Grateful
Where do I even begin as I attempt to reach for words to explain our departure from our beloved Fellowship Memphis? Maybe I should begin by extending my deepest gratitude to you for allowing me to speak into your lives and lead you these past eleven plus years. Twelve years ago I got a phone call from a white guy with a deep southern drawl asking me to join in on this great adventure of planting a multi-ethnic church. Little did I know how life changing that call from John Bryson would be. It’s been said that some of your proudest moments will be tied to your deepest sacrifices, and I’ve found that to be true. Coming to Memphis was a sacrifice for our whole team. We left established churches with steady paychecks, to stare at twenty something people in a living room, with hardly any money in a bank account. And now three locations, five services and several thousand diverse people later I am completely awed by God. We haven’t just made history here, we’ve made eternity.
So why leave what God is clearly breathing on? When Paul left Ephesus he made a remarkable statement to the elders of the church he had planted, “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). In tears, Paul says that the reason he was leaving this church that he founded was to “finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus”. God had made it clear to this church planter that Ephesus was not all that he had planned for Paul, there was more.
Our family feels the same way. Sitting in the back of a meeting room this past June in Northern California the Holy Spirit spoke to me very clearly, that this was to be our families last year at Fellowship Memphis, and I also sensed He was saying that I needed to be open to any job opportunities that came our way. These words shocked me. I left thinking that if this was truly the voice of God then it will come to pass. Sure enough, several ministry opportunities came our way in rapid fire succession, and we felt strongly that the Lord was calling us to go and serve the team at Trinity Grace Church in New York City. I will serve as their Pastor for Preaching and Mission, helping this already beautiful and flourishing church by preaching regularly, along with leading the charge in taking this church in a multi-ethnic trajectory. These two things- preaching and multi-ethnic ministry- are the two things that comprise the specific ministry that God has called me to. For over eleven years we have done that here in Memphis, and now God is calling us to do the same things in New York City.
Paul’s words in Acts 20:24 are very interesting, especially when you compare them with what he tells Timothy at the very end of his life, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Paul went a lot of places and did a lot of things between Acts 20 and 2 Timothy 4, enough for him to exhale to Timothy that, “I have finished the race”. His ministry was complete. What satisfaction.
I long for this same satisfaction for you. For some, finishing the race is staying put- serving in the same community, living in the same neighborhood and working the same job for decades. This is your course. For others, finishing the race is doing what Korie and I are doing, picking up and moving on after realizing that we have done all that God wanted us to do in a given location. Where the body of Christ tends to get in trouble is when we seek to legislate for all what God has assigned for a few.
And so the Loritts family prepares to leave, and how are hearts are hurting to depart from our dear church. Our small group of Mclean and Libby Wilson, Wilson and Katie Moore, Sam and Brannon Schroerlucke, Will and Jennifer Godwin and Michael and Jill Stockburger have been so life-giving to us through this whole process. And John Bryson. There are no words to express to this great, godly, humble leader how indebted I am to him for these years spent together serving God’s people. To our Fellowship Memphis family, please know that we love you, and have counted our time here as one of the richest blessings of our lives.
With fondest affection,
Bryan Loritts, on behalf of Korie, Quentin, Myles and Jaden
A Word to Minority Leaders in Majority Contexts
I often tell people that I walked into multi-ethnic ministry the way Jonah walked into Memphis, and that’s not a good thing. After a few sleepless nights in less than five star accommodations, Jonah made his entrance into Nineveh angry. His unrighteous indignation is understandable. As a Jew he’s a part of a people who were being oppressed, and in a gracious twist of irony, God uses Jonah to usher in revival among his oppressors. Seething over their salvation, the book of Jonah crash-lands, as the prophets anger has metastasized into bitterness.
Yep, it’s hard for minorities to minister in majority culture contexts, especially when that majority represents their historical oppressors
In my recent book, Right Color/Wrong Culture, I argue that at the highest levels of any organization that is aspiring to trend towards diversity, there must be what I call C2 leadership. A C2 leader is one who is able to relate to various cultures without losing their identity. But there’s more. Redemptive C2 leadership refuses to lead out of anger or bitterness, choosing instead to lead out of our most precious relational resource- love.
