 I want to welcome you here to this call from the Center for Missionary Outreach on racial justice 101 helping start the journey. We've been producing some resources and really curating a lot of resources that are already out there so that those of us who are in local churches and those of us who are just kind of ordinary folks out in the world and have our relatives and friends and our own selves who are wrestling with what to do in this particular situation. We find ourselves in when there is this great awakening at least on the part of many white folks to the overwhelming evidence of racial injustice after the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery among others, this is a time to take advantage of the energy that is behind this moment to be able to learn, to teach, and to take transformative action. So let's begin with a prayer. A cup of cold water, that's what you asked for, a lord of justice and mercy. A cup of cold water for the little ones striving to make their voices heard. A cup of cold water for those who march out of anger and despair, out of a persistent hope for a better tomorrow, a tomorrow where they and we won't be so thirsty. Why does hospitality matter so much to you, lord of all creation? Why does the way we treat the thirsty among us, the way we welcome a prophet who tells us the truth about ourselves that we can barely begin to hear, the way that we welcome those whose righteousness is coarser than ours, more lived in than ours matter so much to you? Why do you keep insisting that the best way, perhaps the only way to see you is to welcome, is to love our neighbor? Why are you with those who cry for justice? Why are you with those who are thirsty for righteousness, or maybe just thirsty from walking the streets and are hot with anger and unrest? A cup of cold water, that's what you asked for, a lord of justice and mercy. Lord of hospitality and the blessed community. That doesn't seem so much really, except that it might just begin to change our world. In Jesus' name, amen. That prayer comes to us from umcdiscipleship.org, our General Board of Discipleship, which you can find online, and they have a daily prayer that can be sent to you if you sign up for that, and the project is called Praying for Change, Daily Prayers for Anti-Racism, Praying for Change, Daily Prayers for Anti-Racism, so that may be something that helps you with your own worship creation or your own discipleship, so I encourage you to look at that. We have a couple of other announcements that I'd love to lift up for all of us, ways that you might be involved and take advantage of some things that are going on. We have, of course, a number of resources online, and we'll get to that in a moment, but Dr. Brandon Furman, who's here with us, leads on Wednesdays at 1.30 p.m., is that still correct? Dr. Furman? Okay. Black coffee, discussions on faith, transformation, and leading when you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, and this is a conversation that she curates for non-white leaders and change agents who are struggling through this time, updated to Thursdays, same time, and same link, so Thursdays at 1.00 p.m., and I will try to send that out to all of our participants afterward, and we also have some summer cohorts that we're inviting, especially those who are in the greater DFW area to participate in, that are being led in partnership by some United Methodist clergy and our friends at Life in Deep Elm, which is a non-denominational church there in downtown in Deep Elm, that is part of a collaboration that is expanding and we're figuring out where this is going to go, but it's a six-week cohort, which will be paired with others from around the DFW area from a variety of contexts, in which we'll really focus on uncovering and healing from systemic racism. Now this is a project that is geared toward white clergy to get white clergy and their churches off of the sidelines on race, knowing that this is something that many have spoken to and been awakened to over these last few weeks, and that it has to continue, and the only way to continue that work is if you have an accountability system in place to do that and some structure in place, otherwise things will go by the wayside and that cannot happen. So a little bit about this conversation here today. We're joined by some guests who are here with us for a panel conversation, Reverend Dr. Miranda Furman, who is with Union Coffee as community curator and the planting pastor for Sunday Spread, Reverend Holly Vandell, who's Associate Minister for Mission and Advocacy at First Church, Dallas, and Reverend Ashley Ann Seype, Associate Minister at Fellowship United Methodist and Trophy Club, and Reverend Chris Yoss, who's Senior Pastor at Wesley UMC in Greenville. So we have a variety of contexts and backgrounds, and so we're going to get to a panel conversation here in just a minute. The reason we're having this conversation about racism 101 and tools to help us engage in these conversations is that this struggle is just beginning. This seems like a massive sea change for many, but the movement to produce the policy changes and political shifts that have to happen in order to protect black lives, brown lives, all lives in this country is just beginning in this new moment. You know, some are calling this the 21st century civil rights movement. And as you know, that movement is the struggle for the black freedom struggle lasted many years and decades. And so we know that the working out of the vision that is being fomented right now is going to take a lot of work. This is not something that we can just tweet about and get on social media about from our armchair. This is going to take some work and some commitment. And one of the things that's necessary is that we step forward to help one another, as white folks especially, who are wrestling with concepts that they're just awakening to like systemic racism or racial bias or white supremacy or that it's not only membership in the KKK that makes you a part of racism and white supremacy. Terms like defund the police and reparations are now mainstream in our conversation. And it's disorienting to suddenly gain the eyes to see and the ears to hear, especially when white folks like me wake up and these terms and these realizations begin to call into question your identity. An identity bound up at what it means to be an American, a Christian, perhaps male, female, and white, even though we often don't like to think of that term. It's terrifying to begin to think of this place in a political and theological and economic system shaped by white supremacy since well before 1619 when the first African persons who were enslaved came to the shores of North America not of their own volition. So we have a number of tools that we are trying to push out and will continue to do so in sets. So racism 101, some resources that are books and written resources as well as some racism 101 videos that might be helpful for those who are really just starting out in their conversation. And you can find those at ntcumc.org and you can go to our missional outreach page and on our menu it will be right there under anti-racist resources. We're going to be working with our colleagues in the Center for Leadership Development on ways to talk with children, help youth to be able to process the what they see on television and on social media and be able to have conversations about how do you raise white kids to be anti-racist because you have to talk about these things. And we'll have some other resources as well like for local churches how do we, how might we be able to think about the way that we run as a local church, the decisions we make in terms of budget, staffing, worship, the way we do hospitality and communications and media to think about how can we be welcoming and inclusive of all but also kind of put ourselves in positions where we can be welcomed and included by others as well particularly persons of color. So as we get into the panel conversation in just a minute I want to share with you a little bit about my story because I think it