I remember the first time I walked into an all-white church and felt unwelcome. An usher approached me as I began my stroll down the plush red carpet. He leaned close and told me, in a quiet helpful tone,  that I might feel more comfortable in the ‘black’ church across the way. That was in Raleigh, North Carolina, 1990. That was not of God. That was racism.

Thankfully today, those days of blatant racism in the church are are fewer and farther apart. But Christians are still hanging out in the comfort zones. I’m grateful for women like Tracey M. Lewis-Giggetts who don’t tolerate comfy Christianity. In her new book, The Integrated Church, Tracey uses an easy-to-read, conversational style to challenge those who are comfortable with mono-cultural church.

The Integrated Church is practical and real, offering insights into how any church can have an active and sustainable multicultural ministry. This is evident in the four elements for building a multicultural strategy that Tracey explores. Pastors and lay people alike will find The Integrated Church helpful. Tracey’s insights into multicultural ministry are interwoven with quotes, anecdotes, and scriptures.

I think many church-going folk expect church to be comfortable and easy, tied up in a tidy package of assimilated sameness. That makes for good cinema but not real Jesus-ordained church. As Tracey points out, ministry building involves conflict. In fact, conflict is inevitable (albeit combat is optional).

“Implementing a multicultural strategy must be gradual and there must be an anticipation of the challenges that are bound to occur.”

She goes on to illustrate the crucial roles that the multicultural leadership must play in driving the formation of the ministry. Prayer, she adds, is also key in the journey to form authentic multicultural ministry.

I found that many of the principles in the book were things I’d heard, read, or written before. Blame that on too many racial reconciliation ministry books on my shelf, I suppose. All in all, The Integrated Church is worth a read. A good resource for group and individual study exploring multicultural ministry for the first time.

Tracey M. Lewis-Giggetts is a writer, educator, and consultant who speaks nationally on subjects related to identity, faith, and purpose within the multicultural context. With wit and transparency, the author of the upcoming book, The Integrated Church: Authentic Multicultural Ministry, effectively challenges church leaders and laypersons who seek authenticity and relevance in ministry. A Louisville, KY native, Lewis-Giggetts resides in a suburb of Philadelphia with her husband, William.

The Integrated Church is available at http://www.nph.com/nphweb/html/bhol/index.jsp

Visit Tracey Online
ISBN: 9780834127241
Format: Paperback
Available: 6th September 2011

The cover of Oneness Embraced  positions the book as a fresh look at reconciliation, the kingdom, and justice. The book, written by Dr. Tony Evans senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, is indeed a fresh look at these topics but it is so much more. Within its pages, Dr. Evans has produced a book true to his customary hard-hitting, deep-thinking style.

In the mid 1990s I heard Dr. Evans speak on racial reconciliation to a standing-room-only crowd in Raleigh, North Carolina. That was back when racial reconciliation was all church folks could talk about. What Dr. Evans shared that night was inspirational and radical. Standing shoulder to shoulder with thousands of others, I knew that God had used this man to speak directly to me about my role in bridge building and social justice. Oneness Embraced skillfully presents yet another layer of the message he delivered that night so many years ago.

In what amounts to a satisfying mixture of theological discourse, church history, and biography, Evans shows a more radical approach to reconciliation. Dr. Evans’s presentation of black evangelicalism is eye opening to me as a black woman. But Evans doesn’t stop there. He uses Oneness Embraced to speak to Christians of all hues and creeds about empowerment, personal responsibility, and the church’s mission in society. The examples from his own life and current events drive his points home.

“The solution to our problems won’t land on Air Force One, nor does God ride the backs of either donkeys or elephants. To put it another way, Christians should be representing God’s kingdom by caring for people across racial, gender, political, and class lines so well that the government experts come to us to find out how we do it.”

Evans is quick to point out that although racial oneness is crucial, it is not the end game. The ultimate goal of all our Christian earthly work–the evangelism, missions work, racial reconciliation efforts, social justice struggles–is to glorify our Reconciler and King. Embracing oneness in its fullest is only one way to help believers reach that ultimate goal.

Oneness Embraced: Through The Eyes of Tony Evans is not a quick easy read, but it is more than worthwhile. I recommend it to those who are student/practitioners of biblical racial reconciliation. Get ready to embrace oneness for the sake of the Kingdom.

AP Photo

On August 22, 2011, a statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was unveiled in Washington, DC. It was the first of its kind to be erected on the National Mall—the statue of a black man. The following is a piece I wrote after President Obama’s election in 2009 as I reflected on the many firsts in Dr. King’s life and the firsts that his lifelong dream unleashed.

“The First Time”

In December 1955 an overworked black woman from Tuskegee, Alabama sat down in a place on a Montgomery bus that was not her place. Or so she’d been told. She was arrested and jailed. She’d broken a law, albeit unjust. That was a first for her.

