How the Black Church Shaped This Jewish-Christian

How the Black Church Shaped This Jewish-Christian

“You should come visit our church some Sunday,” Mary said on her way out the door with the rest of the choir. It was Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and the choir of Scott United Methodist Church had come to the Iliff School of Theology to host a worship service for the students and staff. I was a thirty-year old student there, and a Jewish-Christian. “Thank you. I believe I will,” I responded, thrilled with the invite. I had always wanted to attend a Black church service, even as a kid. From the outside looking in, it seemed so lively, so interesting, so passionate. Little did I know how the Black church would shape this Jewish-Christian.

I was born and raised Jewish. Before I came to know Jesus at the age of twenty-eight, my grandmother took me on a college graduation trip to Israel. For the first time, at the age of twenty-four, I finally experienced the carefree feeling of being in the majority. Surrounded by other Jews in Israel, fear and guardedness fell away, shrugged off like a coat in warm weather—simply unnecessary. With a sigh of relief, I melted into the multihued, multilingual, diverse society I found there. To be sure, there are distinctions in Israeli society based on one’s degree of religiosity. The size and shape of male head coverings carries a whole calculus of meaning. Round fur hats, small knit yarmulkes, and 1940s style hats each carry a coded message about the kind of Jew who wears it and the norms of their religious observance. I think I was too relieved to notice any of that at the time. I simply drank in the fact that being Jewish was acceptable.

I sensed a similar ease when I first walked into Scott United Methodist Church, a week after Mary’s invitation to me. I joined the well-dressed stream of African Americans who entered the church for Sunday morning worship. Although I wasn’t Black, I got what it was to move from minority to majority status simply by walking into a building. It was a move from “other” to “us,” from being an object of suspicion to being an honored individual, from feeling guarded to breathing easily. Personally, it was an interesting juxtaposition to be in the minority among minorities. Somehow it increased my sense of safety.

After that first Sunday, I trooped off to Scott UMC for the following five Sundays. The people were warm and welcoming. The music was inspiring. The choir was fabulous. The preacher was enthusiastic and kind. The congregation was responsive: “Amen!” and “Preach it!” could be heard throughout the sanctuary. On the sixth Sunday, I joined the church. Six months later, I started my Advanced Field Education placement there, and was invited to be the Associate Pastor.

When I first moved into a leadership position at Scott United Methodist Church, I was the first non-African American pastor in the church’s history. It caused some waves. At first, I thought they were ripples. That was due only to the politeness of the people; they were protecting me from what must have felt like internal storm surges.

One African American seminary professor who also worshiped at Scott UMC called me in to her office at the seminary and asked, “What are you doing at this church, really?” She wanted to make sure I understood the white privilege I carried, even as a Jewish-Christian, and the delicate balances of power it threatened; it had taken African Americans a long time to get to where they were, and they didn’t need me messing with it. Much as I didn’t see myself as white, I understood the privilege she spoke of. Applying it to my own religious experience I could only imagine how the Jewish community would have felt about a Gentile stepping into a leadership role: unsure, ill at ease, suspicious at the very least. But what drew me in to Scott UMC wasn’t a desire to usurp power; it was a desire to share it. At the same time I joined Scott UMC, I was taking seriously the call I heard again and again during my coursework at Iliff: step over the lines that fear has drawn. Be open, in the spirit of Jesus, to radical love of the other.

Jewish-Christian

Some people threatened to leave the church if I stayed, a few actually did. Many more embraced me. The African American pastor who had invited me to be his associate pastor stood toe-to-toe with the concerns being expressed. His courageous stand made a space for all of us to work through our differences. In the beginning, none of us would have said, out loud anyway, that we were prejudiced or racist. Or that we saw ourselves as better or worse than the other. But we all, I suspect, had hidden layers of fear, mistrust, anger, and stereotypes to come to terms with. In the end love prevailed, buoyed by prayer and many a long talk. When I left that church five years later to go to my next appointment, it was as an honored member of the family.

Excitement and engagement brought me to the church. Welcome and gracious hospitality kept me there. During my five years there, we overturned idols together, wrestled through stereotypes, and named fears. In the beginning, none of us knew how it would turn out. It might have led to a church split. Or worse. But when we gave ourselves the space to engage our hidden fears we were instead blessed. I have carried that blessing with me, as a treasure, into the rest of my life and ministry.

Recently an African American friend confessed to me that she had first mistaken me for a “Karen,” an entitled white woman who is passive aggressive toward Blacks, someone not to be trusted. As she got to know me, she came to realize I was cool, not a threat. Our conversation was warm, vulnerable, revelatory. It reminded me that the work of getting to know each other as people, of moving beyond stereotypes, is never done.

In the US, we are born into inherited assumptions about race, color, ethnicity and identity.  It is our work to notice and name the assumptions, then move beyond them, to create something brand new. To find and carry the treasure of blessing that comes from truly breaking through fear into God’s kingdom of love.

If your congregation is stuck in their assumptions, I invite you to join me for my upcoming workshop, Jesus-Sized Dreams for Small-Sized Churches, where you’ll learn how to create and live out your Jesus-sized dreams.

 

Excerpted and adapted from The Jew Named Jesus: Discover the Man and His Message (Abingdon Press, 2013.)

Copyright © 2022 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

Six Steps to Getting Your Church Past Polarization

Six Steps to Getting Your Church Past Polarization

At a time when polarization seems to be at an all-time high, most churches are not able to bridge the gap.  Instead, they are caught up in divisiveness, too. This polarization limits the church’s ability to lead or to distinguish itself as a spiritual institution. That’s why I want to share six steps to getting your church past polarization.