may help us to begin to think about why it's important for us to engage in these conversations and engage with some of these tools and lean on some of our whom I consider experts in pastoral ministry and ways of engaging people in justice conversations. So I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, which as many of you know is home to the 1957 Central High Crisis, which after the Brown versus Board of Education decision in the Supreme Court was one of the first major battles that gained national attention for desegregation. That environment, Little Rock was quickly split by white flight. The white powers that be resisted desegregation at every turn and only within the last 10 years did the Little Rock, at least school district come out from under federal desegregation oversight and it probably should still be under that oversight. So we lived in what was a white working class part of town and after in the 80s and 90s had more integration of black families and so my family moved out to the white redneck suburbs as you might call it to escape an increasingly black community. I grew up actually in a neighborhood though that was our house in front of our house was Vernon and Mary Black who were black and Mr. and Mrs. White lived behind us and they were white and so we kind of have this interesting position and growing up trying to choose how to live in a position of tension racially. My family has several Confederate generals and other Confederate soldiers as well as some union folks in their background some from Mrs. and so family history was really important to my family and I know it is to many of our families you know in the south and one of the things that as a young person I got into was this lost cause religion. You know some of you will be familiar with this it's a kind of civil religion that developed especially after reconstruction and was particularly heightened in the 1920s and the 30s as you saw many of these statues to Confederate soldiers being placed in prominent positions around our cities that believed that the cause of the Confederacy was more about state's rights racism was really not a part of that that things were going to proceed you know eventually into kind of a reconciled space but federal interaction or intervention was really what was was wrong with the situation that created the Civil War and so this was a widespread belief and one of the things that my family member almost recruited me into the sons of Confederate veterans which is not a hate group but as I say you can see it from there you can see the hate groups from there these are organizations that have chapters around the country that have filed legal challenges to the removal of Confederate statues including the one in Dallas that's being deconstructed right now and their positions are really about defending this lost cause religion and that positions that slavery was really not anything to do with the cause of the Civil War that the destruction of reconstruction had nothing to do with racism it was all about state's rights and those things and I say that just to say that conversations along the way saved me from going down a path of more overt racism and saved me from a path of not being able to confront my own family's history and my own racism and having grown up in the United Methodist Church and a little country church my racism was never challenged but having gone to a new church start in downtown Little Rock called Co-op or Co-ordinated Methodist where everyone was welcome where there was racial diversity those ideas were challenged and conversations bit by bit were able to chip away at those underpinnings that didn't allow me to see the truth of racism around me and in my own soul and you know at one point I had a Confederate flag in my bedroom and would fly it whenever our neighbors would play rap music now those are things that if left unchallenged by friends in youth group by friends in high school can take you down some dark paths and can take us down to paths where black lives are further in danger and so part of our conversation as you know the United Methodist Church over the last few years it's been how do we have discipleship pathways instead of just having people show up to worship and and kind of receive a good word and kind of check off the box for the for the week how do we help people to actually become the disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world and I would say to you that helping our people become anti-racists is a part of that discipleship pathway in fact a fundamental part of that discipleship pathway because of where we live and the contexts in which we live as as white Christians especially even though white supremacy gets into all of our heads and affects and reshapes all of our souls and so I want to turn now to our panelists because these are our folks that I really respect as persons who have stood up for justice in many ways in their variety of contexts and have been able to help people have conversations that are difficult that the same kind of conversations that were valuable for me and I'd like to just begin panelists by thinking about how conversations about race with people who are new to talking about it how they started for you um and kind of how do you assess kind of where people are in order to figure out how to respond best to them I mean are there are there certain kind of turns of phrase that you kind of listen for and the way people talk and describe you know race or racism um how do conversations generally start for you and I'll kind of let whoever's ready uh first go jump on this one real quick and I'm Reverend Ashley inside I'm the associate pastor Holly can we take you off mute sorry or uh Ashley I think I'm am I on mute no we can't hear you for some reason okay Ashley I can hear you this is Chris yos maybe log back in can it can can the rest of us can give us a spot for you uh in this conversation Andrew I think it's just you okay so I'll be going and maybe maybe it's a sound issue on Andrew's end so it is sorry that's okay so one of the things I will say that has started many of the conversations that I've had with members again I'm out here in trophy club uh Texas so an interesting area to be in right now as far as race conversations are happening uh I serve alongside Reverend Edlin Cowley and so race has been on the forefront of what we talk about just by nature of the fact of being in sort of a cross racial appointment alongside Edlin and one of the things that I think is most important is the conversations don't start until people know where we stand I think that's probably 100 percent I've noticed um if we're not upfront with with with where we stand on this issue then people are able to kind of skirt around well my pastor hasn't said anything about it so we don't really need to talk about it right now or I'm not really sure where my pastor stands so I'm not comfortable enough to have a conversation those sorts of things so I think the first thing that I have noticed is we have to be bold about where we stand on anti-racism and where we're where we're leading our people on that measure um first and foremost I'll turn it over to anybody else on the panel um Ashley thank you for that because I that is definitely a first step um because to Andrew's um the other part of Andrew's question um is you know how to assess sort of where folks are and um and and what type of I hear in that what type of conversation then to to initiate or to invite them into um and what I've noticed and what we've noticed um at Union and in the new church start and Sunday spread like is that um when we um make that that stand or share that stand um folks feel comfortable no matter where they are um on the spectrum it and as far as like adherence to or alignment with whatever that stance is um but once you make that stand it um it creates an invitation for um for folks to begin to share whether they agree disagree whether they understand what you're saying or don't understand what you're saying um oftentimes we can think um taking a stand will alienate and shut down folks um but in