Some time ago, we were joined in our weekly Bible study by a young woman who was having a rough go of it. After about twenty minutes of studying our passage in Luke together, she opened up about the hardships she had been through. She shared how she had been sinned against, how her friends had influenced her into a life of petty crime, and how, no matter what she tried, she kept getting knocked back down.

She continued to share about her struggles in growing closer to God. I began to sense a deep burden on her; her idea of growing in faith felt oppressive and crushing. It all became clear when she said, “I want to be baptized, but I know I need to clean my life up first so that I don’t let God down.”

As if my heart wasn’t already broken enough by her situation, an ache set in when I realized that this young woman’s entire concept of the Christian faith, beginning with baptism, was one of burden, guilt, and being crushed by her failures. After several moments of other group members attempting to minister to this young woman, one member of our group turned to me and said:

“Pastor, what does baptism mean anyway?”

I was so glad she asked.

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The Proof of God’s Love

My father died unexpectedly on June 11, 2021, from a heart attack, just six days before our family was scheduled to move from Gaithersburg, MD, to Indianapolis, IN. My dad and I had a complicated relationship. I struggled with mixed emotions of joy and sorrow as I grieved his loss. I was confused and unsure how to remember our relationship.

While my wife was packing boxes in our basement, she called me down to look at something she had found. It was a Christmas card from my dad that he had given me when I was a teenager. In his handwriting, I read these words:

You are the best son a father could ever want. Love, Dad

In that moment, I was reassured that more than anything else, my relationship with my father was one built on love. That handwritten card was authentic proof of what my dad thought about me. He loved me, and that is enough.

Alongside the Lord’s Supper (or “communion”), baptism is one of two signs – or sacraments – given by Jesus to his followers to make use of in the strengthening of their faith. The African theologian Augustine of Hippo (354-430) described the sacraments as a “visible word” which represents God’s promises for us and paints a picture for us to see and experience. These sacraments are, in the words of French theologian Pierre Marcel (1910-1992), an outward proof of the love of God.1

The sum of God’s promises to us is that he will be our God and that we will always belong to him as his people. This promise lies at the heart of God’s redemptive story in the Bible and is repeated across generations for his people to remember (Leviticus 26:12; Jeremiah 32:38; Ezekiel 37:27; 2 Corinthians 6:16). We could even say that the fulfillment of this promise is the goal of history, as God’s story reaches its fullness in Revelation (Revelation 21:3). Because of Jesus’ saving work, we can look forward to the day when God will dwell among us, and it will truly be said that he is ours and we are his!

These promises began in the book of Genesis when God entered into a covenant with Abraham. In Genesis 17:7-11, we read that God makes a promise – or a covenant – to “be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” Attached to this promise was a sign: “Every male among you shall be circumcised, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.”

In the New Testament, we learn that baptism, like circumcision, is the sign of God’s promises to the Church. In Acts 2, Peter tells the crowds to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38-39). As with the promises made to Abraham, God attaches the sign of baptism to the promise that our sins will be forgiven.

Baptism, like circumcision, is physical proof of God’s promises to us. Two additional points should be noted here.

First, like circumcision, baptism is a sign of the promise; it is not the promise itself. Nothing mystical happens to us during baptism. The Apostle Paul said in Romans that circumcision was to Abraham an authentic sign, or a seal, of the righteousness Abraham already had by faith before he was circumcised (Romans 4:11). Circumcision did not save Abraham; it was outward proof that he had already been saved. Similarly, we are not saved by the act of baptism; baptism is a sign and seal that God will keep his promises to us in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26-27).

Second, we should recognize the tender mercies of God in giving us the sacraments. These signs were given to us not as a measure of our obedience or as a declaration of our faith or commitment to God. The sacraments were given to us to strengthen us in our weak faith, doubts, and anxieties. As the Reformer John Calvin said,

Our faith is slight and feeble unless it is propped on all sides and sustained by every means, it trembles, wavers, totters and at last gives way. Here our merciful Lord, according to his infinite kindness, so… condescends to lead us to himself even by these earthly elements, and to set before us in the flesh a mirror of spiritual blessings.2

The promises signified to us in baptism, including forgiveness, cleansing, belonging, and every manner of spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3-14), are all assured to us in the sacrament of baptism. This is a gift of grace to us and serves as a light to us when we are feeling crushed by guilt, shame, and doubt.

Like the card my father left for me, we don’t need to go searching for proof of what God thinks about us.

We already have it.

Remember your baptism.

Three Errors

I am as charitable as anyone can be when it comes to theological or methodological differences among fellow Christians. However, nothing makes me more furious than seeing the sacraments, meant to reassure us of God’s gracious promises, turned into crushing burdens of guilt and obedience. I want to briefly address three dangerous errors common in churches today regarding the teaching and practice of baptism.

Baptism is a Sign of My Decision

I have often seen churches hand out shirts to those being baptized that read “I Have Decided!” across the front. I’ve heard countless testimonies at baptisms in which individuals say, “I want to be baptized today as a sign of my decision to follow Jesus.” Absent from such testimonies is any recognition of God’s promises and what baptism will subsequently mean to these individuals.

As a result, baptism becomes nothing more than a sign of an individualistic choice we made at one point in our lives. Now, I want to be clear: baptism does represent something outward for others to see. However, that outward sign to others is not first and foremost about our decision, but about how God, by his Spirit, has baptized us into the Church (1 Corinthians 12:13). Baptism is not simply a sign of our individual decision, but of our belonging and commitment to other Christians in the visible, gathered, embodied Church.

I frequently hear from all corners of American Christianity the complaint that Christians today are too individualistic, self-centered, greedy, and noncommittal. Is it any surprise that Christians live as if they are so self-absorbed when they’ve been taught that the very entrance into the Christian faith is nothing more than an individual choice? By placing the emphasis of baptism in the wrong place, this teaching distorts what it means to follow Jesus and belong to the Church.

Baptism is a Sign of My Faith

Similarly, I have seen baptism expressed many times as a sign of an individual’s faith in Jesus. Often, individuals experiencing a spiritual high desire to be baptized, or are convinced to do so, as a sign of this new growth in faith.

But if baptism is a symbol of my faith, it can become a terrifyingly burdensome reminder of my weakness and failure in moments of doubt, confusion, and insecurity. If, in weakness, I look back on the spiritual high I experienced at baptism, the strength of my faith then becomes a standard that crushes me now. When that spiritual high recedes, many people doubt the sincerity of their faith or their baptism. When a relapse into habitual sin occurs, churches often teach that an individual should be rebaptized to recommit their faith to Jesus. What an awful, oppressive, guilt-ridden cycle this is!

But baptism is not so much about our profession to God as it is about God’s commitment to us. Baptism is a sign and seal of God’s promises to me, not the other way around. When doubt, weakness, or habitual sin set in, I look back on my baptism not as a crushing standard I cannot meet, but as reassurance of God’s commitment to me in love.

Baptism Is the Moment You Are Saved

While the previous two errors may obscure the gospel, they do not necessarily contradict the gospel. In some churches, however, baptism itself becomes the means of salvation. In other words, we are not saved by faith alone; baptism becomes necessary as it is the moment when we receive salvation, forgiveness, and the Holy Spirit.

But from beginning to end, the teaching of the Scriptures is that we are saved by faith, by dependence on God’s saving mercy (Romans 3:20; Galatians 3:21; Titus 3:4-7) through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 5:9; 1 John 5:11-12). As we saw above, Abraham was not saved through works or through circumcision. Circumcision was proof that he had already been saved by faith (Romans 4).

This teaching is not only damaging and crushing, but also an anti-gospel. This is not a matter of acceptable difference; in the strongest words possible, Paul taught us to avoid false gospels (Galatians 1:8). Like the young woman who came to our study, it keeps people out of the kingdom of God through falsehood, guilt, and shame. This teaching turns a means of grace into a tool of oppression, and should be refuted in the strongest terms.

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Dear Christian, my prayer for these words is that you will use them to search the Scriptures. Notice I said nothing about who ought to be baptized, or how that ought to be done. Those are matters of acceptable difference. What is not acceptable is any teaching or practice that obscures grace, distorts God’s promises, or weaponizes guilt to keep you trapped in shame.

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When our family moved to the Haughville neighborhood four years ago, our yard was a barren place filled with weeds, rocks, glass, and trash. Now, after long periods of patient cleaning, digging, tilling, planting, and watering, our yard is full of life. The grass is lush beneath our children’s bare feet. Nearly 200 square feet of healthy soil provides room for our fruits and vegetables to grow. Birds find rest at our bird feeder. Bees pollinate our flower bed.

Our yard has become a garden in the most beautiful sense of the word.

Naturally, when our church acquired its own little property in the neighborhood this year, I was eager to expand my personal garden into a space for our community. I envisioned a place where our church and neighbors could come together to create something beautiful. With the help of some local high school students and our church youth group, we quickly built several garden beds and filled them with flowers, fruits, and vegetables (this essay’s cover image is from a portion of our church garden!). Carl helped me install an irrigation system that waters our new garden on a daily timer. All we had to do was wait!

My romantic ideals came crashing down when I returned from a couple of weeks of travel to find the garden a complete mess. Weeds were everywhere, plants were stressed and underproducing, and pests had overtaken the squash. Tomatoes and cucumbers were rotting on the vine because no one had picked them.

That’s when it hit me: I had unrealistic expectations, and now our garden was suffering. I rushed things. What had taken me four years at my home, I tried to accomplish in three months. The soil wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. More importantly, our church members weren’t ready. I didn’t teach them to garden, and I didn’t invite them into the process.

And that flowery vision I had of our neighbors enjoying the garden? Yeah, they don’t care.

I spent years learning to patiently tend my garden at our home, only to assume the church’s garden would yield a quick harvest. As it turns out, I still have a lot to learn.

If you’ve followed my writing for any length of time, you know that my garden has been a place where I’ve learned some of my best ministry lessons as an urban church planter. The garden, like ministry, will teach you the meaning of patience, hard work, observation, care, and joy.

Yet urban ministry, like urban gardening, is a slow and difficult work. Participating in the kingdom of God in our city’s most neglected communities presents significant challenges on its own merits. Additional challenges arise for urban ministers who have been shaped by missionary models whose influence can be traced back to the darker parts of Christianity’s oppressive, colonizing histories. Such models anticipate metrics that can be controlled and expectations that fit our timeline.

Not unlike my attempts for a quick harvest in the church garden, colonized models of urban ministry produce ineffective, even harmful, results. The future of urban ministry requires pastors and church members who are willing to “decolonize” their understanding of urban mission. Such efforts, while personally painful, will present us with opportunities to envision new ministry models that prioritize spiritual health and fruitfulness.

The Colonized Origins of “Mission”

The terms “mission” and “missionaries” are often used to describe those who bring the gospel from one nation or culture to another. But in its simplest and purest form, “mission” is the work of every Christian sent by Christ (cf. Matthew 28:18-20) to accompany God in making his love known to the world (cf. John 3:16).

Yet our purest motives are quickly stained in the hands of sinful human beings.

In his book Transforming Mission, widely regarded as one of the most important texts for understanding the church’s work, the South African missiologist David Bosch explains that the church’s “mission” must begin with the right motives. Unfortunately, as the history of Christianity shows, Christians have often been motivated more by power and prejudice than by a love for Christ and the world he has made. Indeed, the word “mission” itself, as we now understand it, is a fairly recent development in the history of Christianity. As Bosch describes,

The Jesuits were the first to use [mission] in terms of the spread of the Christian faith among people who were not members of the Catholic Church. In this sense it was intimately associated with the colonial expansion of the Western world into what has more recently become known as the Third World. The term “mission” presupposes a sender, a person or persons sent by the sender, those to whom one is sent, and an assignment. The entire terminology thus presumes that the one who sends has the authority to do so.1

For centuries, the Latin word missio, from which we derive the term “mission,” was used almost exclusively to refer to the doctrine of the Trinity, in which we understand that the Father sends the Son and that the Holy Spirit is sent together by the Father and the Son. Other terms, such as “apostolic proclamation” or “the planting of the church,” were used to describe the church’s work. “The new word, ‘mission,’ is historically linked indissolubly with the colonial era and with the idea of a magisterial commissioning.”2

This close association with colonial expansion has infused the history of “mission” with several “impure motives,” such as:

· The imperialist motive (turning “natives” into docile subjects of colonial authorities);

· The cultural motive (mission as the transfer of the missionary’s “superior” culture);

· The romantic motive (the desire to go to far-away and exotic countries and peoples);

· The motive of ecclesiastical colonialism (the urge to export one’s own confession and church order to other territories).3

It is not within the scope of this essay to detail the results of Christianity’s twisted ties to colonial powers. It is enough for me to conclude with the neo-Calvinist missiologist J.H. Bavinck:

The history of missions can show us that the great motive for missionary work, the motive of God, has in the course of history repeatedly been more or less lost behind other motives of human origin. It can open our eyes to the fact that whenever purely human motives have been at work, distortions, detours, and great disappointments inevitably follow. While wishing to serve God, the church has repeatedly been an obstacle to his love of the world. The history of missions is terrifying in its disclosures. When viewed from the human point of view, it is a path of endless confusion, despair, error, degeneration, and discouragement.4

Every missionary work, no matter its context, must wrestle with the influence of this history on our motives today. In what ways are we still motivated to “preach Christ” from our notions of national, cultural, or theological superiority?