If I could go back in time and give my 20 something year old self a good talking to, I would say that it’s impossible to lead people you are suspicious of, angry towards or bitter with. Jonah might have seen results as a prophet, but he would have made a horrible pastor.
Maybe this is why God pulled the plug on Moses’ ministry. Moses’ striking of the rock was the expression of unrighteous anger, and it’s impossible to lead God’s people well while being angry or bitter towards those very same people. So God said, “Time’s up Moses”.
As an African American man who has spent most of his ministry years leading in majority white contexts, I’ve learned the hard way that an angry, suspicious, guilty-until-proven-innocent disposition is a recipe for failed leadership. Not only is it not inspiring, but it’s cancerous to the team, dishonoring to God, manipulative and outright sinful. If these bitter waters are not addressed in a minority leaders soul he or she will find themselves headed for burnout, and tearing up their ministry context in the process. So how do we move towards loving, redemptive C2 leadership?
1. You must answer the question, Am I called to multi-ethnic ministry? If you are then it’s time to stop striking the rock. No more grumbling or complaining. If you are called to multi-ethnic ministry then there’s no room for using race in manipulative ways to play into the white guilt of our brothers and sisters we are called to serve alongside of.
2. Are you experiencing genuine, life-giving community with the majority group you are called to serve? I’m the only black man in my Monday morning men’s group. Immersing myself in the lives of these men has helped to soften the hardened edges that I once had towards my white brothers and sisters. I love these men.
3. Are you loving the majority group in tangible ways that they can feel? For me this starts with prayer. I remember some years ago writing up a prayer card that said, “Lord help me to love white people in ways they can feel,” and then I wrote out John 13:34-35. Here’s what I discovered: It’s next to impossible to be harsh or condemning with people you are constantly praying for.
Let’s not end like Jonah, in bitterness. I want to grow softer and sweeter in my leadership the older I get. I want to be more loving and kind. I hope you do too.
Praise God for Liberals
The fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early 20th century sent shockwaves through the ecclesiological and cultural landscape of America for decades to come. In fact, a strong case can be made that we are just now beginning to get over our theological disequilibrium that had left us previously divided and unsettled. At it’s essence, the schism had to do with what was core to Christianity, with the conservatives siding with the authority of the Scriptures, and the modernist’s (aka progressives and liberals in other circles) venturing down the trail of what many have pejoratively labeled the social gospel.
As the race question began to percolate and ultimately boil in the mid twentieth century, the fundamentalist-modernist lines began to thicken. In her award winning book, Mississippi Praying, author Carolyn Renee Dupont argues that it was the fundamentalist’s who aggressively worked to maintain the southern way of life that was deeply entrenched in institutionalized segregation, while at the same time arguing that they were passionate about the authority of the Scriptures. On the other side of the battlefield stood the modernist’s who fought for their African American brothers and sisters, providing a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name. It is no secret, if it was not for what some have labeled has the liberal (modernist) the Civil Right’s Movement would not have moved as swiftly as it did.
It’s at this moment in history that help came from an unlikely place- the Southern Baptist’s, the very group who had splintered off from the General Baptist’s over the issue of slavery a century before. Much has been made historically of the SBC’s decline into liberalism, but let us be quick to mention that this so called decline had wonderful sociological implications for the plight of African American’s. Southern Baptist schools like Southwestern in Fort Worth, and Southern in Louisville, Kentucky were lead by progressive professors who encouraged their students to think differently on matters of race than their “biblically literalist” cousin’s. Dr. Jesse Buford Weatherspoon taught a course on “Christianity and Race Relations” at Southern. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached at Southern in 1962, something that would not have happened among the more conservative wing. On and on I could go in providing examples of liberal institutions who labored to dismantle the racist thinking and actions of our fundamentalist friends. And while this was going on, conservative schools, for the most part, would not allow people of color to enroll. I know of an African American man who was so desperate to learn the word during this period that when he discover he could not get into a conservative seminary because of the color of his skin, he petitioned to audit their classes. He was thus allowed on the condition that he sat literally outside the class. He talks of taking notes in the rain while straining to hear the professors lecture.