These six steps are important to take. In some ways, churches now resemble the US House of Representatives more than the house of prayer that Jesus envisioned. It’s not that your church shouldn’t wrestle with important issues. By all means, it should.

But when the voice of the church is framed more by politics than ethics, or by who it stands against instead of the love of God that embraces all, this is bad news for your church and the community you serve.

The Lure of Polarization

We know we are supposed to love God, love others, and love ourselves.  We know we are supposed to turn the other cheek and do good to those who hate us. Yet we find that hard to do with fellow church folk, let alone the people “out there.”

Unconditional love is hard to muster when news headlines play on fear, outrage, and worst-case scenarios.  Or when social media feeds reinforce your perspective on the world. It takes true effort to get past these views of the world and believe that something else is even possible.

When churches try to speak to issues like the pandemic, immigration, or even school shootings from a political perspective, they get caught in either/or choices popularized by right- and left-wing media.  This creates a lose-lose situation with no room for nuanced disagreement.  Either/or choices are destined to polarize, and to pit people against each other.

I’d like to offer an alternative for getting your church past polarization. It comes from  prioritizing ethics over politics.

ethics over politics

Prioritize Ethics Over Politics

I suggest this 6-step process for ethical thinking.  It’s not perfect or complete, but it will give you a starting point.  United Methodists will recognize elements of the process as it engages the Wesleyan quadrilateral, the four sources by which we live out their faith.

Step 1 When it comes to thinking ethically, the first and most important step is to get the facts.  That means looking beyond Facebook memes and polarizing talking heads.  It means digging deeper to find out what’s really going on.  “Some moral issues create controversies simply because we do not bother to check the facts,” observe the authors of Thinking Ethically.

Step 2. Turn to the scriptures.  Discover the biblical stories or principles that might apply.  This means thinking deeply and widely about meta messages of the Bible.  Resist the temptation to pluck one or two scriptures out of context that seem to fit the situation.  Many of the ethical dilemmas we face today were never mentioned in scripture.  Similarly, the scriptures themselves were written over centuries in response to situations that are far from our post-modern context.

Step 3 Look to other commentaries or sources of your faith.  United Methodist will want to consult the Book of Discipline, the Social Principles, and the Book of Resolutions to see how other informed persons of faith have approached these issues.

Step 4 Look at the history of the issue.  How has it been dealt with in the past? What has worked?  What hasn’t?  As thinking persons of faith, we engage our faculties of reason.

Step 5  Engage in prayer.  A word of caution here.  I wouldn’t necessarily ask for specific answers to your specific questions; this prayer may lead to confusing our own solutions with God’s divine guidance.  Rather, I suggest praying for guidance and wisdom as you discern together.

Step 6 Engage in respectful, patient discussion about the resources at hand.  To do so, first decide on ground rules and boundaries, so that your discussions don’t become polarized or violent.  At this point, don’t try to come to final solutions or absolute positions.  Rather, keep an open mind.  Keep prayer present even in the discussion.  Over time, discuss possible ethics-based approaches to addressing the problem at hand.

Don’t worry if you don’t all come to the same conclusion.  You probably won’t.  That’s okay.  Here’s what you will have done:  you will have thought faithfully and ethically about the issues at hand.  This ethics-based process creates trust, loosens polarization, and increases your skill at diving deep as a community of faith.  It might even get you loving one another, differences and all.

In Creating a Culture of Renewal®, we empower church leaders to bring out the best in those who frustrate them the most.  Not an easy task. But it is doable.  

 

Copyright © 2021 rebekahsimonpeter.com, All Rights Reserved.

What to Leave Out in Conversations about Race

What to Leave Out in Conversations about Race

Law, custom, and even religion are intertwined with racism. It’s so pervasive that it’s not always easy to identify, let alone dismantle. We must approach Constructive conversations about racism with emotional intelligence.

I have written about arriving at workable definitions of racism and the surprising impact of emotional intelligence on racism

Now, let’s talk about what to leave out in conversations about race. Knowing what to leave out is just as important as what to include.

When people are passionate about a topic—whether passionately for or passionately against—unbridled emotion can easily lead to destructive responses. Destructive responses such as belittling, defensiveness, dismissing opinions, and passive-aggressive behavior strip others’ humanity. While these kinds of reactions may feel satisfying, they don’t advance the conversation. Because they don’t dignify people, hard as it may be, it’s best to leave them out.

Using Emotional Intelligence in Constructive Conversations about Race

On the other hand, while perhaps not immediately satisfying, productive responses will get you farther in the conversation. Apologizing, determining the root of the problem, and taking ownership of your part in a situation will help. Giving people space and time, acknowledging others’ feelings, and seeking active resolution will help. Separating emotions from facts, communicating respectfully, listening, and being aware of your senses will help. These are the kinds of behavior that create space for change.

Effective responses can be harder to live than knee-jerk destructive reactions. However, responding in these ways will grant dignity to yourself and the other parties involved. At the heart of it, acknowledging others’ humanity is one of Christian life’s deep values.

Uncomfortable Conversations

Racism is not easy to identify, let alone dismantle. Approach constructive conversations about racism with emotional intelligence. Click To Tweet

Gloria Browne-Marshall, my guest on the Uncomfortable Conversations series, writes in Race, Law, and American Society that “Justice is an ongoing quest. Freedom for people of color in America began as a fight for physical liberty. It continued as a struggle for constitutional protections and remains a battle against forces that would relegate people to a perpetual underclass based on color and tradition.”

Together, let’s weather that battle for Justice with dignity intact. We do this by fine-tuning what kind of behavior to include and what to leave out. Doing the work of transforming racism is too important not to get right.