This End Down

Since the days of the early church, history has led us to an unfortunate understanding of the word minister as a professional, seminary-educated leader. This leads the rest of us to think that ministry is an extra, a volunteer aspect of our lives. Kingdom resources are often wasted because those who do not do official “ministry” simply pour all of their skills and talents into self-growth, success or making money. More Christians should see themselves as ministers first in whatever job they do and seek to maximize their effectiveness as kingdom workers, regardless of position or title. [...]

If we believe that God is everywhere, there is no such thing as a secular job. We should never think of our work as being separate from our lives of faith. Any job, as long as it is not in opposition to the laws of God, can be a matrix for our real, central call–to be fishers of men and women. Work should be an act of worship, a vehicle for purpose, creativity and joy rather than simply a utilitarian act in order to secure food, housing or education.

From Following Jesus Without Dishonoring Your Parents

This might be a little much for a first introduction to ideas of racial injustice and reconciliation in American, but I hope it’s something that all of you can appreciate. It’s about 50 minutes long, maybe a little more, and it’s really, really, really worth a listen. This is a talk by a guy named Tom Skinner at Urbana (an InterVarsity event) 1970, and according to Berry, it’s the talk that finally sparked IV’s passion for racial reconciliation. Skinner was a former gang leader in Harlem, and he talks here about how Christianity looked to him as an angry black man, and what made that change; he also addresses the history of black oppression in America and the current state of racism within evangelical religion. It’s very, very good.

The link goes to a transcript, but I’d suggest listening to it. You need to hear every thing he has to say, and if you hear his voice you’ll more easily hear his heart.

Tom Skinner - The U.S. Racial Crisis and World Evangelization (Urbana 1970)

Oh! Crap! It’s a Real Audio file. If you would like to listen, but you don’t like Real Audio, let me know in the comments, and I can rip it to MP3 and put it online somewhere.

EDIT: A little background from Urbana’s web site.

EDIT TWO: Mp3 version. Please let me know if this download site works.. I tested it and did what I could to make sure the ads weren’t too risque, but I’d still love feedback if you have any.

Leaving for CC in about 20 minutes. Final packing stages commence. 6ish hour drive to Sharptop Cove, a YoungLife camp a little bit north of Jasper, GA. Two weeks there. Week 1 is a smaller week, but I’m pretty sure FSU and Flagler will be there, so I’ll know people there. Week 2 is the monster week, and UF will be there. Woot. There may be wireless, so this might be a pointless goodbye post. But in case there isn’t, have a good two weeks, and feel free to pray for me and the other staff and the students, that God would completely consume this camp.

EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION: The sentence “not wanting to just be around lots of white people” should have emphasized the word “just”. I don’t have a problem with being around lots of white people–I just don’t want that to be all there is. Also, “around lots of white people” should have read “around large groups of white people.” I hope this clears some things up.
TUESDAY NIGHT
Tonight there was a panel of speakers who are friends of Max, the hipster former campaign manager who’s currently fundraising to come on CUP staff, and I wrote down the “one sentence of advice for these young students” they were each asked to give. Here are a few that were meaningful:

• Make as much money as you can and live as simply as you can; then give the rest away. (I learned later that this is an almost direct quote from Wesley)
• Chose this day whom you will serve.
• Be ready for your plans to be disrupted.
• Hope is a choice that has to be made anew every day.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT
One thing I know for sure about InterVarsity trips is that they make me very aware of my shortcomings. Not that that’s the purpose (although I’m certain it’s not an unappreciated benefit), but more because I’m tested and pushed and put into situations where I don’t know what to do. This leaves the opportunity (gasp!) to make a mistake. I’ve found that, unless I slowly slip into something problematic, I tend to not struggle much with knowingly acting in ways I shouldn’t. However, when I’m placed into situations and don’t know what to do, I’m suddenly not making bad decisions on purpose, but instead because of lapses in judgment or because I just didn’t know enough about the situation to make the best decision.