But somehow in the annals of modern church history the modernist’s have been demonized while the fundamentalist’s were turned into heroes. Just a few years after the Civil Right’s Movement ended, the SBC would be purged of the “leaven” within her, and make a return to what some would call fundamentalism with its emphasis on the authority of the Scriptures, and yet it’s here that I find a deep seated problem.
Without a doubt the core issue that divided the fundamentalist’s from the modernist’s was this point of the authority of the Word of God. But what exactly was meant by authority? Here I’m not getting at such things as the inspiration of the Scriptures and its tributary of inerrancy, but what’s missing from the whole point is that authority is not something to just give intellectual assent to, it’s what we must govern our behavior by. If I will for my children to love one another because they come from the same womb and are related to one another, yet they hate each other can they say they have genuinely submitted to my authority?
Let’s be clear, it was the epitome of hypocrisy to say one believed in the authority of the Scriptures and work tirelessly to maintain a system that treated their fellow siblings as if they were not created in the Imago Dei. Come on, can our fundamentalist friends of the early to mid twentieth century really say they believed in the authority of the Scriptures, while laboring to maintain systems of segregation? As Harvey Cox questions, can creeds and deeds not go together?
Please don’t misunderstand me, liberalism is fraught with problems. Their low view of Scripture has left them biblically impotent when it comes to matters of cultural engagement. The main line church is thus devoid of power. But let’s not be quick to glorify the fundamentalist’s. As Carl Henry once said, it was the fundamentalist’s who became the modern day Priest and Levite passing by their distraught neighbor lying in the gutter as they made their way to the temple. It was the African American who had found themselves beaten up and left bloodied on the side of the road. I’m just glad that the modernist stopped, cared for us and played a part in getting us back on our feet.
Since When Did Pride Not Become Immoral?
The elders of Mars Hill, the church that Pastor Mark Driscoll founded and recently resigned from, had this to say about his departure:
- We concluded that Pastor Mark has, at times, been guilty of arrogance, responding to conflict with a quick temper and harsh speech, and leading the staff and elders in a domineering manner. While we believe Mark needs to continue to address these areas in his life, we do not believe him to be disqualified from pastoral ministry.
- Pastor Mark has never been charged with any immorality, illegality or heresy. Most of the charges involved attitudes and behaviors reflected by a domineering style of leadership.
While I was relieved to hear that Pastor Mark had not “disqualified” himself from pastoral ministry, I did find it more than curious that in the same letter he “has never been charged with any immorality,” but has been “guilty of arrogance”.
It was C.S. Lewis who once said that the fountainhead to all vice is pride. Every other sin is a mere expression, a symptom of pride. The reason why I’ve lied is because I want to keep a good image, make a great showing, which is pride. The reason why we gossip is because we want you to know that we know…pride. Sexual sin is the failure to wait on God’s provision for your bodily yearnings, and instead to decide fulfillment on your terms, and in your timing. Pride. Sin was introduced into the world when Adam and Eve acted independently of God, believing that they could become like him. Score another one for pride. The Scriptures, C.S. Lewis, and my experience shows me that pride is the reason behind every sin. We are all incurable narcissists, in desperate need of a Savior.
If that be the case then pride is the epitome of immorality. It was Pastor John Ortberg who wondered when did pride get put in a different category other than immorality, as if pride is not immoral? The elders of Mars Hill need to know that Immoral pride was the root of Pastor Mark’s domineering leadership style.
I’m not here to rip on Pastor Mark, I’m really not. I’ve prayed for him. I’m rooting for him to pastor again. As one of the most gifted and engaging preachers of the Word of God I want to see him back exercising his gift to the glory of God and building up His people. But I think we need to take a moment here to ponder the interesting dichotomy between pride and immorality, and weigh carefully its potential implications for how we handle God’s leaders, and view our own sin.
Our historic dichotomy between pride and immorality has allowed us to move swiftly on the sexual face of immorality, yet cowardly shy away from our duty to humbly confront the domineering. Jesus had way more to say to his disciples about their manner of leadership, than their loins. Jesus exhorted his disciples to stop trying to be the first, but instead be the last. They were to not lead like the Gentiles- in a domineering fashion- but instead in a new paradigm- servanthood. To cement his point, Jesus took out a bowl and a towel and washed the feet of his disciples. A few days later he would die on a cross, in an act that some theologians have come to call the humiliation of Christ. Humble leadership was a point that Jesus tirelessly drilled into his disciples.