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Decolonizing Urban Mission

Urban mission has not been immune to the influence of impure motives. Though the urban missionary may only be crossing from one neighborhood to the next, to the extent that urban mission has flown out of places of power, affluence, or cultural dominance, similar threats emerge that mirror what we might recognize as “colonized” motives in an international context.

Colonized urban mission can be seen in those megachurches that insist on being “for the city” by replicating ministry models from their affluent suburbs in historically marginalized city neighborhoods. It exists in networks and denominations that hold churches among the urban poor to the same financial standards and growth timelines as those in upwardly mobile neighborhoods. The colonizing mindset is evident in the well-intentioned “core team” of church members who move into the city yet, subconsciously, assume cultural superiority and are unwilling to share leadership with neighbors from different racial, cultural, or socioeconomic groups.

Urban mission can even be colonized by community churches that, having once been faithful pillars in the neighborhood, now cling to control in an attempt to return to the glory days of the past.

Mission, whether at home or abroad, is tempted by the snare of colonized motivations whenever it is a one-directional initiative by those with proximity to power and control. For this reason, the first step toward decolonizing urban mission must be to distance ourselves from power and to join in fellowship with those the world—and the church—have largely regarded as “non-persons.”

Following David Bosch’s work, neo-Calvinist missiologist Harvie Conn explained that the Church must forsake the temptation to theologize mission from positions of power and influence and instead become a “missionizing, minority church” in an “emergency situation.”5 Any church willing to renounce its privileges for the sake of the gospel will find its heart shaped by the pure motive of the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Conn suggested that such decolonizing work can only be done through long-term exposure and relationship with the poor. Those who minister in cities must “see the struggles of the world not as an observer, but as a participant. Power’s temptation seems clearer to the powerless. There those marginalized by ethnicity and economics can offer a new way of creating an agenda, not only for mission, but for theology also.”6

Through such exposure, the urban missionary learns to let go of metrics and expectations that attempt to force unrealistic outcomes. They learn that their motives are still twisted by prejudices they didn’t even know they had. They learn that ministry agendas must not be driven by numbers but by people. They learn that they are as much in need of dependence on Christ as others may be in need of believing in Christ.

The Urban Church Needs Gardeners, Not Harvesters

I screwed up our church garden before the first seeds were planted. With well-intentioned ambitions before me, I set to work not as a patient gardener but as a harvester, zealous for results.

Urban mission is set up for disaster when it is governed by colonizing motives and expectations. My neighbors have seen many well-intentioned pastors and churches come and go, the fizzling out of paternalistic ministries that looked down on the community, and the abuse and hypocrisy of congregations that want control more than they want Christ. It is no wonder that so few have any trust or respect for the institutional church.

The urban church doesn’t need fervent, misguided harvesters but patient, humble gardeners. We need women and men willing to learn, to try and fail, to observe, to make daily investments, and to receive as much as they are willing to give. For what are we but tools in the Lord’s hands? We may work the soil and plant the seed, but only God can give the growth (1 Corinthians 3:5-9).

Lord, grant that we might become a church not of cultural superiority but gospel humility, not of worldly power but of spiritual power, not of our affluence but of your kingdom. Raise up churches in your cities who embody and proclaim the reign of King Jesus and point toward the restoration of all things in his name. Amen.

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During my travels this summer for doctoral studies, denominational conferences, and family visits, I’ve been asked the same question at least a few dozen times: “How are you doing, Ben?”

I always give the same answer.

“I’m getting my ass kicked.”

I’m no stranger to getting beat up. Say what you will about police presence in schools, but I’m thankful for the officer who stopped my seventh-grade bully after he shoved me into a bathroom stall. There was that wrestler from UVA at that party I once confronted—maybe I should have let things be. My college martial arts instructor had some issues that he took out on his students, myself included (thanks for the lifelong shoulder injury). Then there was that one competition fight against a guy so big he repeatedly threw me out of the ring into the audience.

I don’t want to tell you about the time I tapped out to a woman 2.5 times my age and one-third my size. That’s an illustration for another time.

One ass-kicking has stayed with me more than the others, however. This was the fight that ended my amateur kickboxing career. After cutting thirty pounds to compete at the top of a lower weight class, the match promoter told me he didn’t have any fighters in my weight class. There was one guy, he said, who was 20 pounds heavier than me and had just started fighting. I told the promoter I’d take that fight. After all, I was more experienced, and I had weighed more than him just nine months earlier.

In the days leading up to the fight, I kept hearing that my opponent was heavier than he had first let on. One day he was 25 pounds heavier than me; the next, 30; then 35… On the night we weighed in, my opponent was more than 40 pounds heavier than me.

I was offered the chance to back out. The promoter warned me that it would be irresponsible of him to let me take the fight. I laughed. “Give me the fight!” He relented.

I should have listened. He may have been a goliath, but I was no David.

And so, the next night, before a packed room—including several of my closest friends and my soon-to-be girlfriend-then-wife—I got my ass kicked. Knocked out. Face down on the mat. Towel thrown. Counted out.

It was bad.

Embarrassingly, terribly bad.

Perhaps “I’m getting my ass kicked” isn’t the most appropriate language for the holy man who wears a collar on Sundays, but I don’t know any other way to say it.

I don’t know how else to tell you that this ministry stuff is far more challenging than anyone told me it would be; that people I loved hurt me and left; that the funding I expected never showed up; that being surrounded by the suffering of urban poverty has broken my heart; that I’m deeply frustrated; that the help I wanted hasn’t come, and people need more help than I can give; that the criticisms seem to outweigh the support; that I’m tired; that I’ve made mistakes I can’t take back; that after dozens of requests over the past four years, I can still count the number of churches that support us on one hand; that I’m still recovering from two surgeries this year you probably don’t even know I had; that I’m exhausted; that time with my wife and children is slipping through my fingers; that I’m behind on the things I need to do and have very little time for the things I want to do.

I know you’re not asking for all of that, so, “I’m getting my ass kicked.” That’s the best I can do.

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I’m aware, dear readers, that you may not be able to relate to my circumstances. But I suspect that every one of you can relate to the pain that lingers after getting your ass kicked.

The worst part of getting beat up isn’t the black eye, or even the torn ligaments and broken bones that require surgery. It’s the pain you feel when everyone else has moved on without you. Call it a bruised ego, a wounded heart, shame, trauma, whatever; that’s where it really hurts. The external stuff will heal. The junk that stays with you on the inside: the humiliation, embarrassment, bitterness, and depression that follow getting your face kicked in—the pain no one else can see.

Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s the sinking feeling you have when you replay events in your mind, wishing you had done things differently. It’s the sadness you feel when you don’t know how to tell your kids you’ve been zoning out because you’re trapped in a shame spiral. It’s the uncontrollable curses you let slip throughout the day because you’re still so angry and embarrassed. It’s the discomfort you feel as you can’t help but wonder what other people think.

It’s the feeling that you’re all alone, and no one seems to know or care that you just can’t seem to move on.

Jesus knows a thing or two about getting his ass kicked. Remember all those times Jesus tried to tell his disciples that he would suffer and die (e.g., Mark 9:31-32, Matthew 16:21-23)? How awkward was the conversation Jesus had with James, John, and their mother? No sooner does he tell his disciples, again, that he is about to suffer and die, than they come to him asking to sit with him in glory (Matthew 20:17-28). Do you think Jesus was frustrated? Broken-hearted by their stubbornness? Both?

James and John didn’t want to get their asses kicked; they wanted to be the ass kickers (Mark 3:17)! Perhaps in these “Sons of Thunder” we should see ourselves and the ways we resist Jesus’ call to move deeper into weakness, suffering, and even death.

Our stubborn hearts crave power, comfort, and status. We find it odd, even wrong, when our lives are marked by repeated hardships. Yet what we call odd, Scripture considers normal. Suffering is promised to all who want to live a godly life (2 Timothy 3:12). Paul cautioned the early Christians that they must endure many hardships to enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). The logic of Scripture is consistent: if Jesus experienced poverty, weakness, and suffering, why do we expect anything different (John 15:20)?

Yet the comfort our faith brings when we’re getting our ass kicked is more than “Well, Jesus experienced this too, so suck it up!” Jesus not only faced great suffering ahead of us but was also resurrected for us and now promises to be with us. The Jesus who said, “The Son of man came to give his life for many” (Matthew 20:28), also says to us now, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

These words can give us great courage when we’re face down on the mat in life’s arena. Imagine the terror Paul felt when he was in a real arena, staring down beasts that could devour him. That terror was just one of many times Paul was knocked out (2 Corinthians 11:21-29). Yet he could face danger “every hour” (1 Corinthians 15:30-32) because he knew what the resurrected Christ had promised.

Easier said than done, I know.

When I think back to that humiliating night that ended my fighting career, I remember how my good friend Josh took care of me. Josh was so worried I might have a concussion that he not only drove me home but also stayed at my apartment and checked on me throughout the night to make sure I was OK. I was down bad and didn’t want anyone to see or know what had happened. Josh refused to leave my side. He was Jesus to me in ways he may not even know to this day (I hope you read this one, bro).

One of Christ’s greatest gifts is that we need not enter the arena of hardships or face the sting of shame and humiliation on our own. Our sisters and brothers are given to us to minister Christ’s presence to us as we heal from the wounds that linger after having our asses handed to us.

Even now, when I think about how many times I’ve been beaten down these last few years, I remember all those who have stepped into the ring with me: the friends who check in over a late-night gaming session, church members who carry the burdens of ministry for me, leaders who share the criticisms with me, supporters who reach out with encouragements, hugs from my children, a wife who tells me she’s proud of me.

Through their ministry to me, when I’m knocked out by embarrassment and afraid of being counted out in my shame, I can hear Jesus saying, “I’m always with you. Now get up; it’s time to go another round.”

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Substack friends,

I rarely write about the details of our ministry in the Haughville neighborhood of Indianapolis. I intend to use this platform to engage with issues relevant to urban ministry from a Reformed perspective, not to prop up my own work or the church I serve. However, I so believe in the ministry of this congregation that I can’t help but want to share this update with you all that I recently sent out on our church newsletter (which you can sign up for here).

As we settle into the summer heat, our young church is creating many opportunities to meet our neighbors, cultivate meaningful community, and share the hope we have in Christ.

One of the most impactful ways we do this is through the BLESS THE BLOCK concert series. Under the leadership of our Urban Ministry Director, Rome Herbert, these concerts have proven to be a powerful witness to our neighborhood. These concerts testify that this neighborhood and the people who live here matter to God. With support from an Indy Arts Council grant, we’ve been able to proclaim this message louder than ever before.

We recently released a mini-documentary about Rome, these concerts, and the impact of this ministry in Haughville. I love this video! Every time I watch it, I’m reminded that God truly is at work in our midst in some creative and incredible ways.

Consider what Miles Mason (aka Dead Silence), one of our city’s most respected local artists, said about the impact of the BLESS THE BLOCK concert series in our city:

“People still need people. We bring the fun to you right at your doorstep. We got these free pizzas. We got free snacks. We got a DJ and some great performers. Ain’t nobody doing that. That’s different. That’d be nice to see, I ain’t going to lie, like every neighborhood have that system. Just step outside!”

Tiffany Montgomery, a Haughville resident and member of our church, beautifully captures how these concerts are making a difference in the lives of real people:

“There’s so many people who get lost out here. You don’t know who is really for you and you don’t know where to go and where to turn to. But knowing that I have a family in Christ I can go to… Hope Church has helped me learn that I do matter, that I can make a change. I can help these kids. I’m not a burden because of my illness. I can affect change.”

Come on, somebody!

When you have a few minutes, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch the video below. I believe it will leave you encouraged, inspired, and motivated to create beauty in your own neighborhood!

Why would a new church support the arts?

Hope Church of Haughville never set out to be an “arts church.” Even after spending a few years around the arts community and ministries of our sending church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis, the arts were never really central to our ministry vision.

All of that changed when I first met Rome. After our first conversation in a local park, I discerned that Rome was not only a gifted artist, but that he also had a mature faith and a love for people. It only took a few more conversations for our curious spark to be lit:

What would it look like for a church and a hip-hop artist to partner for the sake of the gospel, the good of the neighborhood, and the enrichment of the arts?

That question began a journey that has transformed Rome and our church in significant ways. Nearly two years later, Rome is in a full-time role with Hope Church of Haughville. Roughly 60% of his time is dedicated to outreach, evangelism, and mercy ministries. The other 40% of his time is given to investing in his artistic gifts, whether that’s creating music, supporting other artists, or leading songwriting workshops.

In my time working with Rome, I’ve learned that there are many reasons why churches should support the arts, especially in the urban context. Our neighbors need a gospel that points to Christ’s restorative work in all of life. The gospel is more than good news for one’s soul (though not less!), or an individual decision that passes in a moment. The gospel is good news for the soul and the body, for individuals and communities, for the spiritual life of churches and the public life of business, science, politics, education, and the arts.

