Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: We've got a very important message. Those who are here,
Speaker 1: you can just take a seat right where you are
Speaker 1: in your home. I want you to do your best
Speaker 1: to clear out distractions because I think this is going
Speaker 1: to be a very very significant message today. And why
Speaker 1: don't you go ahead and get set up behind me.
Speaker 1: I asked them instead of bringing out my pulpit today,
Speaker 1: to bring out two chairs because I'm not doing this
Speaker 1: alone today. This is a very very strategic moment, and
Speaker 1: I've asked my friend, Pastor John Gray to come and
Speaker 1: help me bring this message today before he comes. And
Speaker 1: really I'm just stalling to give them time to set
Speaker 1: this up, or I'd call him up right now. But
Speaker 1: look at these chairs they brought for us. This is serious.
Speaker 1: And the reason I wanted two chairs to be up
Speaker 1: here is because I was noticing one time in scripture
Speaker 1: how Jesus stood for people that others didn't stand for,
Speaker 1: and he stood by people that others didn't stand with.
Speaker 1: And in a moment where our nation is collectively reeling
Speaker 1: from the atrocity of the murder of George Floyd on
Speaker 1: the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, in this nation at the
Speaker 1: hands of a law enforcement officer, I thought it was
Speaker 1: time for us. In fact, I knew it was time
Speaker 1: because the Holy Spirit spoke to me that it was
Speaker 1: time for us to sit down, sit down and have
Speaker 1: a conversation. Today's message will feel a little different than
Speaker 1: the typical message because there comes a time where in
Speaker 1: order to take a stand, first you have to take
Speaker 1: a seat. And I think the reason that Jesus was
Speaker 1: able to stand with people and stand for things that
Speaker 1: mattered to the heart of his father is because he
Speaker 1: sat with people to understand situations. And today I wanted
Speaker 1: to I wanted to bring Pastor John, who I could
Speaker 1: tell you a lot of things about. I could tell
Speaker 1: you what he means to our family. I could tell
Speaker 1: you what he's meant to our church in these last
Speaker 1: few years. But the reason I wanted to bring him
Speaker 1: is because we both felt like it was time for
Speaker 1: a conversation. A conversation not only about race and not
Speaker 1: only about racism in America, but about the heart of
Speaker 1: God and a way forward. And so I want our
Speaker 1: global Elevation Church family and even relentless church family that
Speaker 1: spends over the great state of North Carolina to South
Speaker 1: Carolina together help me welcome right now one of the
Speaker 1: greatest gifts of God on the earth today, Pastor John Gray, huh,
Speaker 1: I love you back. We were saying, like, how nervous
Speaker 1: we are because we're going to talk about things today
Speaker 1: that that normally get sometimes passed over because they're difficult
Speaker 1: to talk about. But we were also nervous about whether
Speaker 1: to hug each other because people are gonna say more
Speaker 1: about the fact that we unsocial distanced for our hug
Speaker 1: right than the things we'll talk about today. But they
Speaker 1: didn't see all the hand sanitizer in the back and
Speaker 1: all of the right right, like we took hand sanitize
Speaker 1: our bats before we came out exactly. And hey, the
Speaker 1: last time you were at Elevation Church, there were actually
Speaker 1: people in the room. There were human beings here, and
Speaker 1: you still have I think, I guess these are your leaders,
Speaker 1: some of your leaders. Yet these are we we tested
Speaker 1: all of the staff of Elevation Church to find out
Speaker 1: who are the most spiritual, who are the most material?
Speaker 1: This this is the these are these are the elites,
Speaker 1: And so it's just a few were not able to
Speaker 1: open physically. How's it been for you pastoring in a pandemic, man,
Speaker 1: this has been I mean there's no definition for this.
Speaker 1: You know where scripture says you have not been this
Speaker 1: way before. None of us who are alive have you know,
Speaker 1: experienced anything like this. Our church has stepped up in
Speaker 1: a supernatural way. Our team Relentless has been just unbelievable
Speaker 1: and remarkable in their creativity to be globally honoring of
Speaker 1: what I believe our position is in the Kingdom, but
Speaker 1: still meeting the needs of our local community. And I
Speaker 1: see you all doing the same thing. You are a
Speaker 1: global pastor, but this region and all of the campuses
Speaker 1: of Elevation have still maintained their commitment to the local church.
Speaker 1: That is the power of these buildings being closed but
Speaker 1: the church still being open. Yeah. So uh, it's I
Speaker 1: want to shout out all of our Relentless family because
Speaker 1: this is a dual moment. Tag team. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a tag team, man, It's chocolate and vanilla. Let's get
Speaker 1: it going. It's to swirl and I'm grateful. Man, is
Speaker 1: that our tag team named the swirl the Swirl? I
Speaker 1: don't know. We can think about it. Let's think about it.
Speaker 1: We might do a revision or a second or smocha vanilla.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll figure it out. I want to
Speaker 1: say thank you for a few things. One for all
Speaker 1: the times you've blessed our church through the years. You've
Speaker 1: been one of the greatest blessings that God has given
Speaker 1: our church family, just as a man of God. But
Speaker 1: also for reaching out to me, not just this week,
Speaker 1: but you reached out to me a few years ago,
Speaker 1: and you begin to say, we need to have conversations
Speaker 1: about what's going on in our nation, in our world,
Speaker 1: and specifically as it relates to race. And I'll be
Speaker 1: honest with you, and if I can just have a
Speaker 1: minute to set up the background for how this happened.
Speaker 1: You texted me on Wednesday and all you said was hey,
Speaker 1: And I sent you back a heart emoji because I
Speaker 1: knew you would take it the right way, you know,
Speaker 1: And I said it was my way of saying I'm here,
Speaker 1: because I think we were all processing the images seeing
Speaker 1: another black man murdered in the street, and for me
Speaker 1: this time, my twelve year old Graham, my son, saw
Speaker 1: it before I did, so he was telling me, you
Speaker 1: don't watch it, dad, you know. And I had had
Speaker 1: my phone off all day and that's why I didn't
Speaker 1: see it. And it took me until Wednesday to be
Speaker 1: able to type some thoughts about that that I posted
Speaker 1: on social media. And right after I posted it, I
Speaker 1: had that empty feeling that although I had said everything
Speaker 1: that I knew to say, in the moment, it felt
Speaker 1: so empty. And the moment I was thinking, this isn't enough,
Speaker 1: Like how many times are we going to post and
Speaker 1: then feel better because we posted, and then just move
Speaker 1: on and accept this. Your text came through, Hey, and
Speaker 1: then I sent you that heart. And what I didn't
Speaker 1: tell you until this moment is I had just been
Speaker 1: praying in between, somewhere between crying and praying and asking
Speaker 1: God to show me what to do that would be
Speaker 1: more than a post. And you reached out and sent
Speaker 1: me a video after that first text, And when I
Speaker 1: saw your face on my computer screen the message came
Speaker 1: through the computer, I saw how hurt you were in
Speaker 1: your eyes, and I saw how tired you were on
Speaker 1: your face, and I saw how angry you were all
Speaker 1: at the same time, and you said, I think it
Speaker 1: might be time for us to continue our conversation that
Speaker 1: we started in twenty eighteen when you had the bridge
Speaker 1: of it. And about that time, my oldest son, Elijah fourteen,
Speaker 1: walked in and he said, is that Uncle John. I
Speaker 1: said yeah. He said, you're listening to and preach. I
Speaker 1: said no, he sent me this message and we're we're
Speaker 1: talking about the murder of George Floyd and what we
Speaker 1: can do as the church. And I said, how do
Speaker 1: you feel about it? And he sat on the edge
Speaker 1: of my couch in my office and his eyes just
Speaker 1: looked down at the ground and he said, I feel
Speaker 1: hopeless about it. That this would ever change. This is
Speaker 1: always happening. And I knew between seeing you on the
Speaker 1: screen and seeing my son on the couch that we
Speaker 1: had to do this right now. Not plan an event
Speaker 1: for three months from now, not have an Instagram live
Speaker 1: that may get buried in all the noise, but like, okay, God,
Speaker 1: here's the platform of our churches on a Sunday, and
Speaker 1: all of the people that we can speak to and
Speaker 1: we need to offer this opportunity to speak not only
Speaker 1: into the pain and injustice of this moment, but what
Speaker 1: God says to it. I wanted to thank you for
Speaker 1: being the answer to my prayer. Wow, because what was
Speaker 1: just a text message to you was an answer to
Speaker 1: prayer for me. I had no idea what I would
Speaker 1: do or what I would say, but I knew we
Speaker 1: needed to say something. And then here you are, and
Speaker 1: I'm really grateful for you. Man. I want to say this,
Speaker 1: the fact that you had the courage to speak in
Speaker 1: the moment when many of our white pastors, brothers and
Speaker 1: sisters normally have reserved their comments until they get all
Speaker 1: the facts. For you, with all of your influence, the
Speaker 1: annoying that's on your life, and the global position of
Speaker 1: leadership that you hold in the church, for you to
Speaker 1: step out and say, regardless of the facts, what I
Speaker 1: saw is enough for me to say, from a human standpoint,
Speaker 1: this is wrong. And I want to thank you because
Speaker 1: what it did is it broke something that has been
Speaker 1: quiet but very real for many of us as black pastors,
Speaker 1: because in moments like this, and they've happened far too often.
