I drove slowly and nervously down a narrow street on a sunny, humid morning, hoping the Google Maps lady wasn’t leading me astray. There were crumbling, dilapidated row houses as far as the eye could see. “This might be one…
Helicopter preaching
In early July, I called the Rev. Dr. Darryl Aaron, pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C. It was the latest moment in our country’s crisis of racism and violence, as we mourned Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. My…
Standing as loving accomplices on a front porch surrounded by police
It is a Friday night not long after I have moved to Enderly Park, which is located on Jesus’ side of the tracks. Our living room is filled with teens. We are playing cards, not because we like cards that…
Key to church reinvention is tapping membership’s creativity, Brooklyn pastor says
Talk about missional. St. Paul Community Baptist Church in Brooklyn, N.Y., and its pastor, David Brawley, have made headlines for their efforts to reach out to, and transform, the communities around them. The congregation lent its muscle to efforts to…
Student social media sparks race controversy for Christian school
The headmaster of a private Christian school started by First Baptist Church in Orlando, Fla., said Aug. 25 that he is taking “deliberate steps” to deal with students who created a social media controversy by posting racially insensitive messages on…
Do we know how to listen to one another?
If we are only interested in collecting the stories and experiences within our pews with no intention of allowing persons to affect change in our minds and in our communities, we continue to commit the sin of oppression.
Former pastor says racism a factor in his dismissal
The pastor of a small Southern Baptist church in Alabama is out of a job following a dispute he says began when two deacons asked him not to invite African-American children to Vacation Bible School. Mount Sterling Baptist Church in…
Talking race is — and should be — uncomfortable, Baptist leaders say
Of all the workshops offered at last month’s CBF General Assembly, at least one of them counted on its participants checking their comfort zones at the door. The leaders of “The Elephant in the Room: Engaging in Dialogue around Race…
Nonviolence and a different future with God
“Deliver us from evil.” Most Sundays we pray these words, but rarely do they sound the resonance we hear in these anarchic days. Evil seems unrelenting, incapable of exhausting its ravenous power. Who can withstand its voracious appetite for destruction?