The arts remind us of the beauty for which we were created. We enjoy art because God is an artist. Though this world has been damaged by sin, God’s creative beauty endures. The arts not only point to the beauty of this world, but stir in us a holy longing for the beauty that is to come when Christ returns.

The arts also protest sin’s devastation in the world. In a world filled with death and despair, the arts push back against the darkness that engulfs us on every side. Hip-hop, like the spirituals that came before, is uniquely suited to challenge us to slow down, pay attention, and name the injustices and corruption that sin has wrought in the world.

Finally, the arts help us fulfill our priestly calling to invite others to worship the Lord. Like the Apostles, who pointed to the beauty of creation as evidence God’s kindness (Acts 14:8-18), or the Psalmist, who used alphabetic acrostics to invite people into worship (Psalm 34), the arts help us serve as God’s representatives among humanity with a friendly, witnessing, blessing posture—not unlike Christ, who now serves in the heavens as our great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-16).

You can read more in the essay below:

Support Rome

Rome Herbert currently serves as the Urban Ministry Director, engaging the community creatively through concert series, songwriting workshops, and various activities to engage residents with an extraordinary presence. After moving into the neighborhood in 2025, Rome has sought to develop a posture of both listening to current concerns and leading with the intention to fill the cracks between the concrete with imagination for a different world to walk in. Whether it be canvassing surrounding homes with upcoming events, collaborating with other organizations, or participating in the church’s mercy team to meet material needs, the aim is to serve Haughville with curiosity and courage.

If you want to learn more about getting involved with Rome or supporting the initiatives he is developing, reach out to him by email: rome@hopehaughville.org.

Last week, the Trump administration published a new website, aliens.gov (or whitehouse.gov/aliens). This wannabe “Space Jam” page isn’t for declassified information on UFOs, however. It is Trump’s latest propaganda that dehumanizes our immigrant neighbors.

The website uses sci-fi visuals reminiscent of Independence Day or The X-Files to reinforce the sense of conspiracy. “THEY WALK AMONG US” is sprawled across the top of the page, even as an automated cursor begins moving below, warning us that the government has kept a secret from the American people for 60 years:

ALIENS WALK AMONG US.

These aliens, who “do not belong here,” have been covered up by previous presidents who “accelerated their invasion.” Only one man “finally had the courage to tell the truth.”

Trump. “The truth is no longer out there. It is right here. Right now.”

Within a few sentences, it becomes clear that the website isn’t talking about UFOs at all. The existence of extraterrestrials has been a popular topic in recent months, many suspect, because it’s a convenient attempt to avoid the Epstein files. That may be. Nevertheless, this administration has taken the discourse a step further by using sci-fi language to bolster its immigration agenda. The result is pure evil.

President Trump is promoting racist and dehumanizing propaganda to incite violence against our neighbors. By jokingly referring to immigrants as “aliens,” he shows a total disregard for human life. Our president doesn’t view immigrants as human at all. In fact, they’re an “it” to be “safely returned to its place of origin,” if you’ll notify his militarized immigration forces.

This godless nonsense is nothing new to Trump. Nor is it new in human history. The Scriptures testify that God hates Trump’s playbook, which opposes God’s redeeming purpose for the world in Christ. Christians, especially Reformed Christians, should be the first to oppose Trump’s evil and to defend our immigrant neighbors.

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Trump’s Stolen Playbook

Our church is four weeks into a sermon series on the book of Exodus. I have been struck by how many parallels there are between events in this ancient book and our society today.

In his new book, Reimagining Biblical Politics (Baker Academic, June 2026), Old Testament scholar helpfully analyzes the unfolding events in the early chapters of Exodus. Rhodes observes that we encounter a Pharaoh in Exodus 1 who had all the power in the world yet had grown increasingly nervous. Pharaoh saw how numerous the Israelites had become and feared they could become a military force capable of overthrowing him. Rhodes summarizes what Pharaoh did next:

This new pharaoh offers us a master class in oppressive power politics. He starts by stirring up fear that “those people” don’t really belong here. They aren’t real Egyptians, after all. And look, they’re everywhere! They may even work for our enemies.

Fear-based propaganda that stirs up stereotypes about outsiders paves the way for economic exploitation. Under Pharaoh’s leadership, the Egyptians ruthlessly enslave the Israelites, making “their lives bitter by hard service.” The enslaved Israelites are then put to work building storage cities that enabled Pharaoh to hoard more wealth for himself. What better way to deal with enemy outsiders than to profit off them? (Reimagining Biblical Politics, Chapter 6)

When Pharaoh’s economic exploitation failed, he turned to violence, even committing infanticide, to protect his power. Fear and power combine into dehumanizing propaganda, creating a group of people who can be controlled through economic exploitation and violence.

Sound familiar?

That Trump stole his playbook from one of Christianity’s oldest villains should be proof enough of which side he’s on. Never mind his numerous other offenses, including using our faith for political gain. God hates the way this administration treats immigrants, and so should we.

As the Exodus narrative progresses, we see whose side God will take. Through a series of incredible twists and turns, including the civil disobedience of two lower-class midwives (who are blessed by God for their disobedience!), the great liberator Moses is protected from infanticide. The threat Pharaoh feared most grew up right under his nose as an adopted grandson in his palace (Exodus 1:15-2:10).

For forty years, Moses enjoyed the comforts of Egyptian royalty (Acts 7:23) until he could no longer bear being identified as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter (Hebrews 11:24). He left the palace to join his people in their suffering, only to be rejected by them when he tried to come to their aid (Exodus 2:14).

Moses fled to Midian, where he settled for forty years (Acts 7:30) as a shepherd and father. We don’t know much about these years, but we do know that Moses must have internalized a sense of failure that made him an outcast in Midian. By Exodus 2:22, Moses had taken on the identity of a “foreigner in a foreign land.”

As Chloe T. Sun notes in her excellent commentary on Exodus, the Hebrew word for ‘foreigner’ (ger) always carries the sense of vulnerability and an absence of belonging.1 It is the same word used frequently in the Old Testament as part of the “quartet of the vulnerable,” the most vulnerable to whom God has a special obligation (e.g., Zechariah 7:9-10). Moses’ identity as a vulnerable man who doesn’t belong becomes so strong that he projects it onto his son, whom he names Gershom, meaning “a foreigner there.”

In the span of twelve verses, we find Moses moving from intense zeal to troubled insecurity, to fear and retreat, until he finally came to the end of himself, believing he was a nobody whose life didn’t count.

There, at what must have felt like rock bottom, Moses became equipped to lead his people out of slavery.

Moses came to feel like a vulnerable foreigner who didn’t belong. In the Exodus narrative, who were the vulnerable foreigners who didn’t belong? The Israelites. Moses couldn’t simply walk out of the Egyptian palace, ready to lead his people out of slavery. No, Moses, the great liberator of God’s people, had to first become like them before he could rescue them.

Only when Moses fell to the bottom could he be ready to fight Pharaoh’s dark kingdom and lead the people up into the safety of the promised land.

You see where this is going, don’t you?

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The God Who Became a Foreigner

I know another man who, not unlike Moses, fell to the bottom before leading his people out of darkness. I can think of another man who didn’t simply walk out of a palace from on high but instead joined his people in their afflictions. There was another man who wasn’t fit to redeem his people until he became like them in every way!

His name is Jesus. Do you know him?

The Scriptures teach that Jesus became human like us in every respect to overthrow the kingdom of darkness, defeat death, and serve as our high priest in heaven (Hebrews 2:14-17). Jesus went to the true bottom of sin and death so that we don’t have to. For those who have faith in Jesus, there is no low we experience that he has not gone even lower. Jesus has plunged to the bottom so that he might pull us up again in resurrection.

This character of our Savior is so consistent in Scripture that we repeatedly find him identifying with weakness and vulnerability. Blessed are those who are poor and hungry (Luke 6:20-21). Mercy to the captives, the blind, and the oppressed (Luke 4:18-19). The last will be first, and the first, last (Matthew 20:16).

So deep is Christ’s heart that he repeatedly identified with the experiences of foreigners and immigrants. Jesus is the prophet like Moses, who escaped genocide and became a foreigner in a foreign land (Matthew 2:13-15). He identified with the immigrant stranger in need of our care and protection (Matthew 25:35). Whatever we do for the least of these, Christ’s brothers and sisters, we do for him.

Jesus is the great liberator of mankind who enters into the afflictions of his people to redeem them from every remnant of the kingdom of darkness, which even now is merely gasping for air. Our God has taken sides with the oppressed of every age against the Pharaohs who crush them.2

President Trump is merely one of the latest men in a long, long line of those who have wielded their power to crush God’s beloved poor and oppose the kingdom of God.

How might our churches today respond?

Pages from a Reformed Playbook

I have written at length about the obligation of Reformed Christians to oppose Trump’s racist and dehumanizing immigration agenda. I will not rehash those arguments here; you can find links to those previous essays below.

However, I want to close this essay by highlighting observations from a recent book by historian Kenneth J. Woo on John Calvin, titled John Calvin: Refugee Theologian. I hope to write more on Woo’s important work in the near future. I will only offer a couple of summary points to begin shaping our ecclesial imaginations.

The premise of Woo’s work is that Calvin developed his theology through the personal experience of becoming a refugee in exile, with the purpose of ministering to other refugees in exile who had fled to Geneva. Calvin’s work was a kind of “reformation of the refugees,” led by a man who was trying to make sense of his own displacement that had been forced upon him.3

These experiences came to define Calvin’s theology and ecclesial leadership in Geneva. Calvin resonated deeply with the strangers and foreigners in Scripture, and he summoned the church to remember that they are spiritual exiles “waiting in hope to arrive at a better, more lasting city.”4

This theological identity could relativize powerlessness and marginalization by setting these against an alternate account of home and belonging beyond the reach of rulers and idolators to disrupt or destroy. Spiritual exile redefined community across geopolitical boundaries… with categories for theological kinship.5

Reformed Christianity could remind the churches today of their calling, if only we remembered the genesis of our tradition. Perhaps we are the ones who need to cease our social pontificating, repent of our rigid theological policing, and pause our busy missionary activity to remember where we come from. Can we, like Jesus and the prophets before him, descend to the bottom with our immigrant neighbors, that we might become fit to minister God’s salvation to them?

Could our churches cultivate “a robust congregational identity as spiritual exiles, which is capable of inviting unity across substantial differences, and present the gifts of Word and sacrament as common food for hungry pilgrims”6? The bonds of such a church would transcend national boundaries and immigration status. In such a church, all would be treated equally as brothers and sisters in Christ. As Calvin himself described, these churches would be places where all are protected from the wrongs of the wicked, even if that means risking our life, fortune, or honor to come to their aid (Institutes, 3.8.7).

I long for the day when our churches will follow the example of the Hebrew midwives by allowing the fear of God, not the fear of politicians, to determine our course of action.

No, Mr. President, we will not allow you to talk about our neighbors this way.
No, Mr. President, we will not let you treat image-bearers as sub-human to justify your violence.
No, Mr. President, we will not be idle while you try to steal, kill, and destroy.

The kingdom of God is set against you. And so are we.

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A few weeks ago, my wife was walking home from a board meeting for a neighborhood organization she serves on. On the way, she had the chance to get to know one of our neighbors, who also serves on the board, as he walked home. Knowing that I am a pastor and that our family is in the neighborhood to help start a new church, the conversation quickly turned to whether a new church is necessary at all. Our neighbor innocently asked, “Don’t we have like 95 churches in the neighborhood? Why do we need another one?”

I understand where the question comes from. While we have more like two dozen churches in the neighborhood, it can feel like there is a church on every corner. “Why do we need another church?” is a reasonable question to ask.

This essay is my long answer to a short question.

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At one point, likely 20 or 30 years ago, all of these churches were active and vibrant congregations in the neighborhood. Now, at least half of them are inactive. The buildings are either abandoned or taken over by other organizations (in one case, a dog shelter!).

The remaining churches are doing good work. They’re faithfully proclaiming the gospel. Yet many of these churches will admit they are having a hard time connecting to the neighborhood.

What explains the shift for these inactive and existing congregations? There may be many answers, but there are two significant reasons that can explain what churches in our neighborhood have been experiencing.

First, many pastors and congregants have moved out of our neighborhood to the suburbs. These families have benefited from upward mobility, allowing them to move to other neighborhoods. This is a positive change for most, especially families that have known significant hardship in the city for generations.

Second, and following from the first point, our neighborhood’s demographics are rapidly changing. While the narrative of our neighborhood suggests that the change is a result of middle-class White folks gentrifying the neighborhood, the numbers tell a different story. Median income for our neighborhood has been relatively stagnant for the last decade, and remains roughly half that of the Indy metro area.

However, the racial demographics are shifting at a pace that no one can keep up with. Ten years ago, our neighborhood was 55% Black and 11% Hispanic. As of 2024, our neighborhood was 35% Black and nearly 30% Hispanic. 10 years ago, there were very few Asian residents of the neighborhood. Now, nearly 10% of our neighborhood is from countries like Pakistan and India.

These are massive shifts in a neighborhood that has historically been either a predominantly White community (through the 1950s) or a Black community (1960s through early 2000s). Now, our neighborhood has likely become the most ethnically diverse and integrated neighborhood in the entire city.

