have friends over- one Black, one White and the other Indian.  I’m encouraged.

4. Resolve.  People will say and do ignorant things.  Okay.  Big deal.  Not the end of the world.  I’m not getting punched in the face, spit upon, or being bitten by German Shepherds in the streets of Birmingham, 1963.  That was my parents generation.  They were tough.  They had resolve.  And I need this same Christ-exalting toughness to not only keep moving when ignorance happens, but to love those who “mistreat you”. 

5. Shut-up.  Forgive the bluntness of it, but I’m in love with my wife.  I want to be sensitive to you and your feelings, but I will not allow anyone and their aversion to interracial relationships to keep me from enjoying life with my bride.  If you’re bothered by our presence get over it.  Recently, I had one Black woman confess that she had severe reservations of joining our church because of Korie, not thinking that I was a real brother.  Whatever that means.  She’s joined.  Glad she’s grown up.  Outside of Jesus, no one is allowed to hi-jack my life. 

At the end of Jungle Fever, Flippers’ wife forgives him, and he returns home to his Black wife, and his immediate family is restored.  The message is deafeningly loud: Black men need to come back home to their Nubian queens if they want healthy families.  Well I’ve got my queen, and by God’s grace I ain’t leaving.  She just so happens not to be Nubian. 

Engage Memphis

In 1878 the yellow fever pandemic ripped through our beloved city of Memphis with devastating effects.  Just prior to the plague Memphis’ population was on par with Atlanta and Nashville; but when the be-deviled words of “yellow fever” began to be whispered down the alleys and streets of our city, twenty-five thousand hurriedly packed their belongings and left town.  Of the fifteen thousand who remained, yellow fever killed thirteen thousand.  The remaining two thousand survivors were African American’s.  With such a sparse population, Memphis not only lost her status as one of the top cities in the south, but her charter as well.  In a lot of ways our city has been struggling to find her way since the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Yellow fever no longer has the stigma in our society that it once had, this is in part due to the fact that we have found both the carrier and the cure for this once deadly disease.  However, plagues of a different sort continue to devastate our city.  Memphis’ poverty and infant mortality rates is on par with some third world countries.  The educational disparity is so striking that many experts have conjectured that education is the new civil rights issue of our day.  With the educational gap comes the ever widening economic chasm between the haves and the have not’s.  Though our beloved city is close to seventy-percent African American, it’s our white brothers and sisters who control the purse strings.

Are you depressed yet?

So what are we to do as a church?  Sadly, for many churches during the civil right’s era they were more than comfortable to preach fine homiletical masterpieces to homogenous audiences, while just outside their doors sanitation workers marched with huge placard signs shouting, “I Am A Man”.  The historical problem of the church has been that she has preached a bifurcated gospel that makes a dichotomy between the body and the soul.  Something is woefully wrong when the gospel that we herald doesn’t touch all aspects of a person’s life. 

Jesus preached a holistic gospel.  He called for people to repent, and he he healed their bodies.  The first church both called sinners to turn from the error of their ways, and to sell their possessions and give to those who have need.  Marching through the corridors of church history it was Christians who established some of the first hospitals, took down slavery and became a voice for the voiceless.

This month, Fellowship Memphis continues in the rich tradition of the early church by taking up what we have called our Engage Memphis Fund.  Every year we come to you and ask you to give above and beyond your regular giving to help us give “a cup of water in Jesus name”.  Because of your giving we were able to:

- Help people in crisis by providing food, shelter and clothing

- Invest in the next generation of leaders through our residency program

- Partner with such local ministries as our Memphis Union Mission, where we saw many come to faith in Jesus Christ, along with feeding their bodies

- Send people out on global missions trips

- Plant churches

Our commitment every year is to invest one hundred percent of your gifts in emerging leaders, people in crisis, missions initiatives, along with a host of other opportunities. 