church culture that's not the case in church culture uh between discipleship and bible study we have cultivated a nature um in folks where um they may not always feel comfortable saying it in group but someone will say something to you as the pastor um as pastor all staff um or as a small group leader um leading something at the church if a stance has been taken someone will say something to you um so to Ashley's point um you have to take that stand um from a spiritual leadership perspective um and then once that stand is taken you can begin to listen to folks um and it's quite easy um it's sometimes yes there's coded terms of terms of phrase um but this is something um that folks are passionate about how are they feel about it um and so it it won't be hard to figure out where in the conversation or in the understanding um of anti-racism um the history of racism um in our church as well as in our communities and country um once you take that stand and initiate that uh conversation I also agree with both of my colleagues I think that that the way we um express this as Christian leaders is is really important in our circles and in our families so in anna texas I was doing a bible study and I was narrating scriptures like um the prayer indicated in john chapter four the woman at the well indicating and navigating those scriptures around different race and culture and helping people to understand the bible so often has been used to hurt um people of color and to keep um the same systemic racism in place and I think it's a part of our call to really engage biblical text on this in a way that is helpful and I think for some of our congregations that's where you start and if you're in anna texas you start with the bible and you navigate those texts I know when I was serving in um a suburb uh in calling county um one of the things that we did was we would have um book studies um and maybe we weren't ready for a straight up race conversation I think we would be now um with with the context but we weren't and so we started talking about poverty well you can't talk about poverty and systemic poverty without talking about racism and so that was really our entry point so I think there's several different entry points I'm I think right now the news is our best asset when we start talking about how we navigate the situations we are seeing um with the death of um George Floyd and um the lynchings of black people continually in our nation we navigate this by having conversation about it by asking questions and when I have a conversation with someone um I um I listen for are they coming from a framework of individualism which is very common for um white people particularly in texas I grew up in texas we're all about the individual right so I'm looking for whether they're navigating this this discussion individualistically or whether navigating this subject systemically what this really um um paradigm shift is about in our nation regarding the call for racial justice is really about systemic racism and lots of people who are like me who are white don't don't understand that and so they're having a hard time navigating that so really I think to start with terms and definitions that help people give a language around um systemic racism and the impact of that I think is really important for our congregations holly's point is um is really it's holly's point is really important in in in the idea of how and it's not just texas um religion tends to be particularly christian religions tend to be individualistic because of our emphasis on that moment where we as individuals understand that jesus that god right is working in our life and we have to accept that that grace working right and we have to accept jesus into our life and so church culture despite um despite discipleship and despite even our mission in the umc church is very individualistic so one of the ways that um at union and then and then it's continued through the ethos of starting sunday spread um sort of leverages that um is through storytelling and so sunday spreads or the church plant the format for our worship gathering began with the idea of if folks that are non-white sit at tables with folks that are white and talk and have the hard conversations right put some food in their hands so they have something to do with their hands when they get uncomfortable um but whiteness white supremacy um white cultural um assumptions that feed into the system um have been internalized by all of us because we live within this country um it's just that sort of as andrew uh uh intimated in his personal story folks that are non-white encounter it oftentimes earlier in their life than others and so i have stories of realizing i held um internalized racism and internalized white uh supremacist assumptions um about myself and about my family and about my community and those stories of being nine and ten eleven twelve sixteen twenty one twenty nine thirty two right um and coming to a fuller knowledge of that as i was a non-profit leader as i was on mission trips as i right telling those stories of when i had that discovery how i struggled to lay it down and what i decided to pick back up or what i'm trying to pick back up um sharing that created an opportunity for in our very individualist individualistic church in texas culture for white folks to say is that what that is but we do that too um and then for us to struggle together um on how we're not going to do it anymore like what are some things that you tried and you know i tried this with my boss but that doesn't work with my dad and you know and so there's there is no person in our churches that cannot have this kind of conversation it is a matter of listening to where they are and just leveraging what we already do we would never say that there is any heart condition that our gospel that our bible studies that our you know our church cannot deal with and this is a heart condition this is pulling out aspects of our stories of our aunts and our uncles you know of our our our family members that we loved and realizing oh the name of that recipe is that's not what i thought it was okay so how can i keep the recipe and what are we going to call it now right and so um i think to holly's point we are very individualistic but we can definitely leverage that to have that self discovery um that then leads at union and at sunday's spread we've had we've had success in people starting individually and then realizing that at where they stand um in their everyday life at work or with their friends they have the power to pull a lever in the system and do something different dr firman if i can leverage off that i think you're right helping people see is my soul's narrative right now um remember what jesus said those with eyes to see ears to hear and what i find most often now you you're not familiar with greenville and westley specifically we have literally one foot in the metroplex and one foot in east texas there's not a suburb here okay and with that said what we are challenged with is um and it's a beautiful combination it's it's not racially diverse it is um you could say culturally diverse but not not racially diverse at all with that said our biggest challenge is helping people see so what i have to do is understand that not all of my people are in a place where i can have a study i really would probably need four different studies for people at four different parts so what i did was i marched in black lives matter and got my picture in the front page of the newspaper okay you want to talk about some jaw dropping our pastor was there the first thing they've got to do is see that there's an issue that the pastor has acknowledged and so uh then just last week i was in a panel here in the community where i was uh uh being the newspaper gentlemen were the only anglo folks in the room and it was wonderful i felt very at home and my church members didn't feel at home watching me being there so you know to say my job is to ripen so that people can see does that make sense ripening is the seeing and ripening those are the images that come to mind chris i love that