There is much for Christians to celebrate about this diversity. We can see more of God’s beauty in the images he has made across such a wide range of ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Yet these rapid shifts have also introduced a high degree of anxiety to our community that can be felt in multiple ways. When a majority of residents in a neighborhood are relatively new, relationships among neighbors will be thin. The absence of meaningful relationships invites skepticism, even fear, especially when neighbors come from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. This tense anxiety manifests as prejudices and factions that fight for institutional control within the community.

From the perspective of local churches, these changes will be felt as a real loss that needs to be grieved. In his book Who Moved My Neighborhood?, Pastor Mark Strong walks through stages of grief and anxiety a congregation may experience as they come to terms with a rapidly changing neighborhood. After realizing that their neighborhood has changed, a congregation could feel a sense of loss or even anger at the changes to the community they’ve loved. They may even try to change the neighborhood back to what it once was.

This often explains why churches in rapidly changing communities begin to feel disconnected from the neighborhood, particularly when the pastor and congregation have moved out. The church may have a historic connection to the neighborhood, but as pastor and missiologist Kyuboem Lee explains, “once you’ve ‘made it out’ of a poor neighborhood, your life’s trajectory is set, and it is not in the direction of the community. Your affections and vision for life are not centered around the life of the community anymore, but on the other life that you are seeking to further in another community. Increasingly, there will be a separation between the concerns of the community and your personal concerns, and your credibility as a servant of the community will be eroded.”

I’ve previously written on the differences between regional and neighborhood (or parish) church models. Each of these models has distinct advantages. A regional church is likely to attract people across a wide geographic area because of certain cultural affinities, whether that’s education, race, class, or even politics. These churches tend to grow quickly, can sustain large programs, and, at their best, can leverage significant kingdom influence in a city.

A neighborhood church excels at drawing people from a much smaller geographic area. These churches commit their presence and resources to the neighborhood with the intention of ministering to those who are often overlooked by the cultural affinities of regional churches. This is long, slow work. The strength of these churches will be in relationships and care, not in size and programming.

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Both church models are needed for kingdom work in a city. However, much harm can occur whenever a congregation confuses its role, whether a regional church that thinks it’s a neighborhood church, or vice versa.

Many historic congregations in communities like ours were once neighborhood churches, but when the pastor and congregation moved away, they became a regional church. It is difficult for churches to embrace this change, and they may spend the rest of their existence fighting it. However, if the congregation can find reason to celebrate the change and opportunities for new ministry, these churches can look forward to many more years of happy and vibrant ministry. That’s an essay for another time (Strong’s book, referenced above, is a good starting point for congregations experiencing this shift).

I’m finally ready to answer the question. Why do urban communities like mine need another church? Because amidst rapid change and increasing anxieties, we need the presence of a non-anxious neighborhood church that ministers to the community as it is now, not as it once was or as we want it to be in the future.

Here are four characteristics that young urban neighborhood churches can cultivate to develop a non-anxious presence.

Love for the Neighborhood

Changing urban neighborhoods need churches whose leaders and members are rooted and committed to that place. A church cannot be considered a neighborhood church if its leaders and/or a significant number of members do not actually live in the neighborhood. This doesn’t mean every church member needs to live in the neighborhood, but it does mean that those who are driving in will have to dedicate extra time to relating to the neighborhood as it undergoes rapid population shifts.

While a community undergoes rapid changes, it will be subject to all kinds of damaging narratives. Past residents will likely have a “good ol’ days” perspective, viewing change as a negative thing. Outsiders will perpetuate racist and damaging narratives, viewing change as a kind of punishment on those they’ve long viewed as less than.

A non-anxious neighborhood church will cultivate a genuine love for the neighborhood. That love may be expressed in a variety of ways, but the goal of neighborhood love is to communicate that this place is beautiful, that it matters, and that it is loved by Jesus.

Love for the People

I mentioned above that rising anxiety results in thin relationships where prejudice, fear, and animosity can fester. I’ve seen these dynamics play out in similar ways across multiple conversations with my Hispanic and Black neighbors. When I ask my Hispanic neighbors why they’re not more involved in the neighborhood, I’ll hear answers like, “No one invites us,” or, “Events aren’t made available in Spanish.” When I ask my Black neighbors why they don’t think Hispanic residents are more involved, they’ll say, “They don’t care about community,” or, “They don’t want to be friends with us.”

There is likely truth and hurt feelings on both sides. Yet the end result is two groups in the neighborhood that often avoid each other.

The non-anxious neighborhood church must love the people in the neighborhood as they are, seeking to bring neighbors together across their many differences. When we were considering moving to Haughville, one resident challenged me, saying, “If you move here, will you love who lives here now? Or are you only going to love the kind of people you want to live here?”

Such wise words! The non-anxious neighborhood church will create opportunities for neighbors to learn to love each other through community events, meals, and contextually sensitive (i.e., multilingual) worship services.

Love for Other Churches

Churches become competitive when they get anxious. We all do! Existing churches, which may already be at odds with each other, will also view new churches as a threat. The non-anxious neighborhood church will have to be deliberate in how they convey their heart and intention to those congregations that have faithfully labored in the community for generations.

One way a young church can decrease neighborhood anxiety is by intentionally taking its time to organize and grow. We waited three years before holding weekly public services, in part because we wanted to communicate to the existing churches that we didn’t show up as competition, but as friends to help make Christ known to the community. Patience and humility in ministry vision are necessary.

The non-anxious church will also be respectful to existing churches. Show deference and honor to long-time leaders; don’t assert yourselves. Pray publicly for existing churches so they know you’re for them.

Love for the Gospel

Shouldn’t every church love the gospel? Yes! But young urban churches need to remember that they will feel the anxiety of ministry in unique ways. This anxiety will manifest itself as “pressure on all sides” (2 Corinthians 4:8): tension in the neighborhood, factions, institutional turnover, discouraged churches, fearful neighbors, and tired church members.

When the pressure becomes too much, a young urban church is susceptible to internalizing the anxiety itself, resulting in conflict and retreat. The church may even give up and move to another neighborhood (I’ve seen it happen!).

When a church really loves and believes the gospel, they can endure anxiety knowing that they labor for Christ’s sake among their neighbors so that, together, they will all grow in his love.

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On September 16, 1998, my brother Josef (Joe) Hein returned from a twelve-day trip to Bosnia, where he had served as a supervisor for the State Department election observation team. In fact, his interest in mediation and peace conflict resolution led him to Bosnia three times between 1997 and 1998 during the elections, which were called for by the Dayton Peace Agreement.

At the time, he also served as an aide on Capitol Hill to Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) from 1996 to 2000. Joe believed in the platform of the Democratic Party and was a strong advocate for President Bill Clinton. One of my fondest memories with Joe was helping him pass out stickers at a rally for Clinton’s election.

Yet it was on this trip in September 1998 that the unfolding story of President Clinton’s abuses of power escalated. The Starr Report, prepared by Independent Counsel Ken Starr for the House Judiciary Committee, was released. While Clinton had previously denied many of the accusations from both Paula Jones and Monica Lewinsky, the Starr Report argued that there were eleven possible grounds for impeachment of Clinton.

In light of these events, my brother, weary from his travels, sat down to write a letter to President Clinton just two days after he returned from Bosnia. I did not know this letter existed until August of 2021, just a few months after my father passed.

This letter deserves to be made available as a testament to my brother’s honesty, passion, and love. More than that, this letter serves as an example of a young politician willing to hold the sitting president of his own party accountable. Such a witness is rare today. It makes me miss my brother all the more for the impact he could have had.

My brother chose to speak truth to power, and he did so from the position of his faith. In this published version, I have added my own voice to my brother’s, both as an editor and as a co-author. Most of what you read (over 90%) is still my brother’s own words. As I have meditated on this letter, I have grown in what it means to care for others as they agonize over the weight of their sin. My brother’s heart is on full display here, even as he called President Clinton to account for his injustice and abuse.

I hope this letter is instructive for you, just as it was for me.

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9/18/98

Bill Clinton:

Although I believe this message has true importance, I want you to know, as you read this, that I write these words in full humility before you. I have no idea what you have gone through in the last year. In fact, I have never even met or spoken to you in my life. I do not know you, and you do not know me. However, I believe we are both children of God, and that is enough for me. Because of this sacred truth, I feel an obligation to share with you what has been on my heart. It is only when I returned from Bosnia two nights ago that this obligation became so strong I could not resist following it.

I have just returned from a trip to Bosnia, where I served with the State Department election observation team. Every day of the twelve days I was in Bosnia, I thought about your suffering and your abuses; your choices, your words, and your actions. As one created in God’s image – like you - I am unable to merely sit here and watch your personal downfall without trying to help. My words have nothing to do with your views, your beliefs, or even our common political party. I believe in my heart that we must help all others in this world, especially those who are suffering the most. I believe you are suffering greatly, and if we are to be good Samaritans as Jesus said, then we all must try to help end the suffering in any way we can. I care much more about you as a person than as a president. ‘President’ is just a title; it is merely your occupation. It is not your highest identity. Your highest identity is as a child of God. As such, you are held in the highest regard by God.

I have great faith in you, as I have great faith in all, but there is always a reckoning for our sins. We are all sinners. But the good news is we can all be redeemed! No one is any better or worse in God’s eyes, but we all must turn to Christ and follow His Truth. This is the message I feel burdened to deliver to you today.

There is nothing more important in this world than loving God and pursuing His Truth. Loving those who love you, even loving those who hate you, is equal to this - but not greater. Jesus called these the greatest of the commandments. Regardless of how we attempt to shape and mold it, God’s Truth is the Truth. The strange thing is, we all know this simple message to be true, but each one of us denies it most of the time throughout most of our lives.

Your calling as President is a great purpose. Indeed - you have helped millions! Your leadership in helping stop the war in Bosnia saved thousands of lives. Your leadership in preventing a war in Haiti by sending Jimmy Carter saved thousands of lives. Your leadership in sending Kofi Annan to Iraq saved thousands of lives. Your diligent work on race relations and America’s denial of slavery has changed thousands of lives. These are just a few of the things you have done. You have exhibited true moral leadership.

And you still can.

You are the same man that you were before. You can be a true moral leader. Please don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise, for you are a child of God. When we doubt ourselves, we doubt God. Let us never doubt the power of God. There is nothing God cannot do. Nothing.

While becoming President was a great thing in and of itself, perhaps it was not your highest calling? Your purpose on this Earth, the reason you were born to your mother and father, may have been to struggle in these darkest hours of your life. Could your highest calling be to pursue God and His Truth? To lead our country in Truth by confessing all of your sins and abuses publicly and honestly? To do the right thing and give justice to Monica, to your family, to our country?

Perhaps this is your greatest example to the world. Your example can be one of Truth or one of continued deception of the American people, your family, yourself, and your God.

Your example to the watching world can be that in his darkest hour, when he saw the world crumbling before him, a President named Bill Clinton in the year 1998 decided to follow the Truth and live it. Bill Clinton, against the advice of all those closest to him, decided to give the Truth a try and be completely and totally honest with the nation, the world, himself, and his God. Bill Clinton, the leader of this great country, gave up his power in order to give justice to his country and those whom he had abused.

This would mean no half-truths, no lies of omission, no twisting of any words or past actions, no parsing of semantics, nothing but the Truth, the whole Truth. This is the choice you have before you today. It is the only choice that matters anymore. Choosing God’s Truth will do more good for this world than any program you have ever conceived, any progress you have made, any assistance you have given to any other human, any war you have ever stopped or prevented.

Mother Teresa once said,

“God does not demand that I be successful. God demands that I be faithful. When facing God, results are not important. Faithfulness is what is important.”

Today, you are facing God. Today, you have a personal meeting with His Truth. God demands that you be faithful. You must follow His Truth, not what you believe will make you successful or bring about the results you want. This is no time to plan, strategize, calculate, plot, or weigh costs and benefits. You have a moral obligation to be faithful and tell the truth. It will not be easy. It will make you cry. It will make you feel weak, afraid, and twisted inside. It may even feel like your heart is being ripped out of your body and your soul tossed to the wolves. But in the end, the Truth will set you free. It will make you whole. It will mend not only your own heart and your life, but also the heart of this great country you serve.

God is beyond anything we can imagine, and God will always be there for us no matter what we do. If you open your Bible and read the story of Job again, I believe you will see the point of this. God gives life to us. God gives us everything we have and more. Yet on account of our fallen human nature, we lie, cheat, abuse, deceive, and fabricate. But God is there with you when you sit in agony each night before you go to sleep. God is always waiting for us to choose the Truth and confess our sins. When we do this, we will be forgiven and set free.

When you sit down on your bed at night and cry, God is there. When you are filled with regret, sadness, and the sickening feeling that goes deep down into your being, God is with you. Love is sitting next to you. However, He demands that we make the choice to follow Him rather than ourselves. We must confess our sins and give ourselves into His hands. This is repentance.