Speaker 1: Always get texts to my phone but they won't talk
Speaker 1: about it out loud, and in this season, silence his agreement.
Speaker 1: I don't need you to quietly tell me you're praying.
Speaker 1: I need you to publicly say this is wrong, because
Speaker 1: this is not just about race. This is about justice.
Speaker 1: And the entire Bible is about justice throughout the throughout
Speaker 1: Old Testament into the New Testament. God is very clear
Speaker 1: that even with Israel, he said, treat the alien and
Speaker 1: the stranger among you. This is how you treat them.
Speaker 1: And so this idea of a lack of humanity, and well,
Speaker 1: what did he do? Let's find out what he did
Speaker 1: for us. If we don't want the video, I don't
Speaker 1: want to comment on the video too. I know the backstory.
Speaker 1: If I put my knee in the neck of a
Speaker 1: dog and it was caught on video, everyone would want
Speaker 1: me to go to jail and never want me to
Speaker 1: preach again because they had more compassion on a dog
Speaker 1: than we have for a man dying in the street.
Speaker 1: That's a problem. It's a heart problem. It's an empathy problem,
Speaker 1: and it is systemic and it is spiritual at its route.
Speaker 1: And so I want to thank you for not being
Speaker 1: afraid to step out from the shadows and use your
Speaker 1: considerable influence to let the world know I stand with
Speaker 1: justice and I stand with what is right. It means
Speaker 1: the world well. To me, it would be hypocrisy to
Speaker 1: pastor a church that was diverse. And I don't just
Speaker 1: mean diverse racially black and white. I mean diverse on
Speaker 1: every level, from different levels of education, different levels of income,
Speaker 1: young old. I grew up in vacation Bible school. I
Speaker 1: don't know the book Ruth from a baby Ruth. You know,
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of diversity in our church. And if
Speaker 1: I celebrate that diversity, never address the disparity. To me,
Speaker 1: that hypocrisy. And although we don't turn this pulpit into
Speaker 1: a reflection of the news cycle, because that would be
Speaker 1: lethal to our ability to teach God's word. And preach
Speaker 1: God's word, I know when the spirit of God speaks
Speaker 1: to me, that's the That's the only way I can
Speaker 1: describe seeing your video is that this is a moment
Speaker 1: in time where even though this is a global ministry
Speaker 1: and some may find this not as relevant based on
Speaker 1: where they live or what they think, what we're talking
Speaker 1: about today is the heart of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: That's right. This is not an issue that we can
Speaker 1: relegate to one group. So if I say, look how
Speaker 1: beautifully diverse this church is, but I don't speak to
Speaker 1: the injustice or the pain of someone who is in
Speaker 1: my church, what am I really doing? Am I ministering
Speaker 1: or am I arranging the esthetic to be pleasing? And
Speaker 1: for me, I've watched you all over the world. We've
Speaker 1: been in Australia together, we've been we've been in some
Speaker 1: interesting environments together, and I've watched Pastor John. This is
Speaker 1: how annoying he is. And I know our church family
Speaker 1: knows this. And I'm not saying anything new, but he
Speaker 1: can walk into a room where everybody's white, or everybody's black,
Speaker 1: or there's any percentage. And I've never seen somebody so
Speaker 1: effectively transcend cultures and mindsets like you do. Never, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: of everyone i've ever seen, try any name we want
Speaker 1: to put up here, I've never seen someone that effective
Speaker 1: and not only being inclusive, but it's speaking to the
Speaker 1: needs of everyone. And I never really asked you where
Speaker 1: that came from. How did you become that way? How
Speaker 1: did God develop you to be so transcendent in your gift?
Speaker 1: I think, honestly, it started with my mother. She was
Speaker 1: in social work for close to forty years, got her
Speaker 1: degree in social work, and in the eighties, late seventies, eighties,
Speaker 1: she was often the only African American woman in rooms
Speaker 1: filled with white people. And I would see pictures from her,
Speaker 1: you know, her professional retreats in all these places, and
Speaker 1: my mother had this big old afro, and she'd be
Speaker 1: this afro in the middle of all this blonde hair.
Speaker 1: And my mother had to be able to live in
Speaker 1: a world that already saw her not only as black,
Speaker 1: but as a black woman. So she had to doubly
Speaker 1: work as hard to be taken seriously. But she never
Speaker 1: brought bitterness home. She always brought hope home. That was
Speaker 1: very fascinating to me. But it was rooted in her
Speaker 1: understanding of who she was and what her calling was.
Speaker 1: So she was always the person to build bridges, and
Speaker 1: she taught me to be the same. She told me
Speaker 1: that God told her I was going to be a
Speaker 1: world leader, and she was determined to raise me in
Speaker 1: a way that I would be able to converse with
Speaker 1: people from different backgrounds and empathize. I've always had a heart.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and born in seventy three.
Speaker 1: Growing up, there was very real racial tension, but I
Speaker 1: was always the guy trying to build bridges before it
Speaker 1: was a thing, before it was popular. I always wondered,
Speaker 1: how if I go to that neighborhood, if I'm walking,
Speaker 1: I get called the N word out the window. That
Speaker 1: actually happens. But if I stay in this neighborhood, I'm good.
Speaker 1: But if they get to know me, they'll know I'm
Speaker 1: not what they think because oftentimes we look at an
Speaker 1: image and not the substance. And so my mother taught
Speaker 1: me how to see people through the lens of grace.
Speaker 1: So I extend the grace that I want people to
Speaker 1: have towards me. So I grew up honoring all cultures,
Speaker 1: even if I don't understand. You know, I didn't understand
Speaker 1: while they were listening to Cindi Lauper. I'm listening to
Speaker 1: run DMC. But then I started listening to Cindy Lauper.
Speaker 1: Now I'm singing time after time. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Because I'm willing to step into other people's reality so
Speaker 1: that I can feel what it's like to be them.
Speaker 1: The challenge is I don't often see that coming the
Speaker 1: other way, because if there's ever empathy, then we wouldn't
Speaker 1: see this lack of humanity. So when I think about
Speaker 1: what's so critical for us to understand in this moment,
Speaker 1: this idea of diversity versus inclusion, because there are a
Speaker 1: lot of white pastors who have black people on their
Speaker 1: worship teams, but they don't have them in their leadership.