and i love that because one of the things um we say at sunday spread as folks um get uncomfortable um and realize that some things they've got to change something themselves um is don't be so tied to your personality that you can't let god do something um new in your life um and so our identities are not our personality right so um context all kinds of things impact the expressions of who are who we are our personality but at the core of who we are particularly as Methodists right are our christians are christ followers are um you know that's and those things get expressed differently i'm familiar with greenville right um and how that's expressed in greenville is just as much of an expression of how it's expressed in in dallas um and i think sometimes we miss we misunderstand that the way that we practice or behave um at a particular time is not the same as what the value is at the core of us um and so get having those studies however we have them that make people ask themselves what do i really value like i never thought i'd be okay with my pastor marching in a black lives matter march i never thought i'd show up i'd never thought right they might say i never thought i would ever see or do this thing but realize i jump in so my what i've found is there were a few people you're spot on they said oh my goodness i can't believe this most of them were why did you do that okay and so that's where i'm like hey i'm glad you asked can i start with asking you why do you think i did this right because that's the value that's where you have the values conversation and you begin to to have this this conversation um that says these are the values that we hold as a faith community these are the values that we hold as methodists and how we express that at any particular time might change but our values haven't changed and so i can now be more in alignment with my values or have a new expression of my values without saying i no longer love my uncle and what my uncle did for my family by protecting you know protecting my family from the pillages of war which we know are not fun in our children women economies are not safe during war right and so someone we i those those stories often how confederate and union soldiers were enlisted was the war was coming literally to their front door and they told the kids and the women to go hide in the basement and they walked out with whatever they had right and therefore you became a soldier right and so um those kinds of values of like when something's coming to your front door you've got to respond people understand that right that expression at that time was something that we now know will no longer work for the type of discipleship that we're that we're needing i think dr farman if i could say one other thing on that i i when you went back to the idea of values i think that um is at the heart of where i'm at right now with my people because so many people have put up defensive walls right now right like the conversation is maybe started but it is already almost at an end because people are just bringing all of their defense all of their and all of their bitterness towards this conversation and people are already tired of having the conversation and and while that is the very essence of white privilege right uh i have to be able to dig deeper than that as as a pastor and i think one of the things is is bringing the conversation away from maybe um the tense level of let's talk about racism but let's bring it to what are our core values to love one another and are we fulfilling that in the way that we acted out racially um spiritually emotionally within our families all that and so i think bringing those conversations maybe back away from some of those key words that are being played right now um and bringing it back into the essence are are we fulfilling the call and mission of discipleship um and our call to be images of Jesus in the world by the way we're interacting with our neighbors right now and then being able to draw out the powerful things that why our people are members of our churches why they love each other and then how can we draw that out of them to love people who are outside of our church and who are outside of our community and so on and so forth i think you're exactly right on bringing it back to values also ashley you're on point with as pastors we have to dig deeper like this is the development of a pastoral edge it's not a straight line of development we're gonna we're gonna have to circle around and about and the spiral is going to go deeper and then the spiral is going to go higher and like it's like a drill bit right you got to go down and come back up and come down and go back up that and realize that at the core like everyone i can tell you this though there might be ranges and different expressions everyone is tired and afraid i'm tired and afraid of thinking of racism and um what's going to happen to my kid and and um when am i going to be able to get a massage because my back is killing me like i'm i'm tired and holding all of these things in my body and and i am sure that that um i i'm sure because of the white friends that i have that that is also happening to them we all need massages because we're scared and tight and holding ourselves like this um but we believe covid is real just as much as we believe that racism is real so we're not getting massages um and we're having hard we're continuing to have hard conversations and just doing some more some more yoga and some more prayer and that idea of digging deeper that like that's what we do as pastors as chaplains as spiritual leaders as prayer leaders like creating the capacity and excavating the gunk so that our folks can go deeper and have a greater experience of grace in their life from god oh and that go ahead yeah i just i i love your post chris um yeah covid is real is another real issue for another panel i guess i think what is being um highlighting to me and i was looking kind of at the second prompt andrew um around because i think what we're talking about here is really this digging deep around what script are we following as pastors so that then and if if we need to get in touch with that so that we can um then kind of narrate that script and what maybe needs to be in a more anti-racist um society and church for our congregation so i just wanted to put out there that i mean i we've studied white fragility and i and i think um by uh robin d'angelo and i would say for me as a white person she um narrates the white script better than any other source i've seen okay there's lots of awesome sources out there talking about my privilege in the right script but there are a few pages in there where she just lists the things that white people say to deflect the conversation of racism and she lists them in list and i love a list and i would say when i went down that list i went oh i've been studying this and teaching this a long time and oh i've said that a million times and so i think that there is this sense of growing just like we're talking about as growing as a pastor and what script am i narrating for my congregation and then how do i understand um persons of colors african-american experience what other voices am i letting penetrate that script that i can narrate differently in my own life and for my congregation and so i would just commend that because i and i think there are lots of different ways you can get at that script but i'm particularly listening for that um and if you're a white woman man read that chapter on white woman tears um um it's it it really is helpful to understand how history's been narrated in that way how socialized we've been um about race in our country for everyone and for um white people to understand what that white script is so we can bring people back to a discussion about systemic racism and what it is and how it's impacting people of color across our nation and so that then we can take anti-racist action but if we don't understand what script we're reading we're we're just as likely to do the thing that we've always done so to to that about the script and so um voice voices