Beginning this Sunday we will start a two part series called “Engaged”.  I will give more vision for our Engage Memphis fund, and you will also receive a detailed report on what we did with your funds this past year.  In the mean time will you join our family by praying what God would have you to give?  Help us to continue to reach the body and the soul.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich”- 2 Corinthians 8:9

Why I Wrote Letters

Today, my latest book, Letters to a Birmingham Jail, is released.  As you can imagine, this book deals with the still delicate subject of ethnicity, and you maybe wondering why?  Let me give you three clear reasons as to why I am convinced this book is needed:

1. We are still battling the enemy of passive indifference.  Dr. King wrote this opus of the civil right’s movement in response to clergy who were embarrassed that he and his army were descending on their beloved city in the spring of 1963.  These men of the cloth knew that national attention would be brought, and most, if not all of it, would not be endearing.  So they begged Dr. King to wait, to be patient.  King’s letter- which we have reprinted with permission in its entirety in the book- is his loving explanation as to why he had to exercise redemptive impatience.  This portion of the book alone is more than worth the price.

If your view of racism is men parading about in white sheets, or dogs unleashed on passive protesters, then we do not need another book on race.  However, if you believe that what the Jewish Rabbi who marched with Dr. King said is true, that the only thing worse than hate is indifference (Abraham Joshua Heschel), then you must agree that we are still dealing with the spirit of those clergy who were pleading with King to be passive.  A take it or leave it approach to race, instead of a Christ-exalting intentionality that pursues people from every language, tribe and tongue continues to plague our society.  Letters to a Birmingham Jail will inspire you towards redemptive impatience.

2. The tethering of the gospel and ethnicity.  Admittedly there’s a proliferation of books on ethnicity.  And admittedly there’s a deficiency of books that explicitly tether the sociological realities of ethnicity with the spiritual truth and hopefulness of the cross of Jesus Christ.  Letters to a Birmingham Jail is not just another book that is amidst the many sociological treatises on what went wrong, offering human solutions to the problem.  Instead, each contributor makes a clear call to get after horizontal reconciliation because of the vertical reconciliation that has been offered on a hill far away…on that old rugged cross.

3. A fresh approach.  I am the editor of Letters to a Birmingham Jail, and just one of many authors.  I felt deeply within my spirit that we needed to honor the legacy of Dr. King, and beyond that, the cross of Jesus Christ, by recruiting a multi-ethnic, multi-generational tribe of Jesus lovers who would call us to Christ-exalting diversity.  The ages range from 83 to 33, black, Asian and white, pastors of urban multi-ethnic churches, to suburban homogenous churches (that are planting multi-ethnic churches), to leaders of large church planting networks, as well as professors (Dr. Mark Noll, history professor at Notre Dame, wrote the Foreword), all with the singular passion to show how Christ offers the cure for the plague of passive indifference when it comes to matters of ethnicity.  To be blunt, I don’t know of a single book out there that has gathered the ensemble of authors, writing with the clarity and conviction that this volume provides. 

As you read these pages your heart will be inspired to pursue Christ-exalting diversity.

On Guest Preaching

I’ve been preaching for over twenty-four years, and have had the opportunity to stand as a guest in another pastors pulpit hundreds of times.  Looking through the rear view mirror I still wince over some huge mistakes I’ve made as a visiting preacher.  Along the way there have been five basic guidelines I try to walk in when it’s time to preach in another person’s church:

1. Speak as a Barnabas, not as a Jeremiah.  Unless the Lord makes it abundantly clear, your default as a guest preacher is to encourage the people, not to beat them up.  Tilt towards tenderness, not toughness.  These people don’t know you.  They have no context for your words.  They hear what you’re saying, they just don’t know your heart.  Encourage.  Now don’t hear me as saying don’t be truthful, just make sure you wrap your words in love.  Your posture should be one of placing your arm around them, not pointing a defiant finger.

2. Be gracious.  When you stand let the host pastor and the church know you are grateful for the opportunity to serve.  Thank the pastor and the people.  I’m not talking about flattery- which is saying something to a person’s face that you would never say about them behind their back (gossip is the reverse- it is saying something about them that you would never say to them).  Find something you genuinely admire about the pastor and let the people know.  There’s something redemptive that happens in me when I stand and go on notice that I’m just thankful for the privilege of preaching.