Speaker 1: And that's a challenge because if you got thirty five
Speaker 1: forty percent of a black congregation and you don't address this,
Speaker 1: what you're saying is your presence is good, and your
Speaker 1: culture is good, and your tie is good, but your
Speaker 1: pain is not. You've got to be able to embrace
Speaker 1: the totality of me, so I can trust you with
Speaker 1: my soul because I've been carrying this pain for too
Speaker 1: long for you to be silent about the blackness that
Speaker 1: I have to experience every single day. I agree, And
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. I'm standing here. I believe
Speaker 1: as a voice for those who will never have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to speak, and I have to deal with racial
Speaker 1: inequity and bigotry. Even in my own neighborhood where I
Speaker 1: live right now, there are neighbors who have said to
Speaker 1: me out of their mouths, I don't like you, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to know you. And your kids are
Speaker 1: too loud in your backyard, and I need you to
Speaker 1: tell your kids to be quiet because they're disturbing my peace. Also,
Speaker 1: I don't like the way you park your car in
Speaker 1: your driveway. This is God's truth. They think, because of
Speaker 1: their whiteness, they have the ability to tell me how
Speaker 1: to live in the property. That I we have a
Speaker 1: problem and it has been emboldened because of the current
Speaker 1: systems and the current boldness of the spirit of this moment.
Speaker 1: So I carry a pain that even now, as whoever
Speaker 1: I am, if I walk in the wrong place, or
Speaker 1: go to the wrong place, or drive the wrong way,
Speaker 1: I carry the fear that they won't know John Gray,
Speaker 1: the bridge builder that hangs out with Pastor Stephen in Australia.
Speaker 1: They won't know the guy who wants to raise his
Speaker 1: son and daughter to be global citizens and respect people,
Speaker 1: not because of the color of their skin, but, as
Speaker 1: doctor King said, for the content of their character. Not
Speaker 1: as a husband to avanter or a pastor to relentless.
Speaker 1: They will see me as a big black man with
Speaker 1: a beard and a hoodie who might have a gun
Speaker 1: on his hip, and I felt threatened, and so my
Speaker 1: blackness is weaponized before you know the character of my manhood.
Speaker 1: That's a problem. And I'm not just talking about the
Speaker 1: officers of the law. Even in church there are people
Speaker 1: who are saved and who will sing what a friend
Speaker 1: we have in Jesus. But at home, I'm every inn
Speaker 1: word they can think of. And that is the real issue,
Speaker 1: because this is not going to be something that is
Speaker 1: now you got me sitting up. You were not going
Speaker 1: to be able to heal this at the legislative level.
Speaker 1: This is not a legislative thing. You can't pass a
Speaker 1: law to change someone's heart. That's why this conversation has
Speaker 1: to happen in the church, because only the Holy Spirit
Speaker 1: can change the heart and change their mind, and change
Speaker 1: their perspective and change their perception and give people value
Speaker 1: that every single human being that God ever created has
Speaker 1: the same inherent value because of the blood of Jesus.
Speaker 1: I have the same right to live, the same right
Speaker 1: to pursue my dreams as you. I don't want special treatment, Steven,
Speaker 1: I want equal treatment. I want my son to be
Speaker 1: able to hang out with Elijah and I want both
Speaker 1: of them to feel like they can go home if
Speaker 1: they encounter a cop. But the truth is, Elijah has
Speaker 1: a better chance of getting home than my son. And
Speaker 1: it's not your fault, but the system which has been
Speaker 1: here since sixteen nineteen until right now, four hundred years
Speaker 1: of systemic oppression, two hundred and forty four years of
Speaker 1: American chattel slavery that literally dismantled black families over and
Speaker 1: over again, and then after that the Grandfather Clause and
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow era and even into the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Act of sixty four and the Voting Rights Act of
Speaker 1: sixty five, Brown versus Board of Education in fifty four,
Speaker 1: And we look at all these things where they try
Speaker 1: to move the needle for a separate but equal and equality,
Speaker 1: but we have never seen equality. Because the truth is
Speaker 1: we're only three generations removed from humans owning other humans
Speaker 1: in this nation, right and we've got to talk about it,
Speaker 1: and we can't talk about it politically. We got to
Speaker 1: talk about it from the church because the church needs
Speaker 1: to reconcile the sins of silence and the sins of apathy,
Speaker 1: the sin of indifference, the sin of indifference, you know,
Speaker 1: the sin of indifference is for me to say, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not a racist. Do you see how innocent that
Speaker 1: sounds on the surface, But it becomes an excuse for
Speaker 1: me to say that just because I haven't experienced it
Speaker 1: in that way, it doesn't exist, right. I don't get
Speaker 1: the luxury pastoring this church and this church family of
Speaker 1: getting to pastor a white church or a black church
Speaker 1: or any one type of church. What I love about
Speaker 1: that is that it forces me not only to be
Speaker 1: able to say the cliches of Christianity or the cliches
Speaker 1: of equality, but when you lead people and you pastor people,
Speaker 1: it's not political, it's personal, yes, sir. And the thing
Speaker 1: that I was thinking about this moment is that I
Speaker 1: haven't talked to one person who was not appalled and
Speaker 1: disgusted by what happened to George Floyd. Should it take that?
Speaker 1: Should it take that? Should it take a knee on
Speaker 1: the neck of a man in the street for us
Speaker 1: to hear the cries of our brothers and sisters, or
Speaker 1: should we be able to hear this? You know through LJ,
Speaker 1: who plays behind me every weekend, when he says I
Speaker 1: don't feel safe walking in my neighborhood. He put out
Speaker 1: a post that haunted me a few weeks ago after
Speaker 1: the death of Ahmaut Aubury. He said, I realized that
Speaker 1: walking through my neighborhood with my kids was the only
Speaker 1: way safe for me to walk through my neighborhood, because
Speaker 1: without them, I become that suspicious black man with a hood.
Speaker 1: Is that not enough? That he has my back every
Speaker 1: week in ministry And I'm going to let him have
Speaker 1: my back in ministry musically, but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: hear his pain and I'm not going to Does it
Speaker 1: take Does it take an image that grotesque and flagrant
Speaker 1: to get our attention? You know? To me, this moment
Speaker 1: that we're in is symbolic of the sickness that we allowed,
Speaker 1: and yet we'll give more attention to the symptom of
Speaker 1: it than the sickness beneath it. oOoOO, Jesus you you
Speaker 1: you bless me. Yeah, I told you this, I say
Speaker 1: it publicly. You're the greatest preacher of our generation. There's
Speaker 1: nobody that God is using like you, and what you
Speaker 1: said speaks to the type of conversations that we need
Speaker 1: to have in forums like this. It shouldn't take the
Speaker 1: image of a man's life that is ebbing away in
Speaker 1: front of us, and then after he's dead, he was
Speaker 1: still on his neck for three minutes. That is just cruelty.
Speaker 1: That's a lack of human empathy. And I don't know
Speaker 1: what was in the mind of the officer at that time.
Speaker 1: There were four officers there. You tell me that you
Speaker 1: all couldn't figure out a way to pick him up
Speaker 1: and get him in the car. I can already see
Speaker 1: them framing the narrative. They put out a preliminary autopsy
Speaker 1: report that says, well, he had some coronary issues and
Speaker 1: you know, his arteries were clogged, and he had some hypertension,
Speaker 1: and there might have been some narcotics in his system.
Speaker 1: And so they're throwing that out there as if there
Speaker 1: if in those nine minutes, you give me the proportional
Speaker 1: statistical possibility that he was going to die in those
Speaker 1: nine minutes in the back of a car, versus having
Speaker 1: a knee on his neck. And I will tell you
Speaker 1: that it's a valid argument. But it's not a valid argument,
Speaker 1: And stop dehumanizing him and criminalizing him, and the people
Speaker 1: who say, well, what did he do? It wasn't enough
Speaker 1: to die for even if he did what they said,
Speaker 1: which is apparently maybe he forged to check. And if
Speaker 1: he did, then then then serve the time for that
Speaker 1: after due process. But you don't die for writing a
Speaker 1: bad check. You handle whatever that is. But it takes
Speaker 1: an image like that, the same way it took the
Speaker 1: image of Emmitt Tills open casket for our nation to
Speaker 1: be shocked by the brutality of what was happening in
Speaker 1: the South, in the Southern States, all of us who
Speaker 1: who understand the georeligious construct of the different versions of
Speaker 1: Jesus depending on what part of the country you live in,
Speaker 1: Because we got a lot of devout folk in the South,
Speaker 1: but they're real quiet about moments like this, but real
Speaker 1: loud about their Jesus. But their Jesus is gun toting
Speaker 1: and republican and black Jesus is democrat and liberal. In
Speaker 1: the truth is Jesus is neither, because he wasn't political,
Speaker 1: he was monarchy, he was spiritual, bless and so we
Speaker 1: need to deal with Jesus as he is right. But
Speaker 1: it takes the image of a man that looks like
Speaker 1: me mitda Arberry shot with a shotgun jogging Brianna Taylor
Speaker 1: in her house, sleep in her bed. Sorry, wrong house,
Speaker 1: wrong house. And if you listen Stephen to the the
Speaker 1: nine to one one call from her boyfriend. The cops
Speaker 1: left her there, they said, sorry, wrong house. He had
Speaker 1: to call nine one one to get people to come back.