Jesus of Nazareth once said,

“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ⁴ Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. ⁵ Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. ⁶ Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. ⁷ Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. ⁸ Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. ⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. ¹⁰ Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹ Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. ¹² Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

¹³ Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. ¹⁴ Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. ¹⁵ Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. ¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:3-16)

Proof of thirst for righteousness comes from pursuing God’s Truth by being honest in word and deed. And God’s Truth is found in Christ. You can do this. There is time. Do not doubt yourself or your God. But if you have to choose one or the other, doubt yourself and trust God. There is nothing more important in the world. If you trust Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you will be forgiven and set free.

When I was in Bosnia, I noticed you had appointed spiritual advisors. No advisor will now make this decision for you. The only real spiritual advisor you have is the voice of God you hear each day inside you. His eternal Truth is always right. As Dr. King said,

“Jesus is eternally right. History is replete with the bleached bones of nations that refused to listen to him.”

Will you choose now to turn to Christ, who is on the side of eternal righteousness and justice? Or will you choose to lead our country, by your example, down a road of destruction?

The purpose of all worthwhile religion is Love and Truth, for Love and Truth come from God. If the purpose of our religion were not such, it would be of no use to us. Wherever your faith may lie today, summon it and let it build strength inside you. You must find the strength through God and His Truth to be honest with this country and the rest of the world. You cannot continue traveling the nation and the world, hoping that everything will go away like so many other things from your past may have.

You have the choice – indeed, the obligation - and you must come before the people and be completely and totally honest. Confess your sins and admit the truth on national television, and agree to answer any question anyone has as long as they continue asking questions. Sit in a chair, alone in front of the world, just as Jesus did on his cross 2000 years ago, and suffer. Do not continue putting your suffering on Monica, your family, or this country. Answer any question as truthfully as you can from any person in this nation for as long as you can stay awake. Then come back the next day and answer more and be truthful again until all of the questions are done. Confess your abuse of power to Monica, to your family, to this country. Confess the ways in which you denied Monica’s personhood and used her for your own twisted desire. Confess the ways in which your sins have deeply wounded your family. Acknowledge the now-broken trust we, the people, now have in you. Vow to do whatever is right by the Truth of Christ to pursue justice and right what you have wronged.

And after this, see a trained professional, a counselor, a psychiatrist, and work through all the dark places in your heart. Some would say it would be a national disgrace for a sitting president to go to a psychiatrist, but they are wrong. Some would say you would immediately lose the Presidency, but they are wrong. It is always an honorable thing for a sick man to admit to himself he has problems and to look to the world and say, “I need help, and I am going to get it.”

If anyone has to carry the cross, let it be us. If anyone needs to suffer let us suffer ourselves so no one else has to. I do not want to see you suffer one single moment longer, but I know that only through accepting suffering for your actions, asking God’s Truth to enter your heart, and being completely open to the world will your suffering end. There is nothing else in the world that will end it.

In his darkest hour, a man truly decides if he trusts God and Truth. This is your darkest hour. You have two options, to continue lying at all costs in an attempt to save your presidency, or to tell the truth and save your soul.

In a 1914 tribute to Gandhi, Professor Gilbert Murray at Oxford wrote,

“Be careful in dealing with a man who cares nothing for sensual pleasures, nothing for comfort or praise or promotion, but is simply determined to do what he believes to be right. He is a dangerous and uncomfortable enemy because his body which you can always conquer gives you so little purpose over his soul.”

We all have a calling to follow this as Gandhi did. He was no greater a man than you or I or anyone else. He simply made it his point in life do what he believed to be right. This is your highest service to God. I know it will be no easy task for you to become truthful. If it were easy, you would have already done it, for you are stronger than most. But if it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth much. Nothing worth having comes easy.

So in the end, the choice is a beautiful one. You can choose to follow God through faith and repentance, or you can continue following your ego, your intellect, and the darkness in your heart. I will pray each moment that you will choose to turn to God, who alone can lead you in the way of love, truth, and justice. But prayer and reading Scriptures, whether on your own or in the presence of others, will do no good unless we have the Faith in God to go inside our souls and embrace His Truth.

You may recall the story of the chief tax collector named Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10). Here was a man who greatly abused his power, placing unjust taxes on the people in order to grow his own wealth. Yet when Jesus saw Zacchaeus, his heart went out to him. Everyone else avoided Zacchaeus at all costs. Not Jesus. Jesus invited himself into Zacchaeus’ home, and it was there that the beauty of God’s Truth in Christ overwhelmed him. It was there that he repented of his sin and abuse of power. Zacchaeus experienced the truth we read in the words of St. Paul,

“God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

This repentance was freeing, but it did not come without a cost. Zacchaeus soon learned that on the other side of repentance, there was a moral obligation for him to right what he had wrong; to give justice where he had created injustice. In fact, he restored fourfold what he had taken from those he defrauded.

Forgiveness is likewise available to you. But it will not come without consequence for you; for as soon as you find that you are freed, much will be required of you. Justice and righteousness are required of all those who turn to Christ in repentance and faith.

Jesus tells us that we have an obligation to help those who are suffering, whether it be physical, emotional, or spiritual suffering. I believe you are suffering greatly, and I want you to know I am here for you at all times. I am just one person, a weak one at that. But through God and His Truth, I believe that one human can change the world. And I know you believe this to be true. Your life is a testimony to this belief. Your road to the presidency is a testimony to this belief.

Don’t give up yet. You can still do the right thing. Dr. King said,

“Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.”

It is dark, but it is not so dark that you are blind. And if you are blind, God will carry you. As the psalmist said,

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)

You may be in darkness; it may be so dark that you feel close to death. But even when you cannot see through the darkness, God has promised to be with you. Christ is with you. He will never leave us nor forsake us. God is the star that you must follow tonight. You have a choice before you greater than any other that you have ever had in your life before. Trust your God.

In service,
Joe Hein

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When I tell people outside our neighborhood about our young church, one of the most common questions I get is, “What are you doing to work with the existing churches in the neighborhood?”

I appreciate the heart of this question. As the new White pastor in a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood, I should make every effort to work with other churches. Yet the question itself carries an assumption: that the existing churches are already working together.

Sadly, this assumption isn’t always true. Division is often the status quo. My answer to the question usually goes like this: “We’ve done our best, and we have a few close friendships. But working with other churches is harder than you might expect.”

I do think we’ve done our best. We haven’t been perfect. We’ve learned difficult, painful lessons along the way. I’ve said things I shouldn’t have and have had to ask for forgiveness. But I’m proud of the disposition our growing church has in the community. We deliberately refrained from gathering for weekly worship for nearly three years to show existing churches that we were here to help, not to compete. We’ve offered our resources, time, and energy to help other churches while refusing to take any credit. Each week, we pray by name for a different church in our neighborhood during our worship service.

A couple of years ago, we tried to host an ecumenical worship service at an event center in the neighborhood. We invited several pastors to attend, asking them to share about their churches and then offer a prayer for the community. It was a great night, and I’m thankful for the pastors who joined in. One of the pastors who attended, a lifelong resident of the neighborhood, said he’d never seen a worship service like that in the community.

Such a statement elicits our praise—and our lament. I was saddened by how many churches didn’t respond to the invitation. One pastor responded, saying he would never worship with me “because of our differences.” He never explained what those differences were.

There seems to be something about urban neighborhoods that attracts more churches with strong, exclusive views (I have theories, but that’s an essay for another time). As I survey our community, I see several churches that draw firm boundaries around their theologies of baptism, charismatic gifts, and their doctrine of God. Some even say that you’re not a Christian if you don’t accept their particular views.

A Baptist church up the road brings in “missionaries” from other parts of the country each year to evangelize in the neighborhood. They’ve come to my door twice, and each time we’ve had nearly the same conversation. I’m asked if they can tell me about Jesus, and I tell them I’m a Presbyterian pastor. My salvation is questioned because of my views on baptism. I tell them I’m good. Then they ask if our church uses the King James Bible. I say no. They tell me we’re not reading the true Bible. I ask them to leave. They protest. I close the door. The conversation ends.

Yikes. It’s hard to partner with a church that doesn’t even believe that I or our church are Christians at all!

The Scriptures teach that Jesus is redeeming one universal Church composed of all Christians around the world. Christians are “called to be his holy people together with all people everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:2). There is one body, one Spirit, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God (Ephesians 4:4-6). Jesus prayed that his people would be one, just as he is one with his Father (John 17:20-21).

Some of the oldest Christian statements of belief, such as the Apostles’ and Nicene creeds, call upon Christians to confess belief in one universal church. This idea has been a core teaching of Christianity, passed down for centuries since the days of Jesus.

If there is one Church, why are Christians so divided among themselves? Is it possible to live in unity even amid such strong disagreements? The Scriptures haven’t left us without help on these matters. Though there is one Church, our shared faith will be expressed in many kinds of churches across a wide range of differences. Local churches should strive to uphold what we have in common, even as we respect the disagreements that may lead us down separate paths.

How can we do that? I offer three principles for churches to consider.

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1. Trust the Power of God to Work in Our Disagreements (Acts 15:36:41)

Acts 15:35-41 marks a low point in the narrative of the early church. The gospel was spreading to all kinds of people, even in the face of severe opposition and oppression. As we read this history, we might begin to entertain romantic, idealistic notions about what churches can and should be.

Paul and Barnabas’ disagreement puts an end to whatever rose-colored glasses we might read into the early church. These two great leaders have such a “sharp disagreement” that it causes a rift in their relationship. Rather than going out on one evangelistic mission together, these men part ways and go in two very different directions.

We’re not told whether Paul and Barnabas were right or wrong. We’re not told whether either of these men was in sin. Maybe they both were. We’re simply not given those details. Those aren’t the lessons we’re meant to take away from this story.

Sometimes Christians just don’t get along. It happened to Paul and Barnabas, and it can happen to us. I think we often make our conflicts worse by clinging to naïve notions about what church unity means. We tell ourselves, Christians are supposed to agree! Disagreement is bad! Then we lock ourselves into a series of late-night meetings to force each other into agreement. Such attitudes often make matters worse, and our disagreements then become so severe that we ruin the relationship.

Perhaps one of the lessons for us to take away from a passage like this is that God will use our disagreements to accomplish his purpose in the world. Despite their disagreement, God still used Paul and Barnabas to launch two evangelistic missions from one. Even if these two men were in sin, God used their rift to create more opportunities for more people to hear about Jesus.

I wonder what it might look like if more churches respected our differences rather than trying to argue each other into agreement? What if we acknowledged that we don’t have to determine who is right or wrong about a particular way of doing things, but simply trust the power of God to use all our churches to proclaim the salvation we share?

I’m thankful for my friend Pastor Michael Searcy, who has given me a glimpse of that vision. Pastor Searcy and I have many cultural, generational, and theological differences. We’ve discussed them from time to time. Yet despite our disagreements, Pastor has expressed his excitement about our church and his desire to see us grow. His support has been so generous that he’s even allowed our church to rent his church’s facility for our worship services at a time separate from his congregation’s.

Rather than arguing over our differences or forcing each other to agree, he has shown me how to respect those differences while supporting what God is doing in each of our congregations.

It is the power of God to take our natural, boneheaded, or even sinful disagreements and redeem them for his glory and our good.

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2. Keep Jesus at the Center (1 Corinthians 1:10-18)

There is something in the human condition that craves a connection to power. If we can’t have power for ourselves, we want to be connected to someone who does. Just look at today’s politics. Our politicians, Republican or Democrat, no longer seek to win hearts and minds through reasoned argument. No, today’s politics relies on outrage, combat, and viral sound bites that give us the illusion that we’re with the person who is going to win. Our politics do not center on principled positions but on performative figures whom we like the most.

The situation in 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 is familiar to us. Paul had received reports that the church had become divided over which leader people preferred. We’re nowhere told that this division was the fault of the named leaders (Paul, Apollos, Cephas). Instead, the Apostle placed the blame on Christians for caring more about influence than about Christ.

Some of these Christians had become so concerned about their own influence that they could say, “I follow Christ,” to the exclusion of everyone else! It turns out that experiences in my neighborhood are nothing new.

Years ago, I was a pastor at a fairly average-sized church just down the road from one of the city’s largest churches. This church had great influence not only in our city but also among Christians around the country. Their pastor wrote influential books, and their worship team wrote songs everyone wanted to sing.

Yet there is a danger in such influence. When you spoke to Christians from that church, they talked as if theirs were the only church in the city where the Holy Spirit was moving. It was as if the very presence of God were dwelling in their church, and their church alone.

After years of growing into a self-glorifying monstrosity, God shut that church down.

He will only share his spotlight for so long before he takes action against those who make the church about themselves rather than about Jesus.

This gets to the heart of Paul’s exhortation to the church in Corinth: don’t make this about us. Our faith is all about Jesus! Though the gospel may be foolishness to some, to those who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18).

Some say that for a church to grow, it needs an influential leader, a flashy brand, and a dynamic show on Sunday morning. To all of that, the Scriptures say, No! If a church’s ministry has become about a leader and a brand, it is a personality cult, not a church. Such a church will have little interest in working with other churches—they’re the competition, after all.

Church leaders ought to invite respect, not praise. They should ask for your commitment to Jesus, not to their brand.