3. Time.  Always, always, always ask the host pastor, or whoever is running the pulpit, two questions.  The first is how long does the pastor normally preach.  This is key because like working out, the audience has been cardiologically conditioned to listening for a certain period of time.  Going beyond their conditioning will result in the people’s fatigue.  Secondly, ask how long you have to preach, and don’t go over that amount.  Remember, it’s always better to leave the people wanting more, than waiting for you to sit down somewhere.

4. Subject.  I like to find out what the host pastor has been preaching on and to steer as far away as possible from that specific subject.  If he’s been in a series on the gospel of Matthew, then I ain’t preaching Matthew no matter how bad that sermon might “kill the house” (I hate that phrase by the way).  You never know what angle the pastor might be taking, or where he’s trying to lead the people.  As the old folks used to say, “Stay in your lane”.

5. Don’t counsel someone elses members.  Once you’re finished preaching you’ll probably shake hands with the people.  Inevitably, my experience has shown me, that someone will want you to counsel them, and I’ve found it most helpful to point them to their pastor.  Remember, that person is under that pastor’s authority, not yours.  So I will offer a compassionate prayer, and keep moving.

Redeemed

In Helene Cooper’s book, The House of Sugar Beach, she tells of the time during the Liberian Revolution, in which her house was broken into by soldiers.  These blood thirsty men took a young Helene and her sister down stairs into the basement with the intent of gang raping them.  Right as they were going to commit this atrocity the door to the basement flew open.  It was their mother demanding that the soldiers release her daughters.  In return, the mother said that they could take her.  These men smiled, and agreed to her terms.  Helene and her sister were released, and for the next hour or so, they hid in their rooms listening to the brutal sounds of the soldiers as they took their turns ravaging their mother. 

Helene and her sister had been redeemed. 

The Bible goes to great lengths to talk about our redemption as followers of Jesus Christ.  The very term means to buy back.  Redemption presupposes slavery, peril and an overall unwanted prior position.  Like Helene and her sister, we were perilously close to sin ravaging and destroying us.  We were completely powerless against the soldiers of sin, a point Paul makes abundantly clear to the Ephesians (2:3).  But at the last moment, the doors to the basement of our prison were flung open when like Helene’s mother, Christ provided the terms of our redemption: we would be released, and he would take our place. Paul expresses this most clearly to the Corinthians when he says of Jesus Christ, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”- 2 Corinthians 5:21. 

What Helene’s mother and Jesus Christ teach us is that redemption is costly, and yet redemption is also freeing.  In an individualized postmodern society like ours, I fear we have a great misunderstanding of freedom.  We’ve taken freedom to mean the absence of responsibility, that one can do whatever they want, when they want.  This is what many mean by freedom when they talk of freedom of speech.  I can say what I want, even if it demeans and destroys you, because, well, I’m free to say it.  Or many would say that I’m free in my sexuality to explore and have sex with as many people as I’d like regardless of how my actions may affect others.  There’s even open marriages, where the spouse is “free” to have relationships with others, and this is esteemed as being “mature”.

Yet this is not how the bible views freedom, and redemption.  Freedom is not the absence of responsibility, that’s chaos.  Instead freedom, real meaningful freedom, is only enhanced by responsibility.  We see this in redemption.  Christ redeemed us at infinite cost to himself so that we might be free to serve him (responsibility).  No one articulated this better than Paul when he said that he was no longer a slave to sin, but now that he’s been redeemed, he’s a slave to Christ, and to righteousness.  Christ has bought us, both releasing us from the grip of sin and Satan, and setting us free to worship and find our joy in him.

In my years of pastoral ministry I’ve never met a joyful serial adulterer- one who had sex on their terms.  What I have experienced are couples who have been faithfully married to one another for decades who are the epitome of joy as they have committed to selflessly seeking the other person’s happiness within the responsible boundaries of marriage.  A person who is ruled by their appetites and spends money “freely” without any kind of responsibility, I can tell you now, that’s not joy.  But the person who handles money responsibly, and goes to war with their material appetites, that’s joy.  As my father is known to say, “ ‘No’ is the most freeing word in the English language”.  Meaning in life is not found when each one “does what is right in their own eyes”, but when one finds satisfaction outside of themselves in a Holy Other. 