Jesus didn’t give any documented lessons on the wisdom of having a window pane inserted in your office door, not doing meals with the opposite sex or staying out of compromising positions with women. As wise as these things are, what Jesus talked most about, under the category of leadership with his followers was humility.
These words pierce my own heart. Like Pastor Mark I am the co-founder of a church. As a founder I am well aware that I am given much more latitude than my future successors will ever experience. It’s a sacred trust, a trust that at times I’ve fumbled. I’ve said harsh things, harbored arrogant attitudes, and daily battle to not be like Nebuchadnezzar who surveyed his kingdom and said to himself, “Look at all that I have done”.
Pride is nothing to be played with. Not only does God hate pride, but there is a swifter, more aggressive gear that God goes to, when it comes to dealing with the domineering. What I mean by this, is that if you look at the Scriptures, God evicts the proud:
- Satan gets kicked out of heaven for pride
- Adam and Eve are evicted from the Garden over pride
- Nebuchadnezzar is thrown out of Babylon for his pride
If one of God’s primary tools in dealing with the proud is eviction, then there is biblical precedence for my elders removing me from Fellowship Memphis for unrepentant pride, or a domineering manner of leadership. As a leader may I say about my own prideful inclinations what God does, and that is it’s an abomination. May our pride cause us to gag. And let us graciously and humbly go to war with pride in each other’s lives.
Why I Wrote, Right Color/Wrong Culture
Bryan Loritts sits down with Cormac Parker, the Executive Director of The Kainos Movement, to talk about his new book, Right Color, Wrong Culture.
CP:
Pastor Loritts, you’ve come out with two books this year- Letters to a Birmingham Jail, and your latest which is to be released September 2nd, Right Color/Wrong Culture. Why did you write RC/WC?
BL:
There were a lot of things swirling around in my soul that served as the impetus to me writing RC/WC. One was that I wanted to help bring clarity to the difference between ethnicity and culture. I think the diversity conversation has brought a heightened awareness to issues of diversity, which is a great thing. But the conversation needs to be pushed deeper to culture.
What I mean by that is there is a difference between ethnicity and culture, a difference that many of us are not aware of. All African American’s are not the same, neither are Whites, Hispanics, and any other ethnic group. To state it bluntly- Carlton Banks (from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) and hip hop artist Lil Wayne are both ethnically African American, but culturally as different as different can be.
CP:
Why is this important for me to understand as an individual, or a leader of a church or organization?
BL:
In my years in helping churches and organizations pursue their dream of becoming multi-ethnic I’ve seen well intentioned leaders (many of them white), say we need to get diverse, so let me hire a person of a certain minority, only to realize some months later that the person they hired isn’t really connecting.
Maybe two examples will help. I once consulted with a white church that wanted to reach the growing Hispanic community around them. In their zeal to engage, they had hired an Argentinian pastor. That sounds cool, until you realize that almost 100% of the Hispanics were Mexican. Our well intentioned white brothers didn’t discover until after the fact that there is a huge difference between these two cultures, and I was called in to help them clean up their mess.
Another example is a college was looking to hire an executive director whose job it was to expand the reach of the institution into the urban community- recruit people in what many would call the hood. The college was white, so they said let’s hire an African American. Well the African American they hired had never lived in the hood, was used to the finer things in life, and attended all upper middle class white churches. The result was, that as he tried to make connections among the poor and urban sections of the city there was a severe disconnect. He had no street cred. It was like Carlton Banks trying to engage Lil Wayne- it just wasn’t going to happen.
CP:
This is a really good concept, this whole ethnicity and culture distinction. But Pastor Loritts, do we see this in the Bible?
BL:
Oh sure! The Bible has plenty to say about the difference between ethnicity and culture. Take Acts 6, you know the controversy between the Hellenistic and Hebraic Jews. The fact that Luke calls them Jews points to their ethnicity. Hellenistic and Hebraic are adjectives that point to their culture. So the conflict between these two groups was cultural, not ethnic.
I also think the running conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees was at the deepest levels spiritual, but it was also cultural. The Pharisees just refused to ease the grip on their cultural preferences.