Not long afterward, a black preacher from Georgia helped in the effort to boycott the Montgomery bus system for their unjust law. He was young and energetic. And also new, with strange new ideas. He stood up and said strange things. He helped others stand up. It was a first for him. He had a dream.

Over the next few years that young man kept standing up. In 1963, he stood up in the Birmingham jail for the cause of peace and brotherhood, and wrote a letter to a few white religious men who thought he was wrong for standing up like he did. He, and many others, stood up a few months later and they marched on Washington. A lot of people joined him. When he got there he stood up on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and finally told everybody about his dream. And then, toward the end of his life, he stood up on the mountaintop in Memphis, Tennessee to help some folks in a labor union. He got shot down. It was 1968.

But his life was not wasted. That young black preacher’s stand caused four young black men to sit down Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960. They got arrested and jailed. It was a first. That young black preacher’s stand caused whites and blacks across the nation to come together in peaceful protest. They marched and sang. And stood up. For equal access, equal opportunity, peace and freedom. They stood and sat. In Selma. In Little Rock. And a lot of places in between. They believed in the dream.

In response, there were bombings and beatings, and all manner of threats directed at the people who stood and sat. In 1963, a man named Bull said it was okay to use police dogs and fire hoses on the non-violent protesters, women and children included. Some people were shot. Some were burned to death. Some mysteriously disappeared. But few people were convicted for the beating and bombing and threats.

But finally one day, July 1964, the people in charge of the country decided that all the jailings, bombings, beatings, and killings were wrong. Their signatures said it was alright for a person to sit down or stand up wherever they pleased, regardless of creed or hue. Finally, all men had equal rights. Segregation based on race was bad. At least on paper, it was. That was a first. It opened the door for many other firsts for blacks. For all Americans.

On January 20, 2009, a young black man sat down in a place that no black man has ever sat. It was his place, as decided in a national election. It was a first for him. And for all of us. May it not be the last.

© 2009 L.L. Hargrove

In Gracism: The Art of Inclusion, Dr. Anderson advocates justice in action, on a personal and systematic level. To him, gracism is at the very heart of reconciliation. As the founder and senior pastor of one of the nation’s leading multicultural churches, I think he’s qualified to speak to Bible-centric racial reconciliation.

Gracist living doesn’t refuse the good things that life has to offer. It simply refuses to ignore those who aren’t as privileged to enjoy such benefits and is committed to doing something about it.

*[emphasis mine]

The bulk of the book is based on portions of the Apostle Paul’s teachings in 1 Cor 12:22-26, which speaks to the necessity and interdependence of each member of Christ’s body. This small, hardcover book is a quick read. And, I have to admit, that at times I found things a little too neatly packaged. Almost overly simplified.  That said, I do think the book would make a great small group discussion tool, particularly if the group faithfully uses the questions for reflection included at the end of each chapter.

More resources:

• Gracism: The Art of Inclusion on Amazon
• Other books by David Anderson

Yet her record-breaking show, Oprah, drew more whites than blacks. In fact, 80% of her audiences were white women. The show boosted sales for countless authors with Oprah’s Book Club and made several small business owners very well off  with Oprah’s Favorite Things.  Were there many black authors and entrepreneurs in Oprah’s offerings? Nope. Apparently Ms. Winfrey doesn’t believe in just ‘buying black’ like some in the African American community.

Oprah has addressed sexual abuse, weight loss, sexual orientation, and even taken on Texas beef producers. I mean really, only one woman can mess with Texas.

But it seems she has never truly addressed racism. Some would say that she has somehow become a non-black. Yes, she grew up in the American Deep South during the Civil Rights struggle. And yes, she does have kinky hair and brown skin. But the distinctions stop there.

To be black in America is still closer to words like marginalized, disenfranchised, and at-risk. And Oprah is far from any of those. Thankfully, she reaches out to the ‘least of these’ but she has not, with her vast fortune and immense influence, spoken out against the ingrained systems of American racism or classism.

Perhaps in some ways she stayed clear of racism because it is, even almost 50 years of Civil Rights legislation, still a powder keg of rage and regret. Perhaps even she noticed the lack of genuine connection she had with black Americans, especially black women.

Would her words have made American racism vanish? No. Not even Oprah’s billions can make that monster go away. But I do wonder what would have happened if she had given it the same attention as she did so many issues on her 25-year-old talk show.

What do you think?

The Freedom Riders struggle lasted into September 1961. Several waves of students participated in the Rides–hundreds were jailed, in fact. They rode from every corner of the nation, mostly converging on Jackson, MS. Vicious mob attacks and bus fires didn’t deter them. The initial lack of support from the the Kennedys (President and Senator), US government, and even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  didn’t bring their movement to a stop.  The Riders were dogmatic, willing to keep riding until they were free to ride. Until we were all free to pursue life and happiness and liberty.