If this be the case, then redemption is not for our restriction, but for our joy.  Christ did not die for our duty, but for our delight.  I have been set free, but this freedom is not an unfettered pursuit of my desires, that’s slavery all over again, it’s the joyful mission of bringing God pleasure because he has liberated and set me free.

Sunday's Teaching Guide

God At Work: Daniel 1

This week we began a new series on the book of Daniel called, God at Work.  The series title is a double entendre.  At the lowest levels I believe that the book of Daniel shows us the powerful effect of work done well to the glory of God, and the effect that can have on those in the work place who are not in covenant relationship with God.  At the highest levels, the book of Daniel is not about Daniel, but about the sovereignty of God, a God who is at work thwarting even the most powerful human kings.  I’m beyond excited for how God will use this series. 

This is what we learned this week:

The Sovereignty of God means that God is control  (Nehemiah 9:6; Psalms 135:6; Ephesians 1:11)

God’s sovereignty is, “His exercise of power over His creation”- Wayne Grudem.

The Sovereignty of God in Daniel 1 (verses 2, 9 and 17).

The message of the book of Daniel is that it is possible to live a faithful life in this world surrounded by pagan influences if one sets their mind on serving God wholeheartedly.

“The principal theological emphasis in Daniel is the absolute sovereignty of YHWH, the God of Israel.  At a time when it seemed to all the world that His cause was lost and that the gods of the heathen had triumphed, causing His temple to be burned to the ground, it pleased the LORD strikingly and unmistakably to display His omnipotence”- Gleason L. Archer

Nebuchadnezzar’s Purpose  (1:1-7)

Nebuchadnezzar’s Plan  (1:1-7)

Daniel’s Resolve  (1:8)

Daniel’s Reward (1:17-21)

I Used to Love H.E.R. Reflections on (Christian) Hip Hop

Common’s joint, I Used to Love H.E.R. is a hip hop masterpiece in which he personifies his frustrations with the then current state of rap in the form of a woman.  She (hip-hop) has changed, and Common is not bemoaning her metamorphosis, how could he?  Art must change.  People change (I’m reminded of the old line, “My wife’s been married to five different men, and all of them have been me”).  Instead, Common is grieving the downward trajectory of “her” evolution.  The purity has been tainted, the message lost.  His “woman” has been ravaged by materialism, capitalism, and every other sort of sinful “ism”.  Rap just ain’t what it used to be, Common concludes.

I’m beginning to share Common’s sentiments about (Christian) rap.  It feels as if the game has changed in ways that are beyond necessary, bordering along the lines of compromise. 

Before I get into all of that you need to know that I love (Christian) hip hop.  I’m a child of the eighties where Run DMC, LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys were my favorites.  We used to laugh when the well meaning older people at our church tried to get us to listen to DC Talk, or PID.  No offense to these groups but while their message was phenomenal their art was, well, arum…

I went to college with Duce, aka, The Ambassador.  In the days of high top fades and boom boxes I remember late night conversations in our dorm room there on the outskirts of Philadelphia in which he vowed to be the first follower of Jesus to make great hip hop that was theologically robust in its message.  I met Tonic when he was Exodus.  And I remember the euphoria I felt when I popped in my first Cross Movement CD.  I called Duce and congratulated him on making good on his vow.  Nothing makes me happier than to have my 12, 11 and 9 year old sons demand that I put in Lecrae on the drive to school.  In just one generation we’ve gone from great content/bad art to great content/great art.  But now I’m starting to get the sense that our passion for art is bypassing rich theological content.  We’re on the brink of great art/so what exactly are you saying?

Now I know I’ve just opened up Pandora’s box, right?  The age old question that Reinhold Niebuhr wrestled with in his classic, Christ and Culture, is exactly how does a follower of Jesus engage  culture?  Theories abound on this, and for this reason I have put the word “Christian” in parenthesis before hip hop, not to be pejorative, but to allow rap artists who follow Jesus to determine how they use their art to engage culture.  To be clear this post is NOT about your method of engagement.