Or look at Philippians 3, when Paul said that he was born of the nation of Israel (ethnicity) yet was a Hebrew of Hebrews (culture). I mean it’s all over the place.
CP:
Is this book for a person who is not a pastor or leader?
BL:
Yes. I really believe that RC/WC will enhance your personal relationships. You will discover that within every ethnicity are three types of cultures, what I call C1’s, C2’s and C3’s. C1’s (Carlton Banks from the Fresh Prince) are those who have assimilated from one culture into another. C3’s (Ice Cube) are culturally inflexible, they refuse to adapt or adjust. What I push for is becoming C2’s, like Denzel Washington. C2’s have the unique ability to become culturally flexible without losing who they are. So as an individual you will find yourself assessing who you are as you read the book, and learning what you need to do to get there. You will also think of your friends, and it will give you a new paradigm for how to engage them in a healthy way.
The ideal, I argue, is to become a Denzel Washington, C2. That’s right, I believe that C2’s are made and not born, and I unpack that concept in the book. If we are going to see more and more multi-ethnic churches and organizations, at the highest levels they must be lead by C2’s.
CP:
Last question, I know that it’s written in a different form from most leadership books, can you explain that, and why?
BL:
It’s a Leadership Fable. I’ve gotten a little burned out on the traditional leadership book that can be preachy, and give a whole bunch of principles in a didactic form. RC/WC is a leadership fable, it’s a story that I hope will draw you in, and within that narrative you will see and learn the principles. Already the feedback has been through the roof from those we’ve sent advanced copies to. I know it will serve you well personally, and your ministry or organization as well.
Bold
When I think of the first church in the book of Acts, the word bold comes to mind. They were bold witnesses. They had bold faith. Bold church planters. Bold givers. Bold to the point of death. Take the apostle Paul. He’s told that if he goes to Jerusalem it will cost him his freedom and his life. What does Paul do? Yep, he goes to Jerusalem and the prophecy comes true.
I want this boldness for my own life, and the life of our church (along with every church). I’m tired of theologizing my cowardice under cute evangelism strategies that so emphasize relationship, that they rarely ever get to the punch line of the gospel. I hate that we’ve conjured up quotes and attributed them to people who never spoke them, all in an effort to excuse Spirit-filled boldness- Tell the gospel often, and when possible use words, or something to that effect (That Saint of a man never said that, by the way). I don’t like getting off airplanes having completely ignored the Holy Spirit’s prompting to be a bold witness with the person seated next to me, a person I will probably never get a chance to see again, all because I didn’t want to be bold.
Lord help me.
Lord help us.
I have a love hate relationship with boldness, especially as an introvert. I shy away from boldness because it makes me uncomfortable. Yet I’m inspired by it. The people and stories that stir a fire in me to attempt bold things for Christ, aren’t the shy, timid one’s. They’re bold.
It’s that athlete playing hurt, yet risks everything to play in the big game.
It’s the person at the casino betting all the assets from their fledgling company, hoping to make payroll.
It’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. walking down the long highway towards Mobile Alabama.
It’s James Meredith’s first day at Old Miss.
It’s Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s refusal to stay and enjoy the security and comfort of America, but to board a ship to return to Germany, like Paul, knowing his return could cost him his life.
In 1939, Bonhoeffer wrote boldly of the need to risk it all to his friend Reinhold Niebuhr:
“I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I shall have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people…Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make that choice in security” (Bonhoeffer, Eric Metaxas, 321).
That’s inspiring. Had Bonhoeffer played it safe his life would not have had the impact it did…it still does. But because of his boldness lines from his pen like, “When Christ calls a man he bids him come and die,” have a force of bold authenticity that moves us (The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer).
We’re drawn to bold. How else do you explain little boys and girls flooding the German Shepherd infested streets of Birmingham in 1963, standing up for their freedom? Or the juggernaut the first church became in a culture that was physically hostile to the exclusive claims of Christianity? Boldness isn’t the absence of fear, it’s just the refusal to be paralyzed by it. The same Jesus who boldly went to his death on a Friday afternoon, was described just hours before as being distressed as he poured out his soul to His Heavenly Father in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And Dr. King smoked.
I’m convinced that the most inspiring thing any church can do is to take bold steps together for the glory of God.