It was an unprecedented interracial David and Goliath story. An impossible war from many vantage points. But they fought it nontheless. They were determined to finish what they started. Most notable Freedom Riders were Stokely Carmichael, James L. Farmer, Jr., now US Representative John Lewis (D-GA), Diane Nash,  and James Zwerg.

I stayed up late and watched the American Experience “Freedom Riders” documentary on PBS, like a good American. I also tweeted the event, meaning I posted my reactions on Twitter. Many others did. In fact, the tweets were coming in so fast that they were impossible to read.

This morning, I revisited the Twitter conversations and found a common thread of awe and indebtedness. Many were moved to tears. Some were inspired to make commitments to change, to make a difference 50 years later. It seems you can say a lot in only 140 characters at a time. One tweeter wondered how different the civil rights struggle could have been with online tools like Twitter. An interesting thought indeed.

What was my takeaway? A high price was paid for freedom, which was the case in many of the battles in the war for freedom in the South. But I also saw that politics and freedom don’t mix well. The Kennedys politics tied their hands. Dr. King’s politics made him falter. In some ways politics, both person and corporate, made matters worse.

It was the determination for change that stuck. On Twitter last night, some called the Riders fools. Some called them heros. Truth is, in the end they were flawed and fearless. And they were free.

Other Resources on the Freedom Riders:

• PBS Freedom Riders promo video
• Short film about Diane Nash
• Shop PBS
• Stories on PBS affiliate WGBH

A good speech-giver is entertaining. They are engaging and enlightening. A great speech-giver adds challenge and a call to action. Many people give good speeches. Shirley Sherrod gave a great speech. One that can be studied, in its entirety, for what it adds to the discussion of what racial reconciliation looks like.

Over the years I’ve seen so many different examples of racial reconciliation. Most of them boil down to what I think is kumbaya-around-the-campfire rhetoric. Case in point, electing a black president was not racial reconciliation. This event, though momentous, was no more racial reconciliation than allowing a black man to vote or own a home or publish a book. President Obama has done all these things.

Racial reconciliation requires much more than solitary acts or events with racial overtones. Real racial reconciliation is tough. It’s an active cycle. It starts with admission, moves on to submission, and gets sealed by ongoing commitment.

The ill-fated two minutes and forty-three seconds snippet of Shirley Sherrod’s speech that got her fired was her admission. She admitted to doing something. In and of itself that snippet had really bad racial implications. But …

Thank goodness Shirley didn’t end her speech there. She went on to share about a complete change of heart, in fact, a God-directed one-eighty. Recognizing her wrong, Shirley had submitted to One higher than herself. And in turning over her will to God, she turned the situation around for herself and the white farmer she was tasked to help. She did not allow anger to overrule her convictions. Right is right, no matter what. In this we see just how seriously she took her God and the values of the rural folks that raised her.

Shirley’s submission led to a lifelong commitment to change the situation for not only poor blacks, a natural inclination for a black woman who grew in the rural South, but also for all poor, regardless of skin color. Shirley committed to being a change agent, risking her reputation to recruit other change agents. What boldness!

She could have been called an Uncle Tom and a sell out, but she was going for the ripple effect. She saw an opportunity, a possibility, however remote, within that sea of black faces at the NAACP meeting and perhaps thought if God could change me, maybe He could change someone else.

These are the traits of a reconciler, a true bridge builder.

Are you a bridge builder?

Here we are on the heels of the World Cup (2006) and already there are a lot of grown folks calling dark-skinned soccer players monkeys. These “offensive” players are being pelted with peanuts and bananas, slapped, hit, and spit upon. In the name of gaining a sporting advantage (supposedly). One player, Oguchi Onyewu who plays for the Belgian soccer club Standard Lige has been harassed and physically attacked more than once. He and several other African and black American players have been called the M word. But to them it just “goes with the territory”, as black U.S. team player DeMarcus Beasley put it.*

So if you play soccer in Europe and you’re dark-skinned be expected to be called a monkey. In a way, I understand it. On the surface, soccer is life to many Europeans. It’s business. Big business. But there’s also the hate factor too. Hate that’s too familiar to Americans. The type of hate that can’t be legislated away. Hate that just goes underground … read the rest

*Source: USA Today

With South African hosting the FIFA World Cup this year, it seems that things are way different this time around. From GlobalNewsBeat.com:

While apartheid’s demise in 1994 led to little immediate change among fans — whites still tend to favour rugby and cricket, while soccer remains a largely black sport — the almost tribal lines dividing sports are fading.

Whites have come out in support of South Africa’s national team, nicknamed Bafana Bafana, and with the team’s early exit from the World Cup, black and white fans alike don their bright yellow jerseys to see the 16 surviving teams.