My friend Pastor Doug Tate Jr. has shown me how to keep Jesus at the center of the church. Pastor Tate is all about working together in the spirit of brotherhood. Despite being a Black man nearly 30 years my senior, Pastor frequently calls me his brother. He lays hands on me and prays. He even asked me to preach at his anniversary service last year.

Pastor Doug leads a Missionary Baptist Church. I’m a Presbyterian pastor. Of course, we have differences. But when Jesus is at the center rather than our brand or our ego?

I’m telling you, it’s beautiful.

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3. Practice Unity in the Spirit (Ephesians 4:1-6)

The church in Ephesus was deeply divided along ethnic and cultural lines. Across six chapters, Paul labored in his letter to show the church that the gospel overcomes every kind of difference, creating “one new humanity” amid their divisions (Ephesians 2:14-18).

Ephesians 4:1-6 is the letter’s strongest exhortation, urging us to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (4:3). Sometimes these verses are misapplied as though we should try to minimize or dismiss our differences. Many Christians likewise look to Galatians 3:28, which says there is neither “Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free,” to make this point. Doesn’t this mean the gospel eliminates differences? Well, the same verse also says that in Christ there is neither “male nor female,” but I don’t think anyone is suggesting that gender no longer matters at all.

No, the Bible doesn’t teach that we should minimize our differences, but rather that our differences can no longer be grounds for seeking advantage over someone else. In fact, the Bible teaches that the gospel amplifies our differences as a cause for celebration. One day, Christians from every “tribe, nation, people, and language” will stand together before the throne of God (Revelation 7:9).

Through the gospel, we can celebrate the beauty of our diversity. With the Spirit’s help, we no longer seek advantages over others. Instead, we strive to be humble, gentle, and patient, and to bear with one another in love.

A new ministry friend, Pastor Adrienne Overton, has been a great example to me in this regard. Though we’ve only recently met, Pastor Overton has treated me with kindness and gentleness, and I hope I’ve likewise shown her the same. I see the Spirit working in her as she talks about her love for her church and our neighborhood, and her desire to do what is right by people.

Through the power of the Spirit, I pray that our churches can find a way to get to know one another and serve our neighborhood together.

Christians will have all kinds of differences and divisions. This should be expected. It happened throughout the New Testament. It has happened (often tragically) throughout Church history. It will happen to us.

Rather than fighting over our differences, we can respect and support one another even when we must go our separate ways. For his glory and our good, we must live out our calling to be part of the one Church.

We may not always get along. Is any of this even possible? Only with the Lord’s help. Let us pray and work together toward this goal.

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I was drawn to the gospel ministry because of the sheer spectacle of it all.

I give thanks to God for the church where I heard the gospel. Through the words of preachers and friendships with Christians in the church, I encountered Jesus and put my faith in him.

Yet there was something else at work in my heart. I was drawn to the commanding influence of that church’s pastors. With impressive sights and pounding sounds, I came to understand pastoral ministry as the ability and the right to be the center of the church. I knew in my heart that I wanted the same kind of attention on me, and ministry seemed to be my chance to get it.

And the benefits? I wanted the nice clothes, car, and house. I wanted an office in the impressive church building. You’re telling me I can have my own security detail, too? I’m in.

Lord, have mercy.

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Years later, I know now that ministry is a spectacle, alright, but not the kind I originally thought it was.

Paul described the apostolic ministry as a death sentence that is a spectacle, literally, a theater (θέατρον/theatron) for the world to see (1 Corinthians 4:9). Lest we think this description ended with the apostolic office, Paul later invited young Timothy to “join me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God,” for it is not just apostles, but also preachers and teachers who must suffer in ministry (2 Timothy 1:8, 11-12). The minister’s life must be a theater of suffering, for only then can they effectively proclaim comfort, endurance, and salvation (2 Corinthians 1:3-7).

The experience of suffering is not uniquely tied to any one role in the church, but is shared by all who minister the gospel in this present age. Ministry, by necessity, includes the task of “filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). Not, of course, that those who minister accomplish any salvific work through suffering. However, something of great importance occurs when a church witnesses the faithfulness of mature Christians enduring suffering: they understand that the gospel is real, and the power of ministry comes from God, not from man (2 Corinthians 4:6-7).

For this reason, the minister must always carry around the death of Jesus so that his life may also be revealed in us. The template for ministry is not a progression from weakness to strength; death and life must always be experienced together. Suffering and death must be displayed in us so that life will be at work in those we serve (2 Corinthians 4:10-11).

Years ago, I volunteered as a patient care advocate in the children’s oncology ward at a local hospital. Of the many lessons I learned in this heart-wrenching work, the nurses in this cancer unit left the greatest impact on me.

Caring for children facing cancer means you are surrounded by death. You cannot escape rooms of crying children and weeping parents. How do you help a 3-year-old girl with leukemia understand what she’s going through? How do you comfort a parent whose child has taken a turn for the worse? Hour after hour and day after day, those nurses descended into the suffering of these families, joining them in weeping and sorrow.

But there was hope. Some children were in remission. Life was not absent. While one room may have been dark and filled with tears, another may be bright and full of laughter.

For one, goodbye might mean, “I have no answers for why your life was cut short, but I will join you now in weeping.” For another, goodbye is a celebratory benediction: “You’re healed! Go now and live your life to the full.” Through the faithful care of those nurses, I came to understand that ministry, like that cancer ward, carries both the stain of death and the promise of life.

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In an age of competition and influence, it may seem foolish to suggest that we must minister from vulnerability and weakness. We intuitively recognize that something in the human condition draws us to centers of power and authority. Shouldn’t we seize our advantages and use every means possible to proclaim the gospel?

Yes, the means of influence are alluring; they may be more tempting than ever. If the pastor would only take advantage of reels, podcasts, and publishing deals, our church could really grow! If our impressive stage presence brings more people to hear about Jesus, then what’s the problem? How easy it is to rationalize our emphasis on such things!

Preaching for TikTok highlights draws a crowd, but does it make disciples?

Paul explicitly warned against ministering from strength and influence rather than from weakness and suffering. He renounced “secret and shameful ways,” “deception,” and “distortion” as tactics in ministry (2 Corinthians 4:2). Though he could have used his impressive rhetorical skills, Paul sought to speak plainly and from his weakness (1 Corinthians 2:1-4). He refused to use the gospel for personal gain (2 Corinthians 2:17; 1 Thessalonians 2:5).

The Apostle understood that even Christians could be drawn to cults of personality rather than to Christ himself. For this reason, he deliberately did whatever was necessary to take the attention off himself so that Christ would be the center of the church (1 Corinthians 1:10-17).

Today’s ministers are being conditioned to believe that the “success” of our churches depends on our influence, platform, and flex (sometimes, literally!). Sermons have too often become a string of quotable clips for the Gram rather than an earnest exposition of a text for a particular people. Let the viral pastor be warned by Demas, who once was faithful (Colossians 4:14), but abandoned Christ out of “love for this present world” (2 Timothy 4:10, cf. 1 Timothy 6:17).

The fruitfulness of ministry does not come from viral sermon clips or the size of our biceps. Our people encounter Christ in our weakness, for only then does Christ make his strength known (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Gospel ministry must be marked by weakness and suffering. Our churches must see us weep, confess, and deny ourselves. We must be known for meekness, gentleness, and compassion. Let the minister wear their tender, bleeding hearts on their sleeves. The power of Christ is made known in churches when those who minister love people enough to suffer with and for them.

Ministry is a theater. The question is, whose show is it? If we are driven by a selfish love for influence and authority, then we will become the star. But if we will embrace our weakness out of a gospel-driven love for people, then Jesus will delight in making himself known through us.

Suffering is the way.

May Christ keep us faithful in this task until he returns or raises our bodies from the dust.

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Personal Note: It has been nearly two months since my last Substack essay. In over 10 years of writing, this has been my longest break by far. The demands of our young church, family, and completing my D.Min work occupy much of my time. I have many plans for future essays in the weeks and months ahead. I appreciate your patience with me, especially with my paid subscribers who have made a financial investment in my work.

I return now with my longest essay on this platform to date. Were this essay twice as long, it would still be inadequate to say all that needs to be said. I pray the Lord blesses you as you read and wrestle with one of the most pressing issues of our day.

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I am going through a crisis of conscience. There is red in my ledger, and I’m trying to get it out.

For the last few years, I have been a casual user of AI in many forms. I’ve toyed around with ChatGPT like an enhanced search engine and image generator. I’ve also tried using ChatGPT’s generative features more extensively, such as creating a language model based on some of my favorite theologians. There are some great transcription tools available that have helped me work through old audio lectures in my research. Our church even uses an AI platform to translate our service into multiple languages.

Of course, AI is everywhere, not just on specific platforms like ChatGPT. We can no longer search the internet, use social media, or make purchases on Amazon without interacting with AI. My banking platforms and my Bible software have integrated AI. Starbucks has integrated AI. As far as I can tell, there are few technologies or businesses left that have not integrated AI in some form.

I gave little thought to how AI was being created, who it impacted, or how I used it. That changed when a controversial data center was approved in the Martindale-Brightwood community in Indianapolis, not too far from my neighborhood. Residents of this historically Black neighborhood organized to protest this data center, and their voices caught my attention. This situation recently turned violent and has received national attention.

When I heard people discussing data centers, I assumed these large facilities were rare and built in places with plenty of available land. The Martindale-Brightwood data center opened my eyes to how the surging demand for AI affects marginalized communities like mine. In a city where rising energy bills are becoming unaffordable for many residents, I learned that urban data centers often drive energy costs even higher. This new data center could create an affordability crisis that many hardworking residents simply won’t be able to endure.

Yet the impact of urban data centers doesn’t stop there. As I’ve researched the impact of AI data centers, I’ve discovered disturbing trends. These behemoth construction projects also affect local water supplies, contribute to environmental and noise pollution, create competition for other important land uses, and all while making a marginal, if not detrimental, economic impact on the community.1

These initial discoveries have forced me to reckon further with the ethical issues associated with AI. Until recently, I assumed that AI was a neutral means that could be stewarded toward ethical or unethical ends. I now understand that AI, in its current state, is a twisted means that can only be used for ethically compromised ends. Even with the best of intentions, every use of AI increases demand for systems that exploit the poor and oppressed around the world.

The Christian tradition has long understood that our participation in such systems is a form of murder and robbery. No one can use AI without being guilty of blood; we all have red in our ledgers. We must, therefore, undertake a serious study of Christian ethics that exercises confession, wisdom, restraint, and is guided by the love of neighbor.

This essay is my attempt to begin developing a Christian ethic for engaging with the brutal realities of AI. My treatment of this subject is far from exhaustive, and my conclusions are only the start of a conversation. Still, I hope these words can guide Christians and churches toward greater ethical wisdom and restraint in our complex technological age. AI is here to stay; what we do with AI now is up to us. For many people around the world, what we do next is a matter of life and death.

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The Brutal Realities of AI

The ethical implications touch nearly every area of our lives, from questions about what it means to be human, to our economy, community development, the environment, and education. AI is revolutionizing nearly every vocation; many are even losing their job as a result of being replaced by AI.

It is impossible to cover the ethics of AI in one essay. Books, journal articles, and op-eds abound that cover far more ground than I possibly could. For that matter, I’m no journalist or scholar of AI; I’m an urban pastor with a particular concern for how AI impacts communities like mine.

Most AI discourse I’ve observed from afar has addressed AI in the classroom and the workplace. These are important issues that need to be addressed. Still, before AI is an ethical concern for white-collar employees and students who don’t want to write that history paper, it is a brutal reality for poor laborers, historically marginalized communities, and oppressed people groups around the world. I fear that most conversations about AI have centered on concerns for people like us (i.e., middle-class people in positions to make contributions to this subject) and have ignored the plight of the poor, whose lives are destroyed by our consumption of AI.

Our ignorance is itself an injustice.

While a simple internet search will turn up plenty of relevant articles addressing AI’s impact on the poor, I wanted to do a little more digging than what was readily available at my fingertips. I turned to the work of Karen Hao, who has done more extensive journalism than anyone else on these issues. Her book, The Empire of AI, captures the impact of the “tech arms race” that is recharting each of our lives in real time.

Hao provocatively uses the concept of empire to capture the magnitude of how companies like OpenAI, Google, and Meta are using AI today. She writes:

The empires of AI are not engaged in the same overt violence and brutality that marked [European colonialism]. But they, too, seize and extract precious resources to feed their vision of artificial intelligence: the work of artists and writers; the data of countless individuals posting about their lives and experiences online; the land, energy, and water required to house and run massive data centers and supercomputers. So too do the new empires exploit the labor of people globally to clean, tabulate, and prepare that data for spinning into lucrative AI technologies. They project tantalizing ideas of modernity and posture aggressively about the need to defeat other empires to provide cover for, and to fuel, invasions of privacy, theft, and the cataclysmic automation of large swaths of meaningful economic opportunities.2

While not the primary focus of her book, Hao captures the devastating impact these AI empires have on poor and marginalized communities. I will briefly summarize some of her findings under three headings.