Those times I have leaned into the Holy Spirit and boldly shared my faith with a complete stranger I left with a feeling of unexplainable exhilaration. Euphoria.
I’ve never regretted being bold.
Join us this year at Fellowship Memphis as we attempt bold things for God. For more information, come experience our State of the Church Sunday on August 24th.
In Defense of Youth Revivals, Youth Days, Women's Days, Ushers Anniversaries...
At six p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, some time in the spring of 1990 I preached my first sermon. The sermon was hideous. The church was packed. I was only seventeen years of age. Because of the popularity of my preacher-father, when people found out I was venturing down his same path the opportunities to preach began to trickle in. I remember speaking at women’s day’s, men’s days, usher’s days, youth days, youth retreats and youth revivals. I know these days and events had to have been a headache for the pastors of these churches (no doubt they inherited them), but they were my training ground, allowing me the opportunity to hone my craft.
The acclaimed writer Malcolm Gladwell has argued that greatness in any field is not so much a product of giftedness, as it is hard work. It’s what he describes as the ten thousand hour rule. To prove his point, Gladwell references such luminaries as Tiger Woods, The Beatles and Chess Champion, Bobby Fischer. Tiger spent countless hours on the driving range and junior tournaments before he conquered the PGA Tour. Gladwell says that before the British Invasion of the mid-sixties, the Beatles developed their craft and chemistry in obscure night clubs in Germany. And before the world knew who Bobby Fischer was, he hung out in parks and homes mastering the art of chess.
I was at the driving range the other day inching my way towards my own ten thousand hours when I saw our club pro working with a boy who was hitting immaculate shots with what appeared to be minimal effort. Draws and fades; towering shots, and stingers- the kid could do it all. On a break I asked the pro if he thought the kid could make it on tour? Without any hesitation he prophesied that he would be on tour, that at the age of 12 this kid had it all. Curious, I wanted to know if the pro thought this young man was born with the gift, or if it came through hard work? Hard work was his response. This boy spends hours a day working on his game.
Preachers don’t get better unless they actually preach. As I look through the rearview mirror on my own development, I thank God for the driving ranges that the traditional African-American church afforded me. If it were not for these youth days (men’s days, etc) I would not have grown at the rate that I have. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that I didn’t take these early opportunities seriously, I did. The people were never viewed by me as practice. I preached my heart out. Nor am I saying that hard work is more important than the Lord’s hand. However, what cannot be ignored is that the Lord used these Sunday evening services, and special days as part of his strategic ten thousand hour plan for my life.
I’m concerned for the next generation of preachers who do not have these “driving ranges” to hone their craft. It’s no secret that the proliferation of men’s days, women’s days, Sunday evening services and youth days are on the endangered species list. Our postmodern culture has little tolerance to endure those who are practicing. They want to hear greatness…now. If my pastor were to announce today that a seventeen year old kid was preaching his first sermon at the evening service, I’m pretty sure the house would not be packed the way it was in 1990.
Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, I also came up during an era when it was common to see little kids beating on the drums, or the keys after church as the people were beginning to leave. This was their own driving range. As they grew older they were allowed to play a song here or there, and then finally they became a part of the band. Today we don’t have time to let these little kids practice. We want great now, so we go out and pay for it.
As pastors we are called to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:11-12). Equipping is not just dumping information on people, but it is giving them chances to actually do ministry under our watchful eye. In other words, we’ve got to allow people the chance to practice.
You know when the New York Yankees were at their best? It’s not now, when they’ve become the all-star team of the major leagues, cherry picking the best talent off other teams. Instead, the New York Yankees were the best when they patiently developed their own talent through their minor league farm system. Players like Mickey Mantle, and Derrick Jeter weren’t instant successes acquired through free agency, but they were cultivated through seasons of practice within their organization. They were allowed to hone their craft, and the results were championships.
I fear that the mega church movement has turned many of our churches into aspiring modern day New York Yankees who want to grow through free agency- bringing in the best and the greatest now- instead of slowly developing through their own farm system, allowing their leaders to practice.
Pastor, before you kill those special services and days, remember that every church needs a farm system. Every church needs a driving range.