right and and narration are a huge part of understanding not only what story you're tapping into but where you heard that story and where it came from which helps us understand why it might be told right especially some of the things that andrew touched on in his own personal story um the idea of like how the story of enslavement throughout the globe is told and why it might be told in that voice and from that perspective um i know for us at sunday spread um one of the things that we've done is centered centered questions um that are asked by different voices and so many people are asking right now like you know if we're not as in we're not as blatantly racist as we were in the 70s or 60s or 50s or 40s like how is it that we keep recreating these right we all we all came up with like we are the world and rainbow push coalition and like right and and multi ethnic multicultural church like how are we the church camp kids that like had everyone there and we're still dealing with this how did that happen um and for us in digging that out actually two weeks ago at brunch church which is uh the the shared meal service um there were a few of the breakout groups just as a pastoral just as a pastoral i guess care thing i had been doing a lot of pastoral care and i knew that some of uh so many of our folks are change agents and activists and advocates um and a lot of our non-white folks were there they just needed a safe space um and so when we broke out into groups there were a few groups um that were all white um just to sort of you know throw some balances there um and in those groups the conversation was so interesting to me because they began to unravel um we were centering jane vault jane's Baldwin so i'm going to use some harsh language here it's not an invitation um to accept the language um but it was used in this way for a particular purpose but james Baldwin in sort of when um asked the question you know um how to sort of deal with racism and um you know how does it feel um to be the brunt of uh violence both symbolically and in language and physically and james Baldwin turned the question back on the interviewer and said why do um why does white society need a nigger like why does instead of asking me how it feels to be the recipient of violence ask the the creator of this cultural element why do you need this cultural element to funnel violence towards and in the all white groups the conversation started going back to they they began to they were like okay so when did it happen like when did we start naming and targeting right um certain groups and certain people for our acts of violence and then they started unraveling that all the way back to a shift in the 1300s between tribal kings and queens to monarchies which were hierarchical and we ran out of time and so we we didn't like now now I have a group of folks all on their own we may have a small group that I then have to figure out how to make a zoom link and what day it's going to be on and like creating flyers and publicity for it um but we have a group of folks that are saying when did the builders of society as the folks who invited ourselves into a land and started creating structures when when did we make the decision as leaders that we needed this structure right because these these things are structures and and weapons um when did we craft that when did we create it why did we create it who was the first that to me was fascinating because having not not being white I would have never right I didn't have an uncle in the confederate army I didn't have right I didn't I don't have um roots that I can trace back to boats that were a part of bringing Christianity to various places I don't have that you know when I go into what's that genealogy thing dot com like my people stopped um in the Caribbean and in the Americas with with being enslaved um bills of sales so I can't trace those things but they could so they were having this amazing conversation um about how to untangle the system based on who they were and as a pastor I was afraid I was afraid to put all the white people in a group um I was afraid that they would feel excluded I was afraid that the richness um that was happening in the diverse groups in the inclusive groups um wouldn't happen and then I I browsed through the the zoom room and they may have single-handedly solved it for us and we just got to turn it into policy well now I want to turn to to that sake of props because I think this is something that we encounter a lot as um as people who are trying to have conversations with those around us pastors or otherwise and not all not all of us are pastors on this call so you know Holly brought up this the fact that D'Angelo really names the scripts that that a lot of us who are white operate out of and some of the very common responses um to even bring up the topic of race are uh as she names it you know I'm well I'm colorblind I treat everyone with respect why are we focusing on police officers when no one talks about black on black crime in Chicago I've had that a couple times recently uh why my family didn't own slaves the real underlying issue is class uh what about reverse racism what about saying names of police officers killed in the line of duty and not just George Floyd's name what about Candace Owen's YouTube video we need more racial unity and reconciliation and these things are kind of are really a shield like several of you described it to deflect from going deeper and so I just kind of wonder um as you encounter those in conversations do you kind of counter them one by one how do you help uh help the conversation to go deeper past those shields gonna bring back in Holly's point and I think Chris even talked about him using it but um getting to the heart of the matter and asking them I don't do it one by one it's tiring it's the equivalent of when my four-year-old wants it's time to go to bed and my four-year-old needs a drink of water and then needs a snack and then needs their lovey and then needs their frog lovey not the lamb lovey and then needs to know whether right it's it's it's it's it's simply a shield and like the angels it's a stalling to the inevitable and what what the question is you know sort of it's Chris and Ashley both like why are you asking that like what what do you what do you feel like what is the felt need that's going on there like what do you need to protect what are you afraid of Jane Elliot get right long long time in this kind of work with just like what are you afraid of when you close your eyes what's the thing that breaks your heart and that's where you start and so I'm not going to talk to you about Candice Owens and I'm not going to talk to you right I'm not going to talk to you about those things one by one I'm going to talk to you about when you close your eyes and to someone's point when you close your eyes and you think of protesters and you think about that it might get out of hand what are you afraid of what breaks your heart let's start there um and through that you get to all the things that right this is a typical discipleship question right you get to all the things that must come before reconciliation confession I'm afraid of right repentance I'm afraid of that because in my own life I know when I've been in that situation I've done and then reconciliation right and then oh so that means that I need to acknowledge and accept right that's the pathway of discipleship right there right um and so it starts with that time told Jane Elliott question of like what are you afraid of what breaks your heart and I think to that point it's this idea that um getting as we get deeper and we start to hear people's fear um connecting that fear with the people who are we are fighting for right so you're scared that if the um Edlin and I helped lead a protest in our town which in trophy club it was ridiculous to see my best friend of 21 years and his husband live in trophy club and they were ecstatic about that so thank you Ashley like you're very well it was a big deal right trophy club is just you know it's this it's this bubble right where we we kind of don't