Speaker 1: They killed her and left, and then he had to
Speaker 1: call nine one one for help and then they charged
Speaker 1: him with murder. This is the reality, and those images
Speaker 1: are the things that shock us from our apathy. And
Speaker 1: so should it take that No, it shouldn't. It should
Speaker 1: it shouldn't, but it has well. I think we have
Speaker 1: a stewardship. When the national consciencesiness is pierced Ephen for
Speaker 1: a moment, it gives us a window, and it gives
Speaker 1: us an opportunity to speak to the horror that people feel.
Speaker 1: My issue is that in a lot of these situations,
Speaker 1: we have reduced Jesus and Christianity to the most comforting
Speaker 1: things that he said. And there even people have already
Speaker 1: logged off of this service right now once they found
Speaker 1: out what the topic was going to be and that
Speaker 1: it wasn't going to be comfortable, or that I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to tell them how to make it through the valley.
Speaker 1: You know, the moment that I mentioned something that made
Speaker 1: them maybe feel like they were going to hear something
Speaker 1: either that challenged them or that they have become numb to,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of what happens is that
Speaker 1: we get overwhelmed. So when Elijah walked in my office,
Speaker 1: what scared me so much was he's already falling into
Speaker 1: despair that this can change. And he's white. Now, if
Speaker 1: my fourteen year old white son is already falling into
Speaker 1: despair that this is ever going to change, despair is
Speaker 1: just as deadly as denial. And I want to ask
Speaker 1: if you agree with me that we have to be
Speaker 1: so careful that we don't live in denial about what exists,
Speaker 1: but the despair that we can change it is just
Speaker 1: as dangerous. You know, the moment I start to think, well,
Speaker 1: what can I do? I can't change this. I don't
Speaker 1: know the president, I'm not able to affect legislation, I
Speaker 1: don't really understand all the surrounding issues. Nobody's going to
Speaker 1: listen to me. The moment I start to give into that,
Speaker 1: the moment that I just accept it and tolerated, I
Speaker 1: give up the possibility to change it. And that's why
Speaker 1: I said let's get together. This may not be enough.
Speaker 1: And I knew when we walked into this today, we
Speaker 1: won't say it right. For some people. I'll say it wrong.
Speaker 1: You'll say it wrong. We'll say too much, we won't
Speaker 1: say enough. I was telling my barber today it's legal
Speaker 1: to get haircuts again, right, Okay, So he's cut my
Speaker 1: hair today. I didn't want to get us in trouble.
Speaker 1: He was cutting my hair and we were talking, and
Speaker 1: I asked him to be here for this conversation because
Speaker 1: he gave me so much love and perspective about what
Speaker 1: it's like to be in a black man in America
Speaker 1: over the last three years. But when I said we
Speaker 1: were talking, I told him, you know, you need to
Speaker 1: pray for me in tongues because you know, no matter
Speaker 1: what I say, no matter what John says, somebody is
Speaker 1: going to be there to dissect it. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I said this week was that I have
Speaker 1: never first hand experienced the brutality of systemic and overt
Speaker 1: racism toward black men and women in America. And I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, well, maybe someone will criticize some of that,
Speaker 1: and somebody did. Somebody said, you use the word overt,
Speaker 1: but it's really the covert racism that we have to
Speaker 1: be more concerned about. Somebody said, you use the word
Speaker 1: systemic racism, you're just to pawn for the mainstream media,
Speaker 1: and you're just you know, you're you're just regurgitating terms.
Speaker 1: But what I didn't see coming this is what I
Speaker 1: was telling you. It's not really funny, but it's funny
Speaker 1: and it goes to show how, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to speak even though people may misunderstand. Somebody actually sent
Speaker 1: me a message and what they took upence with was
Speaker 1: men and women who are black, and they crossed out
Speaker 1: men and women and said people because by saying men
Speaker 1: and women, I was not being gender inclusive enough. So
Speaker 1: here I am follow the whole thought talking about a
Speaker 1: man who is suffocating on the street, screaming for his
Speaker 1: mother and the injustice of it. And somebody is correcting
Speaker 1: the typo of like it's like it's a paper with
Speaker 1: a typo. And I realized that if we wait for
Speaker 1: everyone to agree with it or figure out how to
Speaker 1: say it just right, like it might come out wrong,
Speaker 1: but at least we're speaking on lease say something stupid.
Speaker 1: But we have lost this art of conversation because we
Speaker 1: have replaced it with clicks and comments, and so we
Speaker 1: don't talk, so we don't empathize. And since we have
Speaker 1: no relationships with people who don't understand our perspective, we
Speaker 1: continue to use even religious as a system to confirm
Speaker 1: our biases. Because we go to church with people who
Speaker 1: think just like us, look just like us, vote just
Speaker 1: like us, grew up just like us, sang songs clapped
Speaker 1: on the two and the four, the one in the
Speaker 1: three clap just like us, move just like us. And
Speaker 1: because we never challenge ourselves and our perspective, we stay
Speaker 1: stuck in states of spiritual immaturity and even regressive states
Speaker 1: where we can't stand with anyone because we've never stretched
Speaker 1: to understand anybody else's experience. I think we need to
Speaker 1: just give God a five second phraise break all over,
Speaker 1: Epham Rock family, Come on, let's Jesus, pastor Stephen, thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying what you're saying right now, because
Speaker 1: this is not about are we saying the perfect thing?
Speaker 1: Allow us to have an emotional human moment. When you
Speaker 1: read Psalm one thirty seven, the writer says, how can
Speaker 1: we sing in a strange land? Then at the end
Speaker 1: of the psalm. He says, Lord, dash my enemy's children
Speaker 1: against the rocks. What a horrible thing to write. Why
Speaker 1: is it in the Bible? Because God allowed for the
Speaker 1: human emotion to be expressed without judgment. We don't want
Speaker 1: the truth, we want to feel good. And I want
Speaker 1: to say this, This conversation is not the end. It's
Speaker 1: a beginning. And what I also want to say is
Speaker 1: that if we only separate this by race, we're going
Speaker 1: to lose the necessary people that need to be involved
Speaker 1: in the conversation. Every white person is not a racist.
Speaker 1: This should not be a place where white people need
Speaker 1: to apologize for being white. I'm sorry for what my
Speaker 1: ancestors did. That's great, but it wasn't you. Being a
Speaker 1: part of a system doesn't mean that you overtly are
Speaker 1: committing horrific acts. I think each individual should be dealt
Speaker 1: with based on their character and what they're doing, and
Speaker 1: so white people should not be sitting around feeling guilty
Speaker 1: because they're white. And people who say things like this
Speaker 1: really scare me. God doesn't see color. I've never seen color.
Speaker 1: I'm colorblind. Well then you got a problem. Because God
Speaker 1: is not color blind or culture blind. He created color
Speaker 1: and culture because he wanted diversity, which is in John seventeen, Father,
Speaker 1: make them one as you and I are one, which
Speaker 1: means diversity was the seed to see if we would
Speaker 1: lay down our culture and pick up the kingdom. And
Speaker 1: that's why this conversation is important. All white people aren't
Speaker 1: bad anymore than all black people are good and altruistic.