Mid-Year Top 10
2014 is halfway over, and I’ve read some pretty good books this year. Here’s my top ten so far, with no explanations. I can’t imagine the top five not making the cut come end of the year.
#10- United: Captured by God’s Vision for Diversity, Trillia J. Newbell
#9- One Way Love, Tullian Tchividjian
#8- I’ll Take You There: Mavis Staples, The Staple Singers, and the March Up Freedom’s Highway, Greg Kot
#7- Every Good Endeavor, Timothy Keller
#6- Washed and Waiting, Wesley Hill
#5- Stokely: A Life, Peniel E. Joseph
#4- Is Marriage for White People: How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone, Ralph Richard Banks
#3- Michael Jordan: The Life, Roland Lazenby
#2- Setting our Affections Upon Glory, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
#1- Crazy Busy, A (Mercifully) Short Book About A (Really) Big Problem, Kevin DeYoung
Honorable Mentions:)
Letters to a Birmingham Jail, Bryan Loritts, editor
Right Color Wrong Culture: The Type of Leader Your Organization Needs to Become Multiethnic (August, 2014), Bryan Loritts
Revolutionary
It’s hard to believe that Stokely Carmichael and Martin Luther King Jr. were once ideologically aligned. As a young college student at Howard, Stokely spent his summers serving on the front lines of the civil rights movement in the bowels of Mississippi. Arrested numerous times, Stokely embraced the ethics of the non violent movement, refusing to return evil for evil. But something began to happen in his heart that would eventually manifest itself in a seismic philosophical shift. On a sweltering Mississippi summer evening in 1966, Stokely Carmichael reached his breaking point:
“We have begged the president. We’ve begged the federal government- that’s all we’ve been doing, begging and begging. Every courthouse in Mississippi ought to be burned down tomorrow to get rid of the dirt and the mess. From now on, when they ask you what you want, you know what to tell ‘em. Black Power!” (Peniel Joseph, Stokely: A Life, page 2).
Three years later Stokely would move to Africa, change his name, and continue the revolution from a far. Dr. King’s assassination the year before his exodus proved to be too much for Stokely. In his estimation, the approach of Dr. King and his non-violent comrades was insufficient. Sure the Civil and Voting Rights Bills had been passed, but there would be years before they were sufficiently implemented, in the mean time, southern whites were using violent and unjust means to protect the last vestiges of old man Jim Crow. Stokely’s anthem of “Black Power,” was an appeal to fight power with power, to use any means necessary to experience justice.
History has already cast her verdict. King’s slain corpse on a Memphis motel balcony proved far more effective, than Stokely’s raised fist. A voracious reader and student of history, Stokely missed the glaring message of past revolutions: Love always wins.
The reason why the Jews of Jesus’ day couldn’t buy into his Messianic claims is that they were looking for Stokely and not Martin. They wanted a defiant, fist raised, fight-the-power political revolutionary, not a gentle lamb who would be lead to the slaughter and buried in a borrowed tomb. Stokely Carmichael doesn’t heal the dismembered ear of his attackers, or stand silently before his accusers.
Someone once said that the duty of all revolutionaries is to make revolution. That’s what we’re trying to do here in Memphis. Every time I pass the Lorraine Motel I think of Martin’s bloodied body, and am thankful. Yet I’m also reminded that “the weapons of our warfare are not of this world”. Raised fists, hate and anger are not the bullets in our arsenal, only love.
Stokely lives deeply within. My years in multi-ethnic ministry have not been easy. Trying to lead a church with our white brothers and sisters who assume that their way of viewing the world and doing church is the right way. Putting up with people who pay no regard to the redemptive elements of your culture, while at the same time feeling as if you have to constantly play to theirs. One can become so used to contextualizing themselves that they wake up one day and feel as if they have lost themselves along the way.
There’s many Sunday’s I’ve wanted to raise a clenched black fist. Like Stokely I’ve wanted to exit stage left and head for more comfortable surroundings where people get it without any explaining. But what keeps me from doing this is that I don’t want to be marginalized like Stokely. I want something that is redemptive, something that pulls together, and not polarizes. That something is the emulsifier of love.