Bars and pubs, once the haunts of either a black or a white crowd, now are brimming with both.

Let’s pray this lasts far beyond the last goal. God bless South Africa. God bless the world.

I’ve been writing for publication for more than a decade. I have two books in print, released through an imprint of a large [read: majority white] Christian publishing house, and I am black. My works advocate racial reconciliation and forgiveness from a biblical point of view. My covers feature black faces.

Both novels have been marketed in major book catalogs for both black and white readers:  Christian Book Distributors (CBD), Lifeway, and Black Expressions. Yet my books don’t sit in the Christian fiction section at some chain bookstores. They sit right next to the ‘literature’ whose covers feature images of barely-clad black women with large bosoms brandishing equally large semi-automatics.

Needless to way, I don’t take my children to see my books on the shelves anymore. Shoot, I’m embarrassed to even take my mother. Generally speaking, the African American Literature section bothers me. That’s a publishing construct that has outlived it’s usefulness, in my opinion. Good fiction should be good fiction. I’ve written about this before. And should be shelved with good fiction. Unfortunately the AALit section contains precious few works of good fiction. But I won’t get on that soap box today.

STOP ACTING LIKE A SLAVE

Bernice McFadden, author of two works of fiction, is very upset about the positioning of her books on store shelves. In well-written Washington Post article she seems to suggest that the current marketing of African American fiction to only people of color  has more to do with the industry and less to do with the quality and tone of the writing. I disagree.

A little while ago a fellow writer Tracey Michelle Lewis shared about her shock over having an elderly white woman from Kentucky enjoying her book about a thirty-something black woman. Her book covers do feature black women (clothed, thank goodness) so I guess on some level having a white woman read your work would be surprising. Will there come a day when it’s not a shock? Who knows.

Toward the end of her post, Ms. Lewis makes a disturbing assumption. In a nutshell, she says that most publishers fail to realize that no one culture is monolithic.  Huh? Publishers know what trash looks like. They went to college. But they are out to sell books. Selling books means they can keep the doors open another day. If trash sells, they will not only publish it but actively seek it out. Marketers will market trash to people who have demonstrated an appetite for ‘literature’ that portray blacks as immoral, wretched, and ill-bred cultural parasites. And the bookstores will corral it all in a place so that is easy for black folks to find.

My response: Don’t shoot Massa, yet. Stop acting like a slave.

ONLY FOR BLACKS

Canadian blogger, Laina Dawes blogged about a white book reviewer who dismissed a highly-acclaimed novel about a biracial woman as mediocre. His reason? He couldn’t relate to the protagonist. One question she raised is well worth an answer: Do readers prefer books written their own? One of the comments on the post saddened me.

“I was at a Barnes & Noble and I noticed a table where a black author had set up her books for autographs. Many people walked to the table, but no one walked away with a book. I overheard a couple of white women say, “The book looks interesting. Too bad it’s only for blacks.”"

Too bad it’s only for blacks? Part of me wants to believe that this anecdote is made up but as a black author who has sat behind many book signing tables, I know it is all too true.

Where does that thinking come from? I think it’s a product of this American life. The life that is still fractured, seemingly irreparably, by a horrible history. That history still affects every part of American society. Especially media. Race-based segregation did not go away in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Blacks didn’t create Sambo and his ilk but we sure play into it.

I feel that the sad part of this ongoing story is how some black writers segregate themselves with their writing quality (or lack thereof) and shockingly deviant subject matter of their works. They are celebrated and put on best-sellers lists. Regrettably, works like mine are not.

We are part of the system that is happy with a low standards but demands high sales. What can be done about that?

Below are five ways that we parents can teach our children about racial reconciliation from a biblical standpoint. Please share your experiences in the comment box below.

1. Teach Christian first
Don’t elevate race above relationship with Christ. For many parents, this is the hardest thing to model when guiding our children to pick friends and mates. Avoid making generalizations based on race or culture. Correct your children, in love, when they do so.
2. Teach inclusion
Teach inclusion and grace not color blindness. Every colored person has value. God didn’t make any one race better than another. It’s okay to refer to a person as white or black, but not okay to treat them differently because of how they look on the outside.
3. Talk about race
Talk about what race means to God. God’s kingdom is multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural. Ask your children why they think God made his kingdom this way. Stress that it wasn’t an accident.
4. Be intentional
Be intentional about interacting with others that don’t look like you. Attend events with Christians of another race. Even share holidays together, just like a family would. Make time each month to attend festivals, parades, and events that celebrate other cultures.
5. Teach a balance
Teach your children to have a balanced racial identity. Race is important but secondary to Christian identity. Everyone is a distinct piece of one big puzzle called the family of God. We must work together to make real the picture of reconciliation to the World. We become more, not less, when we come together.