The Devastation of Data Centers

Let’s return to data centers and their impact. These enormous buildings house the raw processing power that trains and runs our AI models. The energy needed to power these buildings is staggering. It is estimated that each ChatGPT query uses ten times more electricity than a standard Google search. The largest data centers today use over 650 megawatts of electricity each year, which is enough to power roughly 500,000 American households. There are plans to build hyperscale megacampuses in the near future that will consume over 2,000 megawatts per year. Do the math: we’re rapidly approaching a world where one data center consumes more energy than an entire city.3

Few places exist in the world that can produce this much energy. Utility companies (like AES here in Indianapolis) are scrambling to meet the demand. Rising energy needs create greater environmental impacts, including various forms of pollution and a depletion of water reserves. It is estimated that the water required to cool these data centers could reach 1.1 to 1.7 trillion gallons of fresh water globally by 2027, which is half the water consumed annually by the UK. One-fifth of data centers in the United States already draw their water from moderately or high-stressed watersheds.4

Such environmental impacts, whether the collective forces of global warming, pollution, or water scarcity, always have a disproportionate effect on the poor.5

The Perpetuation of Discrimination

Pulling on the research of MIT economists and Noble laureates Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, Hao describes how “those who successfully rally for a technology’s creation are those who have the power and resources to do the rallying.” Using the example of the cotton gin, Hao demonstrates how new technologies often benefit those in power while exploiting the poor and oppressed. Society is promised progress and freedom through new technology; those out of power tend to experience the opposite.

Hao hauntingly declares that such dynamics may be “truer than ever” as AI progresses. The social and labor costs to fuel the AI revolution are being paid by the world’s poor, particularly those in the Global South, where consequences of “dispossession by historical empires still linger in delayed economic development and weaker political institutions.”6

AI needs massive amounts of data to train its models. When the data itself is corrupted by our many forms of discrimination, or when AI systems are trained in contexts marked by intense discrimination, the AI model perpetuates and accelerates the same discrimination already present in our society.

Hao offers too much evidence of these discriminatory forces in her book to list here, but a couple of examples prove the point. One AI startup created headbands that measure a student’s brainwave activity to tell a teacher whether the child is focused in class or not. This company used these headbands in elementary schools in Colombia and China in exchange for the rights to use the students’ data.

Another company is training its facial recognition software in South Africa, which is still reeling from generations of apartheid. Cameras throughout Johannesburg are being trained by White clients who target Black residents to restrict their movements throughout the city.

Hao labels such instances “data colonialism”: harm rooted in patterns of conquest and extractivism.7

OpenAI has even admitted that their models entrench stereotypes related to gender, race, and religion, but addressing those problems is something that they’ll have to address in the future.8

The Plundering of Poor Laborers

Someone has to do the work of training these AI models, which includes not only feeding massive amounts of data but also reviewing explicit and traumatic content to train AI content filters.

Who will do this work? OpenAI found its answers in Kenya, a country that Silicon Valley has been exporting its dirty work to for years. Kenya, like many countries in the global south, is poor, and its government is “hungry for foreign investment from richer countries.”

Through its partnership with Sama, a tech-based contracting company, OpenAI began paying Kenyan workers an average wage of $1.46 to $3.75 an hour to review explicit, grotesque, and discriminatory content to train its AI models . Numerous workers reported how this work broke them down, “the impacts radiating beyond each individual to the people who depended on them in their communities.”9

Other stories will just break your heart. Venezuela, like Kenya, has been plundered by the AI empires. Julian Posada, a professor at Yale University, interviewed dozens of workers in Venezuela who shared how common it was for parents and children to take turns working nonstop on a shared computer so families can earn a little more money.

“One of the defining features that drives an empire’s rapid accumulation of wealth is its ability to pay very little or nothing at all to reap the economic benefits of a broad base of human labor.”10 So remember, the next time you ask ChatGPT to generate that content for you, a poor child in the global south made a buck fifty watching explicit material to make your content possible.

A Christian Ethic of AI

Here’s where things get messy—that company annotating and analyzing traumatizing data for OpenAI? It’s done the same for Meta, Google, Microsoft, Ford, Walmart, and several other companies. While large-scale AI efforts, like those of OpenAI, may be the worst perpetrators of the impacts outlined above, the truth is that most, if not all, actions we participate in online rely on these injustices in places we cannot or do not want to see.

The world we live in is increasingly complex. Though the New Testament was written in a context far removed from the development of AI empires, Jesus was not unaware of the challenges of life under unjust systems. For this reason, we observe Jesus and his followers taking sides with the poor against those who would otherwise crush them (e.g., Matt. 6:19-20, 19:16-22; Luke 16:19-31; Gal. 2:10; 1 Tim. 6:18-20, etc.). Indeed, serving Mammon is hard, and it is easier for a camel to enter through the thread of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:24).

Various traditions in Christian ethics teach that life cannot be neatly divided between ethical, unethical, or neutral choices. We cannot walk out the door in the morning before we have, in some way, had our hands stained by sin. “Anything we perpetuate in deed,” John Calvin wrote, “contrary to the safety of a neighbor,” makes us “guilty of murder.”11

In such a world, we need ethical principles to inform practices of confession, wisdom, and restraint that are guided by our love of neighbor. We cannot wash ourselves of guilt; only Jesus can cleanse us of our sin. Thanks be to God, by faith, he has! Now we, as people made righteous, must endeavor to live righteously even when we cannot help but participate in the unrighteousness of this world (Romans 6:1-14).

When considering the brutal realities of AI, how can Christians begin to cultivate an ethic for this morally complex technological age? I offer a few categories as a starting point from the perspective of the Reformed neo-Calvinist tradition. I’ll conclude this essay with brief practical recommendations.

Responsibility and Confession

I have written previously on a theology of corporate responsibility for sin. The Reformed tradition, beginning with John Calvin, has long held that we are inextricably connected to each other. We cannot help but bear responsibility for the sins perpetuated not just by our brothers and sisters in Christ, but humanity as a whole.

In addressing the challenge of economic poverty, the neo-Calvinist theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper taught that all of humanity is an organic body, and Christians must resist any ideology that compartmentalizes our actions into those of atomized individuals. “We are made of one blood and one covenant [see Acts 17:26-31]… the solidarity of our guilt and the mystery of the atonement on Golgotha are absolutely incompatible with all such individualism and point instead to the cohesive whole that is human society.”12

The churches, then, bear a responsibility to awaken our moral consciences through the practice of confession, that we might be aware of our guilt and restrain our complicity as much as possible. Matthew Kaemingk and Cory Willson remind us that the gathered worship of the church can easily be manipulated to cover up, ignore, excuse, or empower marketplace evils.13 Churches must lead the way in naming our collective sin, inviting us to repentance, teaching humility, and cautioning us to exercise restraint.

The Rights of the Poor and Christian Advocacy

The Reformed tradition understands that care for the poor is not a matter merely of generosity or charity, but of one’s rights. As neo-Calvinist philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff explains, each one of us has “a claim on our fellow human beings to social arrangements that ensure that we will be adequately sustained in existence.” That the poor have rights to protection, sustenance, respect, and care places certain obligations on those with means to ensure those rights are granted. “If a rich man knows of someone who is starving and has the power to help that person but chooses not to do so, then he violates the starving person’s rights as surely and reprehensibly as if he had physically assaulted the sufferer.”14

Governments bear a special responsibility for “maintaining the rights of the poor and afflicted.”15 Citizens, likewise, must advocate in the civil realm, as well as within their own spheres of influence,16 for the rights of the poor. We cannot stay quiet simply because we do not have the answers; such excuses are “nonetheless trampling on the rights of the poor man.”17

Robust Applications of the Ten Commandments

If Christians were earnestly committed to studying the Ten Commandments, we would be equipped to guide our neighbors on complex matters of social ethics today. One cannot read the treatment of the moral law in the Westminster Larger Catechism, for example, without recognizing the wisdom contained therein and the need for ongoing robust applications of God’s law.

Neo-Calvinist theologian Herman Bavinck made great strides in the early 20^th century toward new applications of the Commandments for concerns of the Industrial Age. Bavinck understood that it is possible to violate the Sixth Commandment (“You Shall Not Murder.”) both directly and indirectly. We may be the one who raises a gun on another and takes their life, yet we just as surely violate the commandment when we work laborers beyond their physical strength, or deprive them of a living wage. We likewise violate the commandment when we murder our neighbor’s soul, such as when we feed their anger or encourage a lust for revenge through ongoing disrespect and injustice.18

We must dedicate ourselves to a renewed application of the commandments toward the challenges of the technological age. Such a study would, at the very least, encourage our restraint from participation in technological means that indirectly (or directly!) harm our neighbor’s lives.

The Rule of Love

All Christian ethics must be guided by the “rule of love,” that is, extending the love we’ve received from Christ toward our neighbors. In this rule, the law and love of God are made complete in us (1 John 3:16-18, 4:7-12; cf. Matt 22:34-40).

The rule of love forbids us from removing ourselves from our neighbors’ concerns, nor can we dismiss injustices perpetrated against them as if they were someone else’s problem. John Calvin settles the matter for us: “Each man will so consider with himself that in all his greatness he is a debtor to his neighbors, and that he ought in exercising kindness toward them to set no other limit than the end of his resources; these, as widely as they are extended, ought to have their limits set according to the rule of love.”19

Recommendations:

I offer now brief, practical recommendations for Christians who wish to apply Christian ethics to the brutal realities of AI. These recommendations are only the beginning of a conversation, and I encourage individual Christians, small groups, and church leaders to consider how they might best engage these challenges in their own contexts.

1. Our churches, if they are not already, must disciple their congregations through the weekly practice of a corporate confession of sin. Such moments in the church’s liturgy should include a confession for the ways we cannot help but participate in unjust, harmful economic systems, including those created by the AI empires.

2. Christians must become vocal advocates who protect the poor from being trampled on by the abuses of AI corporations. On a local level, Christians should be far more vocal than we are now about data centers plundering our communities. We should add our voices to those at a local and national level who call for greater regulations of these monstrosities and the ways they harm marginalized urban neighborhoods.

3. Furthermore, Christians should become active within their own spheres of influence to encourage moderation and restraint against the surging, often unnecessary use of AI. Christian doctors should be advocates for responsible AI usage in the medical sphere, just as I, as a pastor, should become an advocate for restraint in the ecclesial sphere. Christians may choose to avoid or boycott companies that unnecessarily implement AI into their business practices.

4. Through a deeper study of the Ten Commandments, Christians would recognize the need to limit their use of AI as much as possible. All AI usage, no matter how small, drives the demand for corporations to perpetuate harm against the poor and vulnerable all around the world. We must not close our ears to the cry of those being trampled on so that we can benefit from AI platforms.

5. All Christian use of AI must be guided by the rule of love. Any intentional use of AI that cannot be justified by a love of neighbor must be called into question. This includes all superfluous use of AI, shortcuts for personal gain, and AI-generated content for social media platforms.

May the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Spirit guide you as you study these things, draw your own conclusions, and turn ethics into practice.

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Our sponsoring church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, began in the late 90s with a small group of people who wanted a church planted in the center city, shaped by their shared vision of Christ-centered, Reformed, and urban gospel ministry.

Around that time, a philanthropist had purchased the historic First Presbyterian Church downtown with the intention of turning it into an art center for the community. When his ability to renovate the building changed, the philanthropist approached Redeemer to purchase the building from him. With God’s provision, this young church acquired the funds for the property.

This new building presented Redeemer with both a challenge and an opportunity. Redeemer believed the gospel has transformative significance for all of life. At the same time, their neighborhood had been promised an art center in that building. By faith, Redeemer decided to keep that promise by supporting the arts and artists who had already begun to call that space home.

In 2003, the Harrison Center for the Arts was incorporated as a supporting organization of the church. Today, Redeemer and the Harrison Center still share their space in the heart of the city. For over 20 years, Redeemer and the Harrison Center have navigated the relationship between a local church and the arts community. The impact of this relationship in our city extends far beyond what anyone in that small group could have imagined nearly thirty years ago.1

Redeemer Indianapolis’ vision for the city, including its support for the arts, was influenced by the ministry philosophy of Tim Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City. Keller’s 2010 address at the Third Lausanne Conference, titled “How Do You Reach Cities?”, summarized this philosophy and explained why the arts are important for urban churches:

In cities, artists are part of your constituency. They have their own culture. They have their own way of thinking about things… If you want to have an artist-friendly church, you have to empower the artists. The arts have to be taken very, very seriously by an urban church.

Keller, drawing on his Reformed neo-Calvinist influences, understood that the gospel is good news for all of life, not just the religious and spiritual life of humanity. While many Christian traditions recognize the importance of the arts, a Reformed application of the gospel to the arts was most comprehensively articulated first by the Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper. So significant were the arts in his Reformed vision that he dedicated one of his six lectures on Reformed theology at Princeton to the subject.2

The value of the arts raises important questions for Christians. How should we think about art, especially art that isn’t explicitly Christian? What about art that expresses ideas antithetical to the Christian faith? In a society that emphasizes productivity and efficiency, is it foolish to prioritize art that urges us to slow down, meditate, and think deeply about life? These are important questions that fall outside the scope of this essay, though interested Christians may find some answers in the sources referenced here.

Instead, I want to focus on the implications of the arts for local churches. Even if we recognize the value of the arts, why should churches support them? If the arts are so valuable, why have many churches done such a poor job of supporting them?