It’s humbling, being staff. You bounce from being the authority to realizing (or at least feeling) that there’s no reason you should be the authority. In missionary communities I often find myself feeling like I’m the one who “stayed back home;” in church circles I’m just a campus minister; in educated circles I’m poorly paid, and in poverty theology circles I’m a rich, spoiled American. In racial reconciliation discussions I’m overly aware of my whiteness. Around lots large groups of white people I struggle with not wanting to just be around lots of white people. I’m not really even sure what I’m saying right now. The end.

MONDAY NIGHT

I cried at the leadership team meeting this morning, and I’m trying to remember (before it leaves me) what all it was about. At campus group tonight, a much needed time that I desperately wish had come sooner, I kept thinking of things to tell our group, and as each person shared I stacked more things I’d like to share onto the list. But when it finally came time for me to talk, I froze–I couldn’t remember what all I had been intending to share. To add to that, I only had 5 minutes to talk, and so I mumbled out a brief, disorganized rant about how much our group was appreciated, both for the distance we’ve traveled and the multiethnic perspective we offered. But I felt like I hadn’t had a chance to really share, so I’ll attempt to do that here.

This morning I cried at the staff meeting. I cried because I love my group and how beautiful God’s work among them is, and because I loved how much the other staff appreciated them. But one of the things that hit me the most was when we started talking about how students responded to the teachings about racial inequality and to Mertis’ testimony about the racism she had experienced during her life. We talked about our white students who’d never heard the truth about the racism in and racialization of America, and how they were responding to their first little tastes of these issues; these are strong Christians, some of whom are third- and fourth-year leaders in their IV chapters, and yet the majority of the students were shocked at the statistics presented to them. I just had this presence of my students, my friends, sitting in my mind as I thought about the injustices that so many of these other students were learning about for the first time. I thought about many of my friends who, before they turned 16 and could be guilty of DWB (driving while black), grew up guilty of Living While Black. I thought about the lives that black Americans (and other minorities) lead and how inescapable the incredible racialization of American is to anyone with darker skin, and it hurt me so much that I and so many like me could wait until we were in college to even realize the truth about this country. In my mind I hovered over the corner of the room my students where my students sat as we watched videos about lynching and separated water fountains and I watched the responses of the white students experiencing this for the first time. I empathized with people whose entire lives have been pervaded with a painful awareness of the unfairness of our system–people whose ancestors were slaves, yes, but also those whose ancestors weren’t. My Indian friend. My Afro-Caribbean friends. My part-Japanese friend. They didn’t have the luxury of signing up for a trip over spring break that would teach them about racial inequality in America. Life, at least to some degree, was that course for them.

I thought about my friends who are on this trip with me as John talked about knowing that the video, while it educated some, might also just bring up old pains for others. I thought about watching one girl’s face as she identified so closely with Mertis’ stories of discrimination; I thought about the hours and hours of painful conversations many of my friends have been so gracious to have with me over the years, slowly letting me into the world that I didn’t have to grow up with. I thought about the community we have in InterVarsity at UF, where all the white people aren’t just learning about this for the first time. I looked at my group of friends from UF and how beautiful their deep, meaningful cross-cultural friendships are. I celebrated that the video didn’t separate the room into white and non-white; that my four students of color didn’t shrink into a corner seeing a fresh reminder of the atrocities perpetrated upon them and their people. I celebrated with tears of joy that they had been brought into a community together with white people who were struggling to learn about the evils of our society, who valued them and their lives and their voices and their cultures. I wanted to raise my hands up to God and cry out my thanks to him that somehow he deemed it appropriate to place me in a group where I could be trusted; that somehow he had worked something beautiful in the lives and hearts of my students and friends so that they respect and trust me and understand how much I love them. I cried because I saw myself in those white students, and I was so thankful that they, like I did five years ago, had finally begun the journey of confronting their own prejudice and that of their society. I cried because I was so thankful that God had worked situations out to put me at UF and in InterVarsity so I could get to the place I am now, and I cried because I was so scared of the thought of who I might be today had I not followed this exact path he laid out for me. I’ve been humbled enough over the years to be made painfully aware that my good qualities are of no fault of mine. That I feel more deeply burdened for racial reconciliation than perhaps any other cause is not of my own doing.