If it were up to me I’d love to free the “Christian” from her parenthesis, so that it would be CHRISTIAN rap.  You know the kind of rap that screams Jesus on every song.  While these maybe my proclivities, my biblical moorings will not allow me to make this prescriptive.  For example, in the book of Esther, not once is the name of God mentioned.  Esther, being a biblical story, is art, and yet God chose to not allow his name to be mentioned at all (You may want to read that last sentence again).  However, His fingerprints are left all over the narrative.  Esther, a Jew, has been given great beauty, and therefore a relationship with the king.  At the same time her people are on the brink of extinction, a fact that her uncle Mordecai will not let her forget.  She must use her position with this secular king to save her people.  But there’s a cost involved, she may lose her life. The reader is left wondering what fundamentally drives Esther?  Is it the position and prestige of being in the palace, or is it God and his covenant people?  Will  Esther choose her personal ambitions for acceptance, or will she sacrifice all for God?

These are great questions to ask (Christian) hip hop artists.  What’s driving you?  Is it to have the kings of the music industry  respect your art?  Is it sales, or interviews with well known main stream media personalities?  I ask these questions because I’m beginning to sense that it’s cool to not have art associated with being Christian.  I’m with you on one hand.  I hate the secular/sacred divide.  But if earning respect among the likes of Jay-Z- that rapper who blasphemes The NAME by ascribing the personal name of God to himself- and his contemporaries is what you’re ultimately after, you must be careful because you run the danger of prostituting God’s gift he’s given you to steward.  The same God who made Esther stunningly beautiful, so much so that she won the favor of the king, gave you beautiful art.  Esther’s beauty was not given to her by God to bask in her acceptance by the king, and your art was not bequeathed to you by a sovereign God for you to revel in being embraced by the world.  I say to you what Mordecai said to Esther, perhaps God has given you these gifts and placed you where you are, “for such a time as this”. 

When thinking about your stewardship of art, regardless of your worldview of cultural engagement, the following principles must mark your ministry:

1. Opposition.  The system of the world will always be opposed to God and his kingdom.  Therefore to be loved in mass by the world should cause one to wonder if they are being faithful to God.

2. Holiness.  God’s call to every follower of Jesus is to be holy.  Holiness is not just moral purity, it’s also the idea of being markedly different, distinct.  As a follower of Jesus Christ who raps, your songs must be noticeably different no matter what label you’re signed to.

3. Foolishness.  The message of the cross, Paul tells the Corinthians, is foolishness to those who are perishing.  To be foolish is the antithesis of the drive to be embraced.

One final word.  I’ve always admired hip-hops aggressive nature.  She’s never been known to be docile or passive.  She’s screamed to the top of her lungs that she’ll kill you, she’s been loud about her love for marijuana , how she’ll “rob the preacher for the offering,” drive the nicest cars, barked like a dog (DMX) and sleep with the most women.  This girl has never been bashful, even if you don’t agree with her.  So why are (Christian) rap artist’s breaking with hip-hop’s tradition of in your face, loud, this is what I believe tradition?  Why are Christian’s suddenly shy about their message? 

The Age of Ageism

We are in an age of ageism where many of the young men I meet today in the church do not know how to relate to older men in ways that honor them and God all at once.  The demise of the family, and the absence of strong godly men to lead their children, has left a void in our young men (and women too for that matter) leaving them ill equipped in simple yet significant ways.  For those who do cry out for help, wanting to be mentored they can end up sending all the wrong signals

Recently a pastor friend of mine was sharing a much too common experience: Young men reach out to meet with him.  He carves time out of his busy schedule and arranges a breakfast.  Then the following happens:

- The young man shows up a few minutes late.

- He then proceeds to small talk the pastor to death.

- Finally, after prompting from the pastor as it relates to the whole point why the young man wants to meet, gets around to the purpose, kind of.

- He doesn’t turn his phone off, even answers calls and texts.

- As the pastor is sharing pearls of wisdom in answer to his long belabored question, the young man is not taking any notes.

- Through it all the man is relating to the pastor as if they are peers.

- When the check comes he doesn’t offer to pay, and barely says thank you.

Young man let me help you.  If you can make these things a part of your DNA all kinds of doors will be open for you:

1. The older, wiser, more seasoned and experience man that you reached out to, to help, well, you, is not your peer.  He’s been somewhere that you have not, and has something that you desire.  So treat him with dignity and respect.  Don’t call him by his first name until he gives you permission to do so. 