Speaker 1: You've got individuals that are broken in every race, in
Speaker 1: every culture, in subsection. But this is a necessary conversation
Speaker 1: and it should not be approached from a judgmental perspective.
Speaker 1: And I don't want people feeling like they are already
Speaker 1: being judged is wrong or judged as unworthy of change
Speaker 1: because of the pain of the moment. On the other side,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have to temper my emotions to quell to
Speaker 1: your discomfort. I'm enraged. I'm also scared because it could
Speaker 1: be me. It's enough that there's a virus that's killing
Speaker 1: people that look like me at a disproportionate rate. I
Speaker 1: got a virus that I gotta fight, and there's a
Speaker 1: virus called racism that I've been fighting. So the pressure
Speaker 1: of both is a lot, and I think that we
Speaker 1: need to be able to be okay with the conversation
Speaker 1: without shredding each other's humanity. You know, we're not monolithic.
Speaker 1: All African Americans don't think the same. All white people
Speaker 1: don't think the same. You know. I went to the
Speaker 1: White House, and brother, black people were finished with me.
Speaker 1: I don't know, he didn't, he didn't. I know he
Speaker 1: wasn't up there with him because Black people have been
Speaker 1: in so much pain that what they saw was someone
Speaker 1: who identifies with who has now become, to many of them,
Speaker 1: the picture of systemic oppression. They saw an image, but
Speaker 1: didn't see the substance. When I went to the White House,
Speaker 1: I went because I wanted to talk about prison reform.
Speaker 1: I don't work the for that administration. I've not received anything,
Speaker 1: but I needed to sit at the table. I thought
Speaker 1: it was important. And it turns out that legislation that
Speaker 1: I went to speak about was one of the few
Speaker 1: bipartisan pieces of legislation that helped black and brown people
Speaker 1: to get out of of the prison industrial complex. But
Speaker 1: people didn't see that, And I understand why, because when
Speaker 1: you're in pain, the first thing I see is the
Speaker 1: thing I remember the most, and so I have to
Speaker 1: understand that. Even though my heart was pure. So was
Speaker 1: their pain. And so I have to understand that we're
Speaker 1: at a very sensitive place, and I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: talk cut me off, Stephen, because you know I'm a
Speaker 1: black preacher and I talk a lot. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to what I believe is the role of the
Speaker 1: church in this conversation, is we need to talk about
Speaker 1: the fact that we're dealing with two different versions of Jesus. Man.
Speaker 1: I think so. I think there's like the Jesus said,
Speaker 1: did you ever have a toy where you pull the
Speaker 1: string and they say like five things, seven things, over
Speaker 1: and over again? What's that called the little Do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I know my kid has one
Speaker 1: that's a different saying. That's what we've done to Jesus.
Speaker 1: We've programmed him to the five to seven things that
Speaker 1: we like him to say. And some of the things
Speaker 1: that he said were so controversial that they got him killed,
Speaker 1: guests killed. Speak on it, sir, because he threatened a
Speaker 1: power structure and because what he represented for the marginalized
Speaker 1: was so threatening for those who were in power. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I wanted to tell you this
Speaker 1: story that I never told you before about elevation, how
Speaker 1: people get locked into one view of Jesus in one
Speaker 1: view of church, and it's very difficult to break that
Speaker 1: once it's been established. Like my view of church was
Speaker 1: kind of informed by Santi Circle Baptist Mission, where Pastor
Speaker 1: Mickey let me come be the youth pastor, kind of
Speaker 1: informed by Monk's Corner United Methodist where I grew up,
Speaker 1: and then kind of informed by Voices of Unity, the
Speaker 1: gospel choir that Chris Dixon invited and recruited me to
Speaker 1: sing in. I went to go see the spring concert
Speaker 1: for Voices of Unity, and I loved it so much
Speaker 1: because I was looking for new music, because I was
Speaker 1: trying to burn all my secular music, you know, my
Speaker 1: secular CDs. I was having a bonifire from my Green
Speaker 1: Day CDs and all that. And to me, somebody had
Speaker 1: slipped me a Kirk Franklin tape and a John Peeky tape,
Speaker 1: and I liked it enough to ask Chris Dixon when
Speaker 1: was the spring concert. And I came to the concert
Speaker 1: and then he asked me to join the choir the
Speaker 1: next year, and I said, you don't really want me
Speaker 1: to join. I'd be the only white person in the
Speaker 1: Voices of Unity choir. He said, I'd love for you
Speaker 1: to join. I want you to join, and I blew
Speaker 1: him off, and I was kind of thinking he was
Speaker 1: just being polite, but he kept chasing me down. He said,
Speaker 1: our first rehearsals Wednesday in the bandroom. I want you there.
Speaker 1: I need you in my tenor section. And his mom,
Speaker 1: Martha Dixon, was the sponsor of the choir. And I
Speaker 1: spent that year, my senior year of high school, singing
Speaker 1: with that choir and being welcomed being the only white
Speaker 1: person in every church we went into to sing, and
Speaker 1: it shaped so much of who I was that when
Speaker 1: I went to college, they had a gospel choir called
Speaker 1: Black Student Fellowship. I joined that one too. I love this,
Speaker 1: and and that one changed the name to uh BSF
Speaker 1: was Black Student Fellowship, but then it was Brothers and
Speaker 1: Sisters Fellowship for the two years that I was there.
Speaker 1: Because I was so you messed up the night I
Speaker 1: was so, I was so determined to be in the choir,
Speaker 1: YEA changed it. So that's not to say I've always
Speaker 1: been down, you know, That's That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm saying so much of me was shaped. So when
Speaker 1: Elevation Church was born, it was mostly white people. I
Speaker 1: never saw that. I never saw that this would just
Speaker 1: be a white church, black church front church. I never
Speaker 1: saw that it would just be for the people that
Speaker 1: that that believe in predestination or that believe in pre
Speaker 1: tribulation rapture. I never saw that. I just saw that
Speaker 1: we would probably encompass a lot of different backgrounds. I
Speaker 1: always thought that way. And I was telling this guy,
Speaker 1: uh TJ. I'll say, for sure you remember him, And
Speaker 1: I told him, I'm gonna start a church, and I
Speaker 1: believe it's gonna be really diverse, and I believe it's
Speaker 1: gonna have all kinds of people, black people, white people,
Speaker 1: young people. Then, you know, and and he goes, not
Speaker 1: in the South, you won't not in the South, you won't. Wow,
Speaker 1: help me Jesus. Well, in the South, we did, you know,
Speaker 1: in the South, we did like, please don't limit my
Speaker 1: God to your experience, like, please don't bring my God
Speaker 1: down to the level of your frame of reference, you know.
Speaker 1: And I never I never got to bring that guy
Speaker 1: to Elevation. I really wish, I really wish he could
Speaker 1: come and I could show him what God did. But
Speaker 1: but it wasn't a strategy. It wasn't thank you you know,
Speaker 1: oh well, if we'll get black singer and a white
Speaker 1: singer and a female singer. There was never any of that.
Speaker 1: It was invested in me from the people who welcome me. Wow.
Speaker 1: And so it's impossible for me now to not want
Speaker 1: to sit down with you and say I can't receive
Speaker 1: from a culture, I can't receive from a community, and
Speaker 1: then not sharing the pain of the people who make
Speaker 1: up that community's right to me, that sin. To me,
Speaker 1: that's missing the mark, yes, sir, And to me, that's
Speaker 1: falling short of the standard that God has given the church.
Speaker 1: And so when people say how do you diversify Elevation Church,
Speaker 1: you know, how do you diversify? And like, well, first
Speaker 1: you have to go to the voices of Unity Concert
Speaker 1: and realize that Martha Dixon does not sing past me,
Speaker 1: not out of General Savior, the same way that they
Speaker 1: sang it at Monk's Corner United Methodists. It's a completely
Speaker 1: different rhythm, a completely different cadence. It's a completely different thing. First,
Speaker 1: you are going to have to expose yourself. I think
Speaker 1: exposure is so critical because listen, if I were taking
Speaker 1: my view of people that don't look like me from
Speaker 1: what I see in headlines and what I see that
Speaker 1: it is presented to me from CNN or Fox News.