have to deal with anything that happens outside of this place is what we think um and so to bring a protest to our town next to our grocery store right and and have that and over um the the Facebook pages for the week before were just full of I mean I was astounded at what people actually thought was going to happen right like not just they're going to break all the windows and steal all the food from Tom's thumb but they're going to just bring bombs they're going to end up knocking down all of our doors like it was just the fear that I have never seen expressed by my neighbors but in that if we can dig that out right and then get to that fear of I want to protect my children right because at the very end of it like these are conversations that I've had with my husband over the last couple weeks like what is it that you are fighting against and at the very depth of him he says I want my job as you know and wait that's a whole another conversation but it's to protect you and my girls and if we can get to that point then I can connect that with what is Ahmad Aubrey's mom's job what is right George Floyd when George Floyd cried out for his mother he summoned all of us right like he summoned all of the mamas because we've got to be able to see other people's children as our own that's the call of the gospel is that we have to be able to see that it is not just me and mine but it is us and ours it is the fact that we are all part of one body in one family and I think when we can start to connect those fears with shared fears with one another we can get to the basis that we're all fighting for the same thing and it's a piece it's peace I'm going to jump in real quick I saw you I want to jump in real quick that is scary Ashley because at that fear we don't like to talk about the confession and the repentance part right and this goes to Holly's point earlier about systemic like we know what happens in war we know what we as a country have done to other people's wives and daughters we know as as a people as communities what we have done to other people's dead rather than give them the rights that as Methodist pastors and ministers we believe are important and we don't until we confess that in some way shape or form to someone that fear stays lodged in us and the only thing we can see when someone is asking for their basic rights is when we denied as a country as a community as a entity someone else's rights I just wanted to weigh in a little bit about this understanding of you know when we're talking about so many different topics right now around racism what what I really try to do is I kind of have a framework I work from of which I understand systemic racism and I've gotten that framework from lots of different places right now I'm reading so you want to talk about race for someone who doesn't know how to do it who hasn't had experience talking about race this is a great book the united Methodist women are leading us in this they already have a study online which is incredible where you can do it and I'll be glad to send the link out for that it talks about everything it talks about affirmative action it talks about school to prison pipeline it talks about why about the N word it talks about all of these subjects that that I feel like we have questions about particularly in the white community and we need a framework to work from and so when I'm talking to people and trying to navigate what they're asking about because people will ask you they say oh affirmative action that didn't work and isn't that reversed racism or whatever they think about it you have to have a framework that you're working from that's that's bigger that's biblical that's about systemic racism and what I really like to bring people back to I like just like we're talking about here is asking people questions where did you get that idea from who told you about this where where did you receive that and then I like to point people into different directions and maybe if they haven't heard from a person of color on that on that subject particularly they need to search that out and for us as white people it's easier than ever to get that person of colors perspective I mean you can you can YouTube it you can get on a podcast and and not I think conversations multiracial conversations are really important but I also think that as white communities we need to do our own homework on this so in our congregation just as a framework we tell people to research and to learn about five things the first is history what history do you have in your background and what is it missing in terms of racing culture um my favorite one right now is 13th the documentary I learned none of that in high school none of it and so that's the first one the second one is definitions in terms we got to be clear about what we're talking about are we talking about individual racist acts are we talking about structural racism what are we talking about we got to be clear on the terms the third one is socialization that's what white fragility does it's also what I'm reading and raising white kids um that's socialization we're understanding how we're socialized and racially the inner work that we need to do the inner work of racism some of those things that gets in touch okay what is this about me spiritually and personally that I need to understand about myself and how that is working for me in faith as well and then the fifth thing is and we've just added this one because I think it is at the forefront anti-racist action so as we're studying and learning we also need to be putting this into action in some clear ways and so those are the things in the framework that we work from at first church that we teach on our regular races that we're trying to come to grips on so I hope I hope that's helpful in some way I'd be glad to send some resources if that's helpful two things I'd offer one with all the fear and stuff like that earlier Dr. Furman mentioned the shield well you need a shield when you're scared when you're trying to protect something and so helping people to name fear removes some of the threat so I think this conversation does a big part of that the other thing like I'd mentioned earlier Holly you were talking about helping people do some research and of course my own language would be helping them see right when I get asked these difficult questions about or you know the statements about well I'm colorblind and I'm this and I'm that what's funny is is if I said that to them in the same tone they would go that doesn't sound right so what I'm trying to do and helping people see is ask the question well what do any one of us need to see I need a mirror so what I'm trying to do is mirroring what I'm hearing from them so if they said well some of my best friends are black so some of your best friends are black tell me about that and you use it's a conversation but as far as getting stuck and then you you literally are getting them to talk themselves through what ultimately then I'll normally get to a question that'll say what would this look like if it were different or what could it look like differently you know an action oriented question my point is is you're trying to change hearts facts are not going to do that and as much as we the convinced need books we need information we need resources those people who are still on the other side of this they're not even they don't even they're not even looking for an answer they are not even asking questions so in order to ripen people to a place of questions you've got to have a method to if it's mirroring if it's you got to have a method to it anyway and to Chris's point here's here's here's two things to really consider and and also a point that Holly made one um y'all we we have to confess um that theology has been weaponized um and that um part of what we're going to hear when we start asking these questions is just flat out bad theology wrong bible and bad theology you're like what chapter inverse is that like I where did you um and so in some respects I I think studies are important y'all saw me put that in the chat if you're in a faith community