2. Because of his status, assume that his time is way more valuable than yours.  Therefore don’t waste his time.  Show up early.  Beat him to the meeting.

3. Bring something to write with.  Taking notes sends the message that you value his time and what he has to say.

4. Unless you are taking notes on your phone (and if so let him know you are, so he doesn’t think you’re fooling around), turn the phone off.

5. If you didn’t do so before the meeting, within the first five minutes let him know exactly what you want to talk about, and have well thought out questions prepared to ask.

6. I don’t care how broke you are, your mama may have had to give you bus fare to get to the restaurant, offer to pay for breakfast (and pray he turns you down!).  It’s just good manners.

7. Thank him profusely for his time.

8. And if you want to really go the extra mile send him a thank you note when it’s all said and done.

STOP SHARING AND PREACH

“What I liked about his preaching was that it was so conversational.  I felt like he was one of us.”

These were the words that I heard recently as our staff was evaluating one of our young preachers who was subjected to the cruel and unusual torment of having to preach his trial sermon to our team.  I wish I could say that this was the first time I heard a remark like this, but it’s not, in fact it’s becoming more and more frequent because it fits so well in our postmodern culture.

Postmodernism was originally linked to architecture, and it’s growing emphasis on community.  For example, the way churches were built in years past reflected the values of the Enlightenment.  These ancient buildings would have a pulpit down front, followed by rows and rows of pews organized in a very linear fashion.  This style of building was intentional reflecting the dissemination of information that came from the speaker and filtered down a line throughout the congregation.  Well, today churches are no longer being built in such a linear style that emphasizes knowledge, instead they are structured in more of a semi circle displaying, once again, our value of community and relationships.  This architectural approach has also effected not only our view of the preacher, but the preacher himself.

In the age of the Enlightenment, the preacher was seen as an authority (if not the authority).  Now in a postmodern era we view the preacher as one of the boys, a man just like us.  It’s no secret that in postmodern culture we don’t like authority, thus the so called “compliments” on preaching when we say that someone’s style was very conversational, and we like that. 

There’s just something in us that stiffens its back when it comes to authority, and this is a problem of biblical proportions.

If you have a problem with authoritative preaching you would not have liked Jesus as a preacher.  The gospel writers go to great lengths to describe the impression that Jesus’ preaching made on his hearers:

“And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teachings, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes”- Matthew 7:28-29.

“And they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes”- Mark 1:22.

Jesus’ preaching was not the passing on of good advice, nor was it the dropping of deep truths to merely contemplate or consider.  Jesus was not posturing himself as one of the boys offering a different take on things for us to chew on.  No, his preaching was marked with authority.

Authority is not necessarily yelling or screaming, or even animation. 

Authority is the confidence that what I am saying is the truth.

Authority is the understanding that what I am telling you is from the very mouth of God.

Authority is rooted in urgency- that the next 30 or so minutes that I have with you is a matter of life or death.

Authority is found in a speaker who actually believes that what he is saying is true and therefore he will take a bullet…will lay down his life for what he is telling you.

Authority could care less how you view me, or what your opinions are of my sermon.

Authority is consumed with the praise of God and not the applause of man.

God deliver us from whimpish, conversational, talk show host oriented, metro-sexual, fearful, cowardly “preaching”. 

Preacher.  Stop sharing and preach.

Tom

We were minutes from pulling away from the gate at LAX, and the seat next to me was empty. An empty seat next to an introvert like myself is more than an answer to prayer, especially on the long flight from Los Angeles to Memphis. But wouldn’t you know it at literally the last minute, he came running in. Sweat was pouring down his face as if he had sprinted from his house in the valley all the way to Inglewood on the 405. After shaking my disappointment filled hand, he announced that he was a full time stay at home dad, married to another man and the proud father of four children that he and his partner had adopted. Sprinkled in for good measure were a few f bombs, and of course some moments later he asked me, a pastor, what I did for a living? The next three hours and twenty minutes were going to be interesting.