Church should not be a safe place. It’s a training ground for revolutionaries to continue in the path of the great Revolutionary, Jesus Christ. The life, death and life of Jesus Christ was anything but safe. He confronted government officials and racism. He sparred with the legalist’s, and Jesus Christ conquered the kingdom of darkness, all the while wielding only the weapon of love.
Is Marriage for White People?
I’ve been preaching a series on marriage at our church, and in preparing for the series I stumbled across this book on Amazon. Like you the provocative title caught my eye, and so a few days later I found myself immersed in its pages.
Ralph Richard Banks has written a disturbing assessment of the African American family. A professor at Stanford University, Dr. Banks has provided us with a heart breaking diagnoses on the state of the Black family. For example, he writes:
“Over the past half century, African Americans have become the most unmarried people in our nation. By far. We are the least likely to marry and the most likely to divorce; we maintain fewer committed and enduring relationships than any other group. Not since slavery have black men and women been as unpartnered as we are now” (p.2).
Of course any diagnoses of the crises in the African American community would have to deal with the absence of strong Black men:
“Black women of all socioeconomic classes remain single in part because the ranks of black men have been decimated by incarceration, educational failure and economic disadvantage. In recent years, two black women have graduated college for every one black man. Two to one. Every year. As a result, college educated black women are more likely than college educated women of other races to remain unmarried or to wed a less educated man who earns less than they do” (pages 2-3).
The fifty-percent failure rate in marriage has become a popular statistic, but in the African American community the divorce rate is close to two-thirds! It’s no wonder I found myself at various points in Dr. Banks’ book fighting back tears.
As the book progresses Dr. Banks dives into the question of why? Why are strong homes particularly rare in the Black community? The absence of strong men, interracial relationships, the educational and therefore the economic disparity, the disproportionate amount of available women to men, have all swung the pendulum in favor of the few viable African American men. Aware of this power, Dr. Banks offers, these available men play the field, sadder still, the women allow themselves to be played.
The result is devastating. Dr. Banks notes that, “Most alarmingly, almost half of all Black women have herpes” (p.64).
He goes onto write:
“According to incidence rates provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, black women are nearly fifteen times as likely as white women to be newly infected with HIV. And they are more likely than white women to have contracted the disease through heterosexual contact. Estimates are that more than three out of every four HIV+ black women have been infected through sex with a man. And because women may pass the virus on to their newborns, African American children comprise nearly two-thirds of all HIV+ young children in the United States” (p.65).
Sadly, everyone knows that a tributary of the marriage crisis is abortion, and that is heightened even more in the African American community:
“Years of national abortion statistics reflect troubling racial disparities. Black women have a disproportionate number of abortions in the United States, as a black woman is four to five times as likely as a white woman to have an abortion in any given year. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, African Americans, who constitute 13 percent of our nation’s female population, have more than one out of three abortions. Each year black women abort have a million fetuses. That figure exceeds the annual number of African Americans who are sent to prison, drop out of high school, or are victimized by violent crime” (pages 80-81).
Is Marriage for White People? provides the reader with a simple diagnoses, it’s just an Xray, with no real solutions being offered. Problems are exposed, yet help is not suggested. In an ironic sense I felt myself both devastated and inspired as I pored over the pages of Dr. Banks’ text.
Marriage is the first institution God created. Before government or the church, there was Adam and Eve. He planted this married couple in the garden and gave them authority to exercise dominion, and to be fruitful and multiply. Years later, as Israel was about to go into the Promised Land, Moses instructed them in the great Shema passage that the primary vehicle of influence in this pagan place was to be the family (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). Dr. Tony Evans was right when he said that the primary venue for the transference of faith from one generation to the next is the home. Of course I am not pitting the church against the home, but it’s undeniable that Jesus, Paul and the leaders of the early church understood that there was an inextricable connection between strong churches and strong families (Matthew 19; Ephesians 5). Our churches need a steady diet of teaching on the family. Crisis counseling is not enough. Our people need to be shown consistently, from the Scriptures, God’s hopes and dreams for the home.
Is Marriage for White People? not only inspired my preaching, but my living as well. By God’s grace I want to be an example of an African American man who loves his wife for life. I want to love Korie as Christ loved the church. I want to show up for my kids, and uphold the vows that I took before God and the presence of several hundred witnesses on that warm Southern California July day in 1999.