Speaker 1: If I were to reduce it down to that, it
Speaker 1: would kill my ability to empathize with the humanity of
Speaker 1: that person. The only reason I know to have this
Speaker 1: conversation with you is because of your friendship to me.
Speaker 1: If you didn't give me the gift of your lens
Speaker 1: to let me know what actually happens in your neighborhood.
Speaker 1: But see, I can't have a black couple that sits
Speaker 1: on the front row of my Sunday nine thirty every
Speaker 1: week email me and say pray for us. It's been
Speaker 1: a hard week that my husband had the police called
Speaker 1: on him for taking out the trash too late at
Speaker 1: night in our neighborhood. And refuse to feel that and celebrate.
Speaker 1: We're a diverse church, blessed or the peace maders pull
Speaker 1: the string and let Jesus say something to ignore the
Speaker 1: issue that is really beneath Jesus. To me, that would
Speaker 1: be the essence of hypocrisy. But a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't get to have conversations like this, or they won't
Speaker 1: or they're scared they're say it wrong, or they don't
Speaker 1: want to take the time, or they don't want to know,
Speaker 1: or they'll just say, well, I could never understand what.
Speaker 1: You need to start understanding because it's real, that's it,
Speaker 1: and avoiding it won't make it go away. So we've
Speaker 1: got to start understanding. We've got to start reading, we've
Speaker 1: got to start learning some things, exposing some things. You know,
Speaker 1: the light of the world, Jesus said you are the
Speaker 1: light of the world. I always thought that meant, you know,
Speaker 1: quote scriptures and witness to people. It means don't be ignorant.
Speaker 1: It means we've got to shine light on ignorance. That's right.
Speaker 1: We've got to have revelation about things that we don't understand.
Speaker 1: Just because I haven't experienced it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: That's it. And when, please, please, can we just take
Speaker 1: Steve O. We your experience with the BSF Choir, Brothers
Speaker 1: and Sisters Fellowship, Black Student Fellowship, whatever the name was,
Speaker 1: that had to change because you showed up. That's a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing, because your presence changed the system, and your
Speaker 1: presence changes the system, and it's why God had you
Speaker 1: in those places because he knew you were going to
Speaker 1: need to sit in that chair in twenty twenty. And
Speaker 1: you're not pandering. You've lived it. And this is the
Speaker 1: power of the moment that I didn't try to be
Speaker 1: someone who's trying to build bridges. I've had to build them.
Speaker 1: The problem with people who build bridges is when you
Speaker 1: lay yourself down, they walk all over you, and they
Speaker 1: often don't see your value until it's over. I told
Speaker 1: you personally, I said, I don't really think things will
Speaker 1: change either until somebody like me gets killed. I said
Speaker 1: it to my wife. I'm not I hope it doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: I want to live, I want to walk my daughter
Speaker 1: down the aisle. But it takes somebody like that to die.
Speaker 1: So somebody say this can't keep going. But it was organic.
Speaker 1: Your connection to the communities that you would end up
Speaker 1: pastoring was organic. And then it became intentional because I
Speaker 1: do believe that there is an intentionality to continue the
Speaker 1: conversations around diversity and in the church, we have run
Speaker 1: the other way after Brown versus Topeka, the proliferation of
Speaker 1: Christian schools, which was a nice way of saying I
Speaker 1: don't want my white kids going to school with black kids.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna put Jesus in front of it and
Speaker 1: call it a Christian school, put a tuition on it,
Speaker 1: and not let my kids go to school with these
Speaker 1: black kids. That's where that happened the Baptist in Southern Baptists.
Speaker 1: The issue that separated them was the Southern Baptist wanted
Speaker 1: to keep their slaves. Southern Baptist Southern Christian. We see
Speaker 1: Jesus is okay with us owning other humans. So let's
Speaker 1: keep singing what a friend we have in Jesus while
Speaker 1: owning people. And so when you think about the silence
Speaker 1: of the church, and somebody asked me, how come you
Speaker 1: think more white pastors don't speak out, and I say,
Speaker 1: because it'll mess up their money, it'll mess up their
Speaker 1: tithe because they have too many people who think opposite
Speaker 1: of justice, not race, just justice, just humanity. And they're afraid.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why God wants to tear it
Speaker 1: all down. The first thing Jesus did in the last
Speaker 1: week of his life was turn over the table of
Speaker 1: the money changers. So this is not about money. If
Speaker 1: you're afraid you're gonna lose tithes because you speak out
Speaker 1: against injustice. Maybe you shouldn't be pastoring right now if
Speaker 1: you don't care about the humanity of somebody dying on
Speaker 1: the street. And here's the thing, if it was a
Speaker 1: white woman with a black cop on her neck, I'd
Speaker 1: still be on this stage because that is as wrong
Speaker 1: as as Big Floyd dying. This is not about color
Speaker 1: for me. This is about systemic oppression of people in
Speaker 1: power that are supposed to protect and serve. And that's
Speaker 1: years in the making. And again, this is the silence
Speaker 1: of the church that must be addressed. This conversation is
Speaker 1: the beginning of something that I think more churches need
Speaker 1: to have. It's so much that I want to say,
Speaker 1: But I know I was thinking before we came, I
Speaker 1: wish that the church could be full. I wish we
Speaker 1: could be together because this week has been so lonely
Speaker 1: for so many people, and to process in church together
Speaker 1: would be beautiful. But then I shifted and I thought,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that the conversation will be happening in homes,
Speaker 1: that hundreds of thousands of people will be experiencing this
Speaker 1: conversation in their home, because if the conversation happens in
Speaker 1: the home, Stephen Ferdict you better preach. I looked at
Speaker 1: Elijah when he said it's hopeless. I said, if I
Speaker 1: gave into that, if I gave into that, I'd be
Speaker 1: sacrificing an entire generation and I would have no reason
Speaker 1: to ever stand up and preach again. So I refuse
Speaker 1: to submit to that. I refuse to surrender to darkness.
Speaker 1: I'm not ready to do that yet more. At the
Speaker 1: same time, like to think that one person's life, mine
Speaker 1: heart would change, not just feel guilty. I think that's
Speaker 1: stopping well short of what's really going to bring about
Speaker 1: any change. Like guilt is not a strategy. You know,
Speaker 1: I feel so bad about that. And I'm white and
Speaker 1: I don't know what it's like to be black, and
Speaker 1: I feel so bad, you know, broken heart emoji, I
Speaker 1: feel horrible. Guilt is not a strategy. But maybe we
Speaker 1: don't know the difference between guilt and repentance because I've
Speaker 1: never talked to a black friend or someone who goes
Speaker 1: to church here who is black that said, what I
Speaker 1: want you to do is feel bad. Would you just
Speaker 1: feel bad for me? Would you just feel bad about things?
Speaker 1: Feeling bad doesn't change anything. But repentance is different than guilt.
Speaker 1: Repentance means change direction in the Old Testament and change
Speaker 1: your mind in the New Testament, Yes, sir, And so
Speaker 1: it means we change direction, we do it differently. We
Speaker 1: have to do it differently. We have to do this
Speaker 1: differently than we've been doing it, or we're going to
Speaker 1: continue to see this and then we're going to feel bad,
Speaker 1: and then we're going to see it and then we're
Speaker 1: going to feel bad. The only way to break the
Speaker 1: cycle ists to repent. And we were talking on the
Speaker 1: phone about we can't just come out, sit down and
Speaker 1: wash each other's feet and sing a bridge over troubled
Speaker 1: waters and pass it on light candles in Kumbai, yah,
Speaker 1: because you know at the end of the day that
Speaker 1: would just be nothing but an anesthetic. But to really
Speaker 1: repent in your heart and say, have I changed my mind?