um where they're gonna grab on to some some stuff to study videos podcasts um books do that and start there if you're in a faith community that is not there then y'all we're gonna jesus it straight bible um and begin to listen the discovery bible method to chris's point about methods the discovery bible method with it's just four questions what do you see god doing in this passage what do you what does this passage say about the nature of god what does this passage say about humans what does this passage say about what's going on in your life and you know what you might need to do next those four questions can uncover generations of bad theology that then we got to get into the pulpit and we got to get in small groups and we got to get into discipleship and tear and rip apart and help them reconstruct in a way that is helpful for um what our mission is as the church today and then the second thing is you know it is a it a whole other discussion to holly's point about um about whether or not you ask your black friend or your black friends or you go do the research instead of yourself and here's the thing most of us think we're in a cross cultural friendship and what we are is in a we have cross cultural acquaintances because biblically friends bear one another burden one another's burdens and if we have not been sitting with people through the hell of their lives whether that is their father passing of cancer or as my friends often do or often did when i was married sitting up and texting me through the night when i had when i was had a nursing baby until my husband got home from work because he had to go to meetings in parts of town that i didn't know if he was going to get pulled over in right until you sat with people through those hells in their realities you don't have cross cultural friendships you have an intercultural and cross cultural acquaintances and that is not going to get us to biblical discipleship that helps us tear this apart together because we cannot bear one another's burdens if i feel like it's it's emotional labor and not friendship if i'm not if it's not witness right our method is creed of ministry with right if i am if i am help doing something for you if i'm keeping watch for you rather than with you then right it feels like i'm doing work and it's going to tire me out and so we've got to find ways to de-weaponize the bad theology and get into just some straight good bible about what the gospel says about making friends with people who aren't like you breaking bread asking questions and seeing god in all of us no matter who and where we are which you know that's just good discipleship so i'd like to get us kind of wrapped up with one final question and this really dovetails with what we were just talking about and that is really how do we when we encounter others who are either asking these questions or have views that you know we really find problematic how do we discern what is ours to do because i know that like we we're not here to fix someone right i mean that's god's work and i know there there are things that god does there are things that many other people in people's lives do but how do we know what is ours to do and not take on the full burden of converting someone knowing that this is a probably a journey that people have got to take in community i don't know i i think you have to be first of all i think you just have to be aware you have to be aware that people are wrestling with this and if you are a true leader then you're going to provoke some kind of response to anyone who's even thinking about racial issues i think then after a few questions of you know a few questions and digging things if they're if they're putting more and more blocks in the way i move on that they're not wanting to go further i cannot force them to go further and i just move on i i you know you got to remember they're already trying to cape up or defense up or using shields they're already scared to death so if i can treat and this is a white person's call okay this is not a person of color's call my job is to treat tenderly this eggshell that they've handed me because for them that's what it is okay and if i handle that well enough to a person it always goes more and more there's always more and more behind it and at a certain point of vulnerability then you get to the the long sought after breakthrough but really if people aren't willing to invest in and i may throw out some of my own heinous previous understandings of things or some of my experiences if that provokes an equal response then we can go deeper but if they're if they're just cutting me off i don't anything to do with them i just move on it's not their time so but i also and i'm gonna say this and i've got to go here in about three minutes but i also though do not turn them loose to harm other people i want to be clear that's also the white person's burden right i also will go through if they get confrontational with other people i'm stepping in the gap okay it's not somebody else's problem anyway but i mean i think it's that lifelong question as a pastor how do you balance the prophetic with the past oral care and you have to do that individually with every single person being able to hear and know their story where they're coming from with just like chris said with whether they're willing to go there if they're ready to go there but also i think having that bravery behind the pulpit to speak those prophetic words but also on a day to day basis monday through friday having those individual conversations that continue to care deeply for the soul i mean that's hard to think right like can i care deeply for the soul of somebody who's stuck in systemic racism like can i care deeply for somebody who's hurting um or who is hurting both others but also themselves and so just being able to sit and listen to people deeply and continue to care i mean that's our call and it is not easy oh yeah no not easy at all um howard thurman's question profound question i want to get to himself it's like to god is i want to be more loving in my heart and for those of you that aren't may or may not be familiar with howard thurman so howard thurman's great theologian out of howard university um uh contemporary of um of the uh mid-century civil rights movement and got called out by gondi on a trip to um india because he was like how can you be a christian ordained a clergy person and bring responsible for bringing in other ordained clergy people of your community knowing that christianity from many of their pulpits preach that you are not human like how how can you align yourself with this um and sort of he came back sort of perplexed like how can i um and the question then was for the rest of his theological career like i want to be more loving in my heart how can i be more loving in my heart how can i minister to people who essentially seem like they want to annihilate me um and so me as a as a discussion leader as a facilitator um i've drawn a line in the sand that i've told my faith community um i'm going to trust y'all that if there's not um any black people in the room that y'all aren't going to have a clan meet i'm going to trust y'all to unearth the things in your heart and bring them and put them out on the table i'm not going to police that um because what i can't do is i can't be the one that that always brings um i'm an afro leptina so i can't be the person that brings latinx stuff and and blackness and african-american stuff in the room i'm not going to talk to you about blackness i will talk to you about my experiences with whiteness i will sit with you as you unearth things that make you feel uncomfortable and that gets to that pastoral edge that ashley was talking about that that care edge is what do we do like i haven't lost my father i've lost my mother but i haven't lost my father it doesn't stop me from being able to sit with someone who's in hospice care with their father right um there are things that we sit with people through as pastors that we do not understand that we sit with them and we help midwife them into seeking god at their darkest