Guest post by Edrin C. Williams — 02 February 2016
[In summer of 2014], I took part in an amazing conference hosted by Cru, Inner City. It was called the Creating Options Together Conference and took place here in Minneapolis. The aim of the conference was, "To come together to declare God’s glory, to lift up and empower the church, and to demonstrate the power of the gospel to create options for those in poverty…fresh options that address real needs." It was humbling to share a stage with noted leaders like Dr. John Perkins and Dr. Carl Ellis. It was also incredibly meaningful to spend time hearing from new leaders (new to me) like Pastor Adam Edgerly and the brilliant Karen Ellis. I was a speaker and presenter, but I learned much more than I could have ever imagined!
I have realized over the last few years that I have some pretty unique and varied groups of friends and colleagues. I also realized that they often don’t interact with each other. That means that the conversations that I have with one group of friends doesn’t always get carried over to another group of friends. It happens sometimes, but it's not guaranteed. Additionally, I'm hardly ever present with friend group A and friend group B at the same time. I’m constantly looking for ways to bridge that gap. Hopefully, this blog has been and continues to become one of those ways.
To that end, in my next few blog posts, I'll share some of my messages from the Creating Options Together Conference 2014. I hope that it sparks a dialogue between my different groups of friends and leads to some deeper connections.
The title of this particular talk was #GospelChallenge: Addressing Racial Strife as a Threat to Your Ministry.
Here's Part 1 of 3.
(July 2014 – Bethel University Underground)
Good Afternoon,
Friends, you may have noticed a social media trend over the last few months. I'm referring to something called the #GospelChallenge. #GospelChallenge is where one person is "called out" by another and given 24 hours to record a personal video singing a gospel song. The videos were everywhere, and some of them were excellent!
Unfortunately, for every one singer with actual talent…There were 100's upon 100's of singers with voices that only their mothers could love…There were others with voices that were made for sign language or for a tightly sealed, soundproof shower…There were many others that gave new interpretation to the verse, "Jesus Wept"! As funny as some of these videos were and as inspiring as some the others were, I wasn't invited here today to talk about THAT kind of gospel challenge but about another reality that we are called to be aware of and respond to IF we really desire to see the good news of Jesus Christ reach the inner city, take root, and bring about kingdom transformation.
Later this week, each of us will leave the comfort of this conference and head back into our communities, cities, and neighborhoods, and there, waiting on us, will be a troubling reality. Waiting for us in each of our cities is a challenge that is as old as this nation itself and is entrenched in the fabric of this great experiment that we call America. I'm talking about racial strife, the struggle that exists in our past and even today, that makes it very difficult for people of different racial and ethnic backgrounds to connect, trust, and grow together. Friends, I wish that I could talk about this racial strife from a strictly historical & sociological perspective and say that this is an issue that exists strictly in society. I wish that I could stand here and describe this as a situation where the Church is poised to step in and correct what is wrong, but the reality is that when it comes to racial strife, American society and the American church share matching scars. These are matching, ugly scars that cannot simply be ignored.
The reality is that when it comes to racial strife, the church has "dirty hands," and those dirty hands stand as a challenge to the Gospel.
At best, the church in America has been "impotent" when it comes to being an effective agent for healing racial strife. At its worst, the church in America has been an active accomplice, a tool, used to create and maintain racial strife and artificial racial divides. Even without looking too hard, the very people that we would seek to engage and minister to in urban communities, ESPECIALLY BLACK MEN, can see that the church has not always been a trustworthy institution.
So what exactly am I talking about when I refer to our #GospelChallenge?
When I say that we have a #GospelChallenge, I’m saying that our history, even our present existence as the church, has become a stumbling block, an obstacle to the spread of the gospel among the lost and hurting in urban areas. I contend that we cannot simply ignore the church’s history and expect it to simply go away. Instead, I propose that we must repent of our brokenness and intentionally rededicate ourselves to the work of reconciliation. Doing so is a critical first step towards creating space for the healing of racial strife, and it must be a part of any Christ-centered strategy for seeing the Gospel reach every corner of every urban area in America.
To continue reading the post, click here for Part 2 and here for Part 3.
Question: Would you agree that racial strife has been a “stumbling block” for the American Church?
Edrin Williams will be a thought leader at our Creating Options Together 2016 conference. He has served as the Pastor of Equipping & Formation at The Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota since November of 2013. For two years, Edrin led MOSAIC, a community of youth & college students from all over the Twin Cities metro area. Before joining The Sanctuary, he led a vibrant youth ministry at the Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church in Minneapolis for six years.
Edrin has been married to the woman of his dreams, Shanequa, for eight years, and they are parents to a beautiful, 5 year-old daughter, Taylor Elise. Edrin is a South Carolinian who loves Minneapolis, music, history, travel, and people!
Edrin is a graduate of the University of South Carolina in Columbia. He holds a Masters of Divinity degree in Preaching & Communication from Bethel Theological Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota. Edrin is an advocate of the local church, and he's very passionate about equipping leaders of all ages who will impact society with the gospel of Jesus.
Edrin is passionate writer. In 2014, he was a contributor to Father Factor: American Christian Men on Fatherhood and Faith from White Cloud Press.
Edrin regularly blogs about faith & family at www.edrinwilliams.com, and you can follow him on Twitter: @EdrinWilliams.
Previous Posts
• To Hear Her Call Me Friend
• What Am I Supposed to Do?
• Unexpectedly Exceeding
• Race Issues Are Gospel Issues
• She Needed God
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