Speaker 1: Do I see things like God sees it? Or do
Speaker 1: I still allow in my heart these corners of darkness
Speaker 1: that I make assumptions and that I allow prejudice and
Speaker 1: I excuse it. Do I allow those comp versations? Do
Speaker 1: I participate in them? Do I advocate them? Do I
Speaker 1: co sign them by my silence? That's repentance. Repentance is
Speaker 1: changing direction. Repentance is moving differently, thinking differently, speaking differently,
Speaker 1: refusing to contribute by indifference. So I think the better
Speaker 1: Biblical response to this is repent, which doesn't lay on
Speaker 1: the floor and just cry. It's to get up and
Speaker 1: walk in a different direction. Yes, sir, Yes, sir. When
Speaker 1: you talk about changing direction, the question is that I
Speaker 1: think white people need to be asking themselves in this moment,
Speaker 1: what is in my heart about black people? And how
Speaker 1: did it get there? Because there are people who say,
Speaker 1: I'm cool with everybody? How cool are you? Are you
Speaker 1: cool enough to let your white daughter marry a black man? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's no problem. What about your mom? Would she be
Speaker 1: okay with it? Aunts? And uncles? I know, Abby and
Speaker 1: John are about a year apart, my son, your daughter.
Speaker 1: I hope they grow up together worshiping God with the
Speaker 1: amazing graves in the gardens box set. And you know,
Speaker 1: first of all, I'm so sick of you writing bangers.
Speaker 1: I'm really tired of it, and I want to sit
Speaker 1: in the writing room with you. But enough about that.
Speaker 1: But would they be okay, Charlotte? They probably be cool.
Speaker 1: But if they were walking down the street in Monk's Corner,
Speaker 1: just as friends. Would somebody have a problem they were
Speaker 1: sitting in a diner, would your family be okay with that?
Speaker 1: We need to start asking those questions. That's why this
Speaker 1: conversation needs to be at home, because it's one thing
Speaker 1: to be nice to me here, but how many in
Speaker 1: words am I at your house? How many h words
Speaker 1: are white people in my house? See? Because it goes
Speaker 1: both ways. I don't want to see because what we
Speaker 1: can't do here is absolve any community from responsibility. If
Speaker 1: we're going to really have healing, then we need to
Speaker 1: deal with the anger and the pain on one side
Speaker 1: and the indifference and apathy on the other. There is responsibility.
Speaker 1: I don't get to use my pain as a poolpit
Speaker 1: to get angry at every white person when there are
Speaker 1: some areas of collective responsibility that I need to take.
Speaker 1: But on the other side, if we're really going to
Speaker 1: change our minds, we need to be honest about what's
Speaker 1: in there in the first place, and how it got there,
Speaker 1: and how it got there and how it got there,
Speaker 1: and we get to affect that. Because that's the idea
Speaker 1: that I have. If we change one person's heart in mind,
Speaker 1: if God changes one person's heart in mind through this
Speaker 1: conversation today, or even if we can model like this
Speaker 1: needs to happen at the kitchen table. This needs to
Speaker 1: happen not only as a token conversation in a moment
Speaker 1: that is as flagrant as the moment that we're in.
Speaker 1: It should be a course of conversation for followers of
Speaker 1: Christ that really permeates our lives. And that's why I've
Speaker 1: kind of somebody will always say, that's fine, you're talking,
Speaker 1: but what are you doing about it? And I've given
Speaker 1: my life to try to build something that represented more
Speaker 1: than just one group of people. At the same time, John,
Speaker 1: there has to be more than just words. So if
Speaker 1: we say this conversation is a start, but it's not
Speaker 1: a solution, what's in your heart that you want to
Speaker 1: see people do from watching us talk today? Do not
Speaker 1: just say, Do not just think, Do not just post?
Speaker 1: What do you really want to see people do? I
Speaker 1: want this conversation to begin to be the tipping point
Speaker 1: for the church to have the necessary conversations around true
Speaker 1: reconciliation one to another. According to John seventeen, because if
Speaker 1: we don't have the presence of God in the conversation
Speaker 1: and in our heart, then empathy and compassion and activism
Speaker 1: won't matter. What I want is for this to begin
Speaker 1: the necessary dialogue that we need to have with one another.
Speaker 1: And then we need to have real world application in
Speaker 1: real time when we see injustice and systemic injustice on
Speaker 1: the local, regional, and national levels, to mobilize and everybody
Speaker 1: moving that direction towards that. Once that's done, then let's
Speaker 1: go in another direction. We've been talking about the bridge
Speaker 1: since twenty eighteen. There's a website that's live right now
Speaker 1: as of this moment called Become the Bridge. And all
Speaker 1: I'm saying is if everybody would go there, just go
Speaker 1: to become the Bridge, and if you want to be
Speaker 1: a part of the solution we're going to have. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing we're going to teach people, because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who genuinely don't know what's been
Speaker 1: going on. And so it's one thing to be angry
Speaker 1: or prejudice. It's another thing to be apathetic because you
Speaker 1: don't know. So let's talk about what's really going on,
Speaker 1: and let's have conversation because I need to know your
Speaker 1: experience as well, see, because that helps me to understand
Speaker 1: how you arrived at your conclusions about people, and you
Speaker 1: need to know where I come from. Strangest thing in Greenville,
Speaker 1: South Carolina. I pastor a multicultural, multi generational church. It's
Speaker 1: I can see why black people would follow you. It's organic.
Speaker 1: It's also ingrained in the system that black people connect
Speaker 1: to white leaders in a different way than white people
Speaker 1: connect to black leaders. So it's a miracle that any
Speaker 1: white person goes to my church in the middle of
Speaker 1: the South, and that's a testimony to God. But the
Speaker 1: conversation needs to be how do we all meet on
Speaker 1: this bridge and what is the purpose of unity. Unity
Speaker 1: is not uniformity. We're not going to agree on everything,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to fight for you until I die.
Speaker 1: And Elijah and Graham and Abbey are going to have
Speaker 1: an uncle in me. And it doesn't mean that I
Speaker 1: have the same bloodline as you, but I do have
Speaker 1: the same spiritual lineage as you, and I'm going to
Speaker 1: fight for them to have the same level of quality
Speaker 1: of life that I want for my own children. And
Speaker 1: so t us having this conversation is coming from our
Speaker 1: safe zone, stepping onto the bridge and saying let's have
Speaker 1: the uncomfortable initial conversation and let's invite family in. But
Speaker 1: then let's start having the ability to talk online. And
Speaker 1: then here's a worksheet so you can talk through some
Speaker 1: of these areas. And then later let's get some systemic
Speaker 1: issues like redlining and credit worthiness and the ability to
Speaker 1: get a small business loan, which is easier for some
Speaker 1: than others. Let's talk about that, because it's not just
Speaker 1: about you don't like me because I'm black, and I
Speaker 1: don't like you because you're white. I'm hurting because I
Speaker 1: can't get a loan and you can with the same
Speaker 1: credit score and the same tax returns, but because of
Speaker 1: the color of my skin, I don't have access to
Speaker 1: credit or capital. Some of this is systemic, some of
Speaker 1: it is monetary, but all of it is rooted spiritually.
Speaker 1: So the website become the bridge. It's a place where
Speaker 1: we can have the first conversation. Then we're going to
Speaker 1: mobilize from there, and in every single read, we're going
Speaker 1: to lift up people who have empathy, compassion, and a
Speaker 1: heart for diversity, true inclusion, not this soft kumbaya. It
Speaker 1: doesn't work. But I need to be able to feel
Speaker 1: your pain, and I need you to be able to
Speaker 1: feel my pain. That's the compassion that Jesus spoke about.
Speaker 1: He's like, you give them something to eat. They were like,
Speaker 1: we don't have enough money. You feed them. He was
Speaker 1: exhausted after preaching all day. He had compassion and healed
Speaker 1: them all. He was always talking about compassion. That means
Speaker 1: I empathize with the hunger and the pain of the
Speaker 1: people who have no voice, they are lost. He was
Speaker 1: always compassionate. The prostitute at the Pharisees house, he had compassion.
Speaker 1: The woman that was caught an adultery, he had compassion.