He grew up in Memphis and was returning to look after his brother who happens to be gay as well, and had gotten into some recent financial trouble. I couldn’t resist. I asked Tom (a made up name) what it was like to be gay growing up in a deep south town like Memphis, where that lifestyle is still frowned upon by the Memphian? I found his story to be a fascinating one- a tale filled with rejection by the evangelical church, dismissal from a parachurch ministry and even shunned by his own parents. He literally had to flee to southern California to feel as if he could be himself.

My constant questioning of Tom definitely caught him off guard. I think he was readying himself for me to toss a few Leviticus 18 and Romans 1 grenades his way. Instead what he got was what society would label as a conservative pastor from Memphis sincerely interested in his life and journey. I just couldn’t stop. I wanted to learn more. What was his husband like? Where did they adopt the kids from? Do they get picked on for having two dads? Did he think any of them would embrace his same lifestyle?

And I also wanted to know what he thought about Louie Giglio being pressured by his community to not pray? Now he was frustrated with me. “Do you think the liberal left speaks for me?” Then slowly for emphasis, “They. Do. Not.” After adding that the legalistic right didn’t speak for him either, he shocked me by saying that Pastor Giglio, in his opinion, should have prayed. Tom exhaled, “And who does the gay community think they are by demanding that everyone agree with them?” I sat there in silence, my assumptions dismantled.

As the plane prepared to touch down he asked me for my contact info. Tom wanted to stay in touch. His brother attends church regularly, but doesn’t feel comfortable with his latest stop. “Maybe your church will be the place for him,” Tom said, as he pulled out his business card and scribbled his cell number across it.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Tom as I lay in bed that night. In my younger days Tom wouldn’t have been Tom, an actual person. He would have been a label. Gay guy. The problem. Enemy. And where I come from, some hateful terms would have come to mind, if not have rolled off my lips. As I thought of Tom I saw a person, a story. I felt his sense of displacement. I tried to put myself in his shoes- a thirteen year old boy who just felt naturally attracted to other boys, standing in the locker room knowing he could never let on. I tried to feel his sexual disequilibrium as he walked through the halls of Rhodes College as a student in the early 1980s, telling himself no one better know the real him or he would lose his scholarship (or so he thought). Tom was not a label to me, he was a real person, made in the image of God. He was not an issue to be debated, but a person to be loved.

Moments from sleep that night, I saw the seat next to me on the plane that for so long sat empty, vacant. Just like that it was filled with a person I couldn’t avoid, a person I had to address, a person who became a part of my life. Sadly, many in the Christian community would love it if the seats around us were vacant. We don’t want to have to deal with the gay community, the Tom’s of our world. We wish they would stay in their midtown’s, on their side of the tracks, so we won’t have to think about them, hiding behind our pulpits and lobbing Leviticus 18 and Romans 1 grenades at them from a safe distance.

This isn’t our future though. I’m days away from turning forty, and if the Lord lets me live to life expectancy, I believe that in my lifetime gay marriage will be sanctioned across all fifty states. Their voice will become louder. Tom will move in next door to us. His kids will go to our schools, and play in our athletic leagues. We better have something more to say than, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”

I get the feeling that right now you maybe a little unsettled with this blog. You want some apologetic from me on how wrong “they” are, and how right “we” are. You want me to state the truth about the issue in words that have an edge to them. But this isn’t what Jesus gives us. Even though homosexuality was prevalent in the Roman empire, Jesus never spoke of it. No his silence isn’t passive approval, but instead of dealing with the issue, he focuses on the Christians response. In John 13 he says that the badge of the disciple is our love for others. When backed into a corner and asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus gave a two part response- love for God and love for neighbor. Then to illustrate who he meant by neighbor he talked about a person that the Jews went out of their way to avoid- a Samaritan. Their version of Tom.

Tom doesn’t need our worn out cliché’s. Tom needs the truth of the gospel message packaged in the unwavering love of the messenger. Tom needs to be invited into our homes, with his husband and kids, where a great steak, some good wine is waiting on him, prepared by people who love him enough to point him to the one who gave his life for him. The gospel is never about changing homosexuals into heterosexuals, but transforming sinners into Christ followers.