And I cried because I hate a world that means my friends have to be so much more mature than their peers. I cried because, while I am desperately proud of the maturity, love, and wisdom all of my students embody, I wish we lived in a world where that wasn’t a necessary part of their lives so early. I love that the minority students in my chapter are opening up and learning to love white people, and I love that the white people in my chapter are beginning to humble themselves and learning to identify with the struggles of being non-white in America. And I hate the Deceiver who put it in the minds of men to justify their slave trade using skin color. I hate the lies put in the minds of men that their arbitrary distinctions actually had any meaning–the way the dehumanization of non-whites went from being a justification for slavery to being a reason for slavery. I hate the racialization of our society, but even more I hate the work of the Deceiver to convince our society that it isn’t racialized. I hate that reading Anne Frank or watching Schindler’s List makes middle schoolers think they’ve understood the Holocaust.

I cried because I wished I could stand in front of every one of my friends from the day they were born until the day they died and take every jab, every word of hatred, every prejudice and wrong judgment for them. I wish I could stand next to every girl with dark skin or curly hair or a different nose or brown eyes and tell her that she is the most beautiful girl in the world. I wish I could sneak sections on African and Indian and Japanese and Latin-American history into the textbooks of every child in America, but especially those whose people actually had some part in those histories.

I wish I could just wrap my arms around the shoulders of every girl who’s cried that she’s not like all the other girls. I wish I could stand beside every boy (or man) who’s cut his afro to fit in. I wish I could somehow stand in solidarity with every black woman who’s afraid to let her hair go natural. I wish I could speak Spanish (working on this one) with every Latino and Latina who has been told they need to speak differently to be American. I wish a lot of things, and if I kept writing them I’d never stop. It’s time to go to sleep, and my roommates keep looking at me strangely. It took me a second to figure out why.

I’m crying.

SUNDAY NIGHT

It was so good to go to a church that was theologically sound and fully embraced the traditional African American worship style. The preacher sang, danced, and screamed the whole way across the stage–which, if nothing else, freaked our exchange students out a bit–accompanied by beautiful keyboard playing, drums, and a choir in full robes. I haven’t felt so welcome at a church in a while. Rock Church exudes love, passion, Godliness, and a Biblically-based desire for reconciliation and justice.
An old black woman named Mertis gave her testimony tonight. It was a powerful testimony of growing up in the middle of segregation, seeing daily injustices against the people of your ethnicity, and growing to hate white people. God redeemed her hatred and she’s begun working with Rock Church where she works alongside white folk. (short, I know. It’s late.)

[this part added later:]

We also heard from Brother Warfield, a young man who got educated and tried to move from the plantation fields (which was slavery in everything but the name) up to working as a welder, which he had trained as. Long story short, he was threatened to be lynched and had to leave town. The beginning of a lifetime of enduring discrimination and hatred drove him to drugs, and through a long and beautiful story he finally found himself where he is now, having forgiven what was done to him and speaking all over about God’s healing and redeeming power.

And we heard from Big E, a former Hells Angel and drug dealer who’d found his way to Rock Church when he was 10 years old because they gave out free candy. Twenty-ish years (and a long story later which I don’t have time to type right now) later as he stood in his bathroom cutting his wrists he heard God’s voice telling him it wasn’t over, and he devoted his life to serving God. He now is married to his first kiss from church camp, has 8 kids, and is doing correspondence school so he and his wife can continue their couples and youth ministry.

You hear about all of these things, but hearing it from someone who’s sitting five feet in front of you makes it a lot more real.