moment and turning that light back on in their soul right um and that's what i feel like to christ's point right like and ashley's point you've got to bring that in the room um and ask yourself as how can i be more loving in my heart how can i hear these things that this person is saying that offend me because they offend my brother and sit with them through that um ushering them in a discovery sort of way with questions that point them to god because at the crux of this even though we might be working out all the details we know that god does not want this god is an anti-racism god god is a decolonial god right and so if we believe that even if we haven't worked out all the details right just like we believe that their father is going to be okay we don't know if he's going to make it out of hospice miraculously or he's going to be okay because he's absent from the body in present we we don't know exactly but we're willing to sit with them through that um thank you dr firman that is very powerful to me and i i just would answer the last question that i think this is about call i think this is about call and who we are as christians i think that this is about call who we are as united methodists and for me if if you if you're in a situation where you think man i can't even get this discussion going just bring out those social principles they'll tell you how to get the discussion going they've got they've got the definition they've got the the call for us as christians and united methodist christians when we when we look at jesus he was an anti-racist okay he he um invited into his circle and into his touch people of different races and cultures and so and that is our call to do the same and and to fight for justice in that and jesus was not quiet about the need for justice and so i feel like that if for me it comes from the center of who i know christ to be and the call to live that out and also the center of who i know for us as united methodists um that we we um claim to be and are working on it systemically okay we are not there yet but but that we have these tools at our disposal and so i would you know even john wissley he's an abolitionist i mean let's lean into our faith and what we know of our faith that can really help us um help us start those conversations i mean when i talk about any of these um situations that have come up with um over the last few months in our nation we just keep reposting the social principles and say this is what we believe this is what we believe and what i want people to hear from me is an invitation into conversation about that because it doesn't happen without conversation we need conversations with people who are different color and races than we are and we need conversations with our affinity groups to get straight about what scripts we're we're taking in and how we are presenting that into the world and in our faith and so thanks andrew well thanks thank you holly and dr ferman and who else do we have with this ashley in uh for being here with us i know christ had to leave a little bit early um and thank you all for being here on this conversation ordinarily we'd have a little bit of question and answer time uh but since we're running short today if you have questions and don't have the contact information for our guests who are here with us um email me at fis er i'll put that in the chat chat box um email me and i will pass that along to the person you need to get in touch with and i know we're um and i would also encourage you to look on uh our missional outreach website uh for resources they're going to be updated more and more throughout the weeks to come and we're going to push those out through social media as well from week to week so you'll be encouraged to see those and if you have things that you would like to offer to others um for their consideration let me know and we'll try to put those out in the mix um bishop mckay i know you're here with us uh would you be willing to offer ben addiction as we part ways yeah i'll be glad to thanks uh and thank you all for the conversation i enjoyed hearing it i was taking some copious notes from some of you from uh or from uh those of you who are speaking by some of you i meant the speakers and so thank you for for offering that well and the work we all continue together i especially want to thank the laity on the call with us today because we think this work uh is not a work we know that this work we don't think this we know that this work is not work that belongs to clergy loam to all of to all of us and remind the clergy of our the conference i there were some things there that i just wanted to comment on andrew just very quickly here in terms of in some of you know overheard uh one panelist say you know this is um this is not as i heard uh and i just want to stress a little bit of difference here that this is not um it's not as hard to take a stand that you think i want to say to you i'm well aware that in some of our churches it's hard to take a stand trust me i know that i know that because i get the emails uh when when those stands have been taken and so i know that some of you may think well is it not hard it's just hard in some places and it's really hard and you've got to remember that if it would not be hard if there wasn't so much systemic racism and there is and it it it raises its head in our churches uh all across the conference and it's not necessarily uh you generally think well there's certain places in the conference that would simply be so and uh let me say that it happens all across the conference including in dallas texas and so it's important i think it's important for us to acknowledge that that being said i want to remind you that we were talking about somebody was talking about biblical narrative and related to this and about facts and you know and using the bible so the first thing i want to say is facts is not going to change a thing that was exactly right jesus never talked in facts he only talked in story and story and narrative is the way to change people's hearts and so i think it's always important to do that and the second thing is is i can tell when i'm hearing something really good about racism or anti-racism and it's so biblically based i do not think i'm at a political rally and that's the challenge here and that's where we get that's where we rub up against and get into it and lastly this all the clergy and the laity who take stands and lay at the expect you to support your clergy but your your um your clergy person your pastor when he or she speaks or is emboldened in some way to do some some significant act and i do hear from when people are in a march and a protest they're immediately there's there's a little bit of stuff that happens and and one of the things i do clergy is i never tell you when i get those emails i just never tell you because i don't think it's worth worth putting up with uh sometimes they're anonymous so believe it or not but anyway so thank you and remember clergy always have your back so let us pray holy god for the conversation that we've had together that is ongoing conversation that if we were truly honest with ourselves that will last beyond our lifetime but oh god that work which you have called us to do is never hours necessarily to seek come to fruition it is simply hours to plant seeds maybe sometimes harvest the fruit happens but oh god that trust with the work that we're about is really the sanctification of our communities and that is an ongoing work but you will never fail us and you will never desert us and it will there are some of those times we think this is just too hard but god it's that moments that we were honest we never do this alone because not only did we work with with colleagues like those who've assembled around together today but we also do that work on your behalf and we know that you're ever present that so as you go this way this day remember that god wants to introduce you to someone whom you did not not know and i hope that this week that someone you do not know is somebody who is very different than you peace amen and thanks y'all thank you