Speaker 1: It was always messing up systems. The Samaritan at the well, compassion.
Speaker 1: She didn't come from his background. He had compassion. Cyro
Speaker 1: Phoenician woman, the leper who you aren't supposed to touch,
Speaker 1: he had compassion. And if we're really going to be
Speaker 1: the Church, then we need to be a church that
Speaker 1: has compassion on the modern day lefl systemic racism and
Speaker 1: the victims of systemic social injustice and the racism that
Speaker 1: has existed in the church, and the prejudice and the
Speaker 1: pain that it has produced on both sides. We need
Speaker 1: to meet in the middle, and then we all need
Speaker 1: to look up to the cross, because until that blood
Speaker 1: gets on our minds, it won't get in our hearts,
Speaker 1: and it won't get in our hands, and nothing will change. Huge. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to hit your nice chair. It's a
Speaker 1: sturdy chair. It is hit it again? See what is
Speaker 1: this restoration heart? Where that hurts? I want us to pray,
Speaker 1: and I would love it if you would pray. But
Speaker 1: I don't just want us to pray on the stage.
Speaker 1: I want I want everybody watching to just take a
Speaker 1: moment and kind of like create a little bit of
Speaker 1: a space and by your head and close your eyes
Speaker 1: and if there's anything else that you want to min
Speaker 1: before you pray, it's great. But as we're getting said
Speaker 1: to pray, I want to thank you. It can't be
Speaker 1: easy to say these kinds of things when you know
Speaker 1: how many different perspectives there will be on what you've said,
Speaker 1: but you've never been afraid to say them. And thank
Speaker 1: you today for the gift of your perspective and your wisdom.
Speaker 1: I've never had a friend more brilliant than you. But
Speaker 1: also I want to thank you for not being so
Speaker 1: brilliant that you forget how to help us feel. And
Speaker 1: I think sometimes we become so numb that we don't
Speaker 1: feel anything anymore. And I want you to pray for
Speaker 1: the people who feel overwhelmed and they feel like I
Speaker 1: can't do anything, so I don't want to do anything.
Speaker 1: I can't do everything, so I don't want to do anything.
Speaker 1: And I want you to pray for the people who
Speaker 1: have been blind to this, that God would open their
Speaker 1: eyes and also minister anything else that you want to
Speaker 1: minister in these closing moments. I love you. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for your life. I'm grateful for your heart, the text
Speaker 1: that they will never see the things that I send
Speaker 1: you to just speak life into you, to let you
Speaker 1: know how important you are to the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: I meant them then, I mean them now. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: that I get to live at the same time as you.
Speaker 1: I'm the biggest cheerleader of what God is doing at
Speaker 1: Elevation Church because it is breaking the back of the
Speaker 1: devil that has existed in this region of the country
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years. And I hope to God that
Speaker 1: you live long enough to see the fruit through Graham
Speaker 1: and Elijah and Abby and John in theory. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for your encouragement to me and the relentless family when
Speaker 1: many people walked away at the brokenness of moments that
Speaker 1: I knew were coming because I knew what was in me,
Speaker 1: and God sent you to speak life to me at
Speaker 1: some of the most difficult and challenging moments of my life.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for being a friend. I
Speaker 1: had a white friend, but my friend, and now we're
Speaker 1: having a conversation that most people would be afraid to have.
Speaker 1: You got a lot to lose if it goes wrong,
Speaker 1: and you cared enough about the voiceless and the nameless
Speaker 1: and the faceless, and the black kids in the hood
Speaker 1: of Charlotte and all over where your campuses are, in
Speaker 1: the global family and the shanty towns of South Africa.
Speaker 1: You cared enough to let them know that I see
Speaker 1: you and you matter, and that their soul was more
Speaker 1: important than your platform. I thank God for you, and
Speaker 1: for Big Floyd's family in amad Arberry, Brionna Taylor and
Speaker 1: Sterling and Sandra Blaird and Tamara Rice and Trayvon Martin,
Speaker 1: and for so many black bodies that have died because
Speaker 1: of injustice and apathy and a lack of human empathy.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful that this moment has begun, and I pray
Speaker 1: that the church will not turn a blinded eye to
Speaker 1: this conversation. I was always the guy running to build
Speaker 1: bridges between the black church and the white church, hoping
Speaker 1: that they would receive me, hoping that they would understand
Speaker 1: who I was. And for a moment there, I was
Speaker 1: so busy building bridges that a part of me forgot
Speaker 1: that I am black. And if things go wrong, I'll
Speaker 1: die in the street and they won't care. I'll just
Speaker 1: be wet teddy bears and old flowers and melted candles
Speaker 1: on the side of a road. But I'm more than
Speaker 1: a preacher. I'm a man. I'm a black man, and
Speaker 1: my life matters, and it is equal to the value
Speaker 1: of every other life in this nation, in the world. Yes,
Speaker 1: all lives matter, but this black life matters, and George's
Speaker 1: life matters, and the people who didn't get an opportunity
Speaker 1: for justice, their lives matter as well. And my prayer
Speaker 1: is that you will have compassion and empathy in this
Speaker 1: moment for the pain of people who have never had
Speaker 1: anyone to advocate for them. And may the church be
Speaker 1: a voice to the voiceless, and may you feel something.
Speaker 1: Go back and look at the video and if something
Speaker 1: doesn't move in your heart, asks the Holy Spirit to
Speaker 1: give you a heart of flesh instead of a heart
Speaker 1: of stone, because if you can watch anyone die and
Speaker 1: feel nothing, then I'm certain that the heartbeat of Jesus
Speaker 1: is not yet fully activated in you. And my prayer
Speaker 1: is that the Black Church and the white Church will
Speaker 1: take black and white off of the front and just
Speaker 1: become the Church. That we will live in community and
Speaker 1: fight for the unity of the Spirit in the bond
Speaker 1: of peace, pursue peace with all men, and holiness without
Speaker 1: which no man shall see the Lord. May God touch
Speaker 1: our hearts, prick us to a heart of action, and
Speaker 1: may unity in the body of Christ be a hell
Speaker 1: we are willing to die on. I've made my decision.
Speaker 1: I'm willing to step into a bullet and in front
Speaker 1: of a bullet so that Stephen can live. And I
Speaker 1: believe that if the same were happening to me, he'd
Speaker 1: do the same, because that's what it may cost to
Speaker 1: see true unity. But I pray that no more bodies
Speaker 1: have to be on the ground. I pray that no
Speaker 1: more cities have to burn. I pray that no more
Speaker 1: black mothers feel closer to Jesus because they lost their
Speaker 1: only begotten son too. My prayer is that the pain
Speaker 1: is enough for you to now effectuate change. But change
Speaker 1: is not your actions. Change starts in your heart. And
Speaker 1: so God, I pray right now, by the power of
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus, that
Speaker 1: you will take this initial conversation prick our hearts. And
Speaker 1: if my people, who are called by my name, that
Speaker 1: was an admonition to the church, If the church will
Speaker 1: do what it needs to do, I'll heal the entirety
Speaker 1: of the land. But I'm reconciling this issue through the
Speaker 1: Church because true heart change comes from the presence of
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit, found most perfectly in the person of Jesus.
Speaker 1: So may we have a relentless moment of elevated consciousness.
Speaker 1: Elevate us God, and may we pursue justice relentlessly. May
Speaker 1: we celebrate our differences while attacking at its root the
Speaker 1: systems of oppression and the spirit of injustice that has
Speaker 1: ruled the day. May we change our hearts by seeing
Speaker 1: each other as equally valuable. God, give us hope, give
Speaker 1: us peace, give us strength, show us the pathway. This
Speaker 1: is my prayer, Your brown son and your white son
Speaker 1: ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 1: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 1: You can click the link in the description to give
Speaker 1: now or visit Elevation Church dot org slash podcast for
Speaker 1: more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you canubscribe.
Speaker 1: You can share it with your friends. You can click
Speaker 1: the share button, take a screenshot and share it on
Speaker 1: your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church. Thanks
Speaker 1: again for listening. God bless you