Through their power to capture our imagination and move our hearts, the arts mold us for God’s glory in a beautiful world that has been corrupted by sin.

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Why should churches support the arts?

The arts remind us of the beauty for which we were created.

In the beginning, God created art. God’s creative imagination splattered across a canvas, revealing billions of unique qualities that displayed the beauty of his character. When his masterpiece was finished, he stepped back and said it was very good. (Genesis 1)

Only God could fashion the foundations of the earth while writing the songs in the stars. Only God could design the tapestry of the clouds. Only God could mold our mornings like clay to repel the deep darkness of the earth. Only God could build storehouses of dazzling snowflakes and bang charged particles like a drum.

Only God could imagine the ecosystems that nourish the animal kingdom. Only God could laugh with joy as the donkey and the ostrich found their purpose. Only God could teach the horse to dance. Only God could teach the hawk to delight in the skies. (Job 38-39)

Only God could have crowned creation with mankind as a jewel that refracts his glory and honor in the world. (Psalm 8)

We enjoy art because God is an artist. Though we may experience the curse of sin in myriad ways, the artist’s task, whether intentional or not, is to remind us of the beauty for which we were created.

Kuyper explained the unique way this value of the arts has been expressed in the Reformed tradition:

If you confess that the world once was beautiful, but by the curse has become undone, and by a final catastrophe is to pass to its full state of glory, excelling even the beautiful of paradise, then art has the mystical task of reminding us in its productions of the beautiful that was lost and of anticipating its perfect coming luster… [The Reformed tradition] honored art as a gift of the Holy Ghost and as a consolation in our present life, enabling us to discover in behind this sinful life a richer and more glorious background.3

Far from being works for us merely to enjoy or appreciate, the arts are sacred. They satisfy our innate longing for beauty that comes from the Divine Artist himself.

The arts protest sin’s corrupting devastation in the world.

In a world filled with death and despair, every piece of art protests the darkness that engulfs us on every side. Yet some art is uniquely suited to challenge us to slow down, pay attention, and name the injustices and corruption that sin has wrought in the world.

James Cone expressed the power of protest through the arts in his wonderful book, The Spirituals and the Blues. Cone explained how protest was expressed through the Black spirituals:

The spirituals are songs about black souls, “stretching out into the outskirts of God’s eternity” and affirming that divine reality which lets you know that you are a human being—no matter what white people say. Through the song, black people were able to affirm that Spirit who was continuous with their existence as free beings; and they created a new style of worship. They shouted and they prayed; they preached and they sang, because they had found something… [They] were “stretching out” on God’s Word, affirming a new-found experience that could not be destroyed by the masters…

The spiritual, then, is the spirit of the people struggling to be free; it is their religion, their source of strength in a time of trouble. And if one does not know what trouble is, then the spiritual cannot be understood.4

When expressed through art, our protest confidently declares that we know things are not as they should be. While expressive dissent might restore dignity to one community, it may also challenge another with a prophetic rebuke. Often, as in the case of the spirituals, it does both.

As a white middle-class man, it doesn’t take much for me to be complicit in society’s many injustices. All I need to do is not pay attention.

Rome Herbert, a community-centered hip-hop artist, recently completed his creative arts residency at our young church. He now serves full-time as our Urban Ministry Director, where he will continue to hone his craft while finding creative ways to share Christ with our neighborhood through the arts.

One of the goals of his residency was to produce an album with and for our neighbors. Housewarming in Haughville is the creative fruit of Rome’s first year in our neighborhood (you can support a local Black artist AND BUY HIS ALBUM HERE!) His music is a great example of art that dances between beauty and protest.

For example, on his track “Earnest Money,” Rome captures how generations of racial injustice and division shaped his experience as a forklift driver in a warehouse:

2400 minutes on forklifts
Supply chain logistics
You know
…
Modern day plantations
By these capitalist figures
….
Supervision by these white folk
Look like overseers
Black folks and immigrants
Doin’ most of the labor
But we hardly peers.

These words simultaneously give voice to an overlooked part of our labor force while challenging others, like me, to care enough about the impact of ongoing injustices to slow down and pay attention.

It is not until we really care about the pain in our world that we’ll actually do anything about it.

The arts have power, unlike any other medium, to capture our attention and move our hearts because they are “suggestion-rich.”5 This makes art the ideal expression for protesting sin’s devastation in the world.

Why have churches done a poor job of supporting the arts?

If the arts are such a sacred expression of Christian commitments, why have churches so rarely and imperfectly supported the arts?

Far too many Christians have lived under a narrow gospel that merely emphasizes how we must be saved from this world to prepare ourselves for the next. This gospel has no good words for life in this world now; it refuses to acknowledge how Jesus in his kingdom is, even now, bringing renewal to all things.

Churches that propagate this gospel will only lend their support to initiatives they believe will serve the purpose of getting people into the world to come. If it’s not driving up conversions, baptisms, or Sunday attendance, then it’s not an effort worth the church’s time.

Where art has been valued by churches, it tends to be manipulated as a tool toward overspiritualized, often culturally appropriated ends. This manipulation is a disservice to the arts and an injustice to artists. Many artists today rightly distrust churches, finding their gifts and the Christian faith to be at odds.

Christian artist, activist, and writer Sho Baraka captures this tension as he’s experienced it in his book He Saw that It Was Good:

The early years of my Christian faith found me in a palace. But by 2010, that stage in the palace began to haunt me… I received a Stellar Award nomination and landed a Billboard spot. The recognition of my hard work felt encouraging.

But the intoxication quickly turned into an excruciating hangover. The limitations I felt in the Christian music industry suffocated my creativity. It seemed as if someone had commissioned me to paint but the canvas was a finished product. I wanted the applause and affirmation, but I didn’t want to lose myself in the process.

My label mates and I were swooned over by prominent pastors and Christian institutions that saw us as rapping recruiters for a culture war that needed urban credibility. No matter how well-intentioned they were, I was no longer willing to be a mercenary…

I needed freedom to explore. Freedom to celebrate the icons I once read and to address the issues within the palace. Freedom to speak on the matters pertinent to me that didn’t make it through the evangelical edit. I wanted freedom to expose the darkest corners of society at large without facing the concern that these dark deeds would infect me or the consumer.

That meant I had to either be brave enough to speak truth to power or exit the palace altogether.6

Sho’s experience with this narrow gospel is not an isolated one. For many artists, the church is a stranger at best. Others may even feel that Christianity is at odds with their craft.

A church’s theology of the arts will reveal what it believes it means to be a Christian in the world. Any theology that cannot prepare people for this world is ill-suited to prepare them for when it is renewed by Christ. If we cannot enjoy the beauty God intended for this masterpiece and protest its corruption, how will we be ready to relish the beauty that is to come?

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I listened to a great sermon over the weekend from Charlie Dates, pastor of Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago. Pastor Dates was preaching on Psalm 116:1-4, emphasizing how God is tender and merciful toward us in the sorrows and trials of life.

Toward the end of the message, Dates made a turn toward an application that ripped my heart wide open. The God of Psalm 116, the God who “bends down to listen” (NLT), is merciful to us in our sin because he knows that many of the ways we are inclined to sin are the result of the traumas we’ve experienced in this life.

Let Pastor Dates talk to you:

Nobody knows that the sin you’ve committed is because of the trauma you’ve been through. Folks are judging you. They’re looking down on you, but they ain’t never been through what you’ve been through. They would be drinking themselves to sleep if they had been through what you’ve been through.

You ain’t got to say, “Amen.” I’m preaching Bible in here.

Noah builds an ark, and after the ark is built and the world is saved, Noah gets drunk, and we make fun of Noah. But what would you do if you saw millions of people drowning in water? What would you do if you heard people banging on a door and you could not let them in? What would you do if you and your family were the only ones to survive, and you got all that guilt? You’d grab some Hennessy, too.

You should not judge where people are because nobody knows the trouble that they’ve seen. Nobody knows what you feel like having to take care of an adult who doesn’t even know they’re in the world anymore. Nobody knows what it’s like to have to parent your parent when your parents should be parenting you. Nobody knows how your blood pressure goes up when you hear sirens and lights coming on behind you to pull you over.

Nobody knows but Jesus. I said nobody knows but Jesus!... So we say nobody knows.

Oh, but Jesus.

Many of the sinful patterns we are inclined toward are shaped by and result from the traumas we’ve experienced, including the ways others have sinned against us. This is a lesson many of us need to hear, and many of our churches need to apply. Our churches, beginning with our gathered worship services, must become safe places where we can confess our sin and name the painful connection between our sin and the ways others have hurt us.

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The Connection Between Sin and Having Been Sinned Against

Many churches practice a regular “confession of sin” during their worship services. This is a time for the congregation to humble themselves before our God, naming the common ways we sin against God and our neighbor.

Traditional presentations of the gospel, likewise, rightly present sin as our offense against God and neighbor. Because we violated the two greatest commandments (Mark 12:28-34), we need to repent and ask God to forgive our sins in light of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross (Romans 3:21-26).

Yes and amen.

And yet, both of these expressions of the gospel miss how God responds to the ways we have been sinned against. We are social beings, conditioned in part by how others have treated us. While we need to confess our sin to God and ask for his pardon (Matthew 6:9-13), we also need to know that the gospel offers a word of compassion and justice for how we have been mistreated and abused (Psalm 146; Luke 4:18-19).

I was first confronted with this missing dimension in our gospel years ago while reading the classic text Evangelism: Doing Justice and Preaching Grace by Reformed missiologist Harvie Conn. Harvie examined at length the deficiencies of typical expressions of the gospel in white and middle-class Christian contexts. These expressions, while containing core elements of biblical truth, miss the dimensions of the gospel that the “sinned-against” of the world will actually hear and respond to.

While I cannot quote the entirety of his argument (See Evangelism, chapter 3), the following excerpt captures the point:

A gospel that does not address people as the sinned-against poses a lot of problems for the [common person], the sinned-against. Either he rejects the gospel or sees it as an opiate.

This point is well illustrated by Raymond Fung, an industrial evangelist in Hong Kong. As a result of helping to resolve a labor dispute, he came to know a textile worker in his early forties. The worker would occasionally come to Fung’s office for a chat when he could spare the time. At Fung’s urging, he came to church one Sunday at the cost of a day’s wages. After the service they went to lunch. The worker said, “Well, the sermon hit me. You know, what the preacher said is true of me­­­—laziness, a violent temper, and addiction to cheap entertainment. I guess he was talking about me all right.” Fung held his breath, trying to keep down his excitement. “But,” the man continued, “there is nothing there about my boss—employing child laborers, not giving us legally required holidays, putting on false labels, and forcing us to do overtime…” Fung’s heart sank. He was sad, he said, “not simply because this friend of mine is most unlikely to go to church again, but more because there are quite a number of factory owners in the congregation who should benefit from the textile worker’s observation.”

The textile worker was a [common person]. He had tasted the impact of the gospel. But he had tasted also its one-sided presentation—an evangelistic message that did not speak to the needs of those who have been sinned against. The gospel that ignores the sinned-against may work among the middle class, but it cannot work among the overwhelming majority in Asia or the United States… It conveys too much superiority, condescension, yes, even pity, to be credible. What is missing is compassion. Compassion becomes possible when we perceive people as the sinned-against, as well as the sinning.1

Throughout this chapter, Harvie surveyed the ways we notice Jesus demonstrating mercy and justice toward the sinned-against of his day, including “the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others” (Matthew 15:30), two blind men on the road to Jericho (Matthew 20:34), a widow who lost her only son (Luke 7:12-13), the woman at the well (John 4:1-26), widows being “devoured” by the religious elite (Luke 20:47), and so on.

It is only when we see Jesus as the one who can pardon our sins while demonstrating his mercy and justice in response to the ways we have been sinned against that we will understand the full, terrifying weight of sin and the renewing grace found in his gospel.

In our cultural moment, people are becoming more aware of the unhealed traumas they carry. It is easier than ever to connect with a counselor. Therapeutic language shapes our music, films, TV shows, and social media content. However, without a safe, renewing community to name our traumas, we never heal. Often, the wounds we learn to name become an excuse for our selfish and destructive behaviors.

I have ministered for over a decade in middle- and lower-class communities, both in cities and suburbs. The common experience among the wide range of people I’ve cared for is that most have never had relationships where they can vulnerably express their full selves. Within a church, people may find a place to receive forgiveness and hope for change, but it is rarely safe to name the wounds that haunt them. Outside the church, we may find a place to name our trauma, but we rarely find people who have answers for our guilt and who will hold us accountable for our selfish and greedy behaviors at the same time.

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In a church that offers a gospel for our sin and for the ways we’ve been sinned against, we learn to let our guards down so our traumas can be named, our sin can be confessed, and our hearts can be renewed. Until we’re able to connect our traumas to our sin, we only know Jesus in part and have not experienced his gospel in full.

Let us then confess our impatience while naming that we walked on eggshells around our parents growing up.

Let us confess our pornography addictions while naming the shame we have been made to feel about our bodies.

Let us confess our substance abuse while naming the daily hopeless realities we experience in poverty.

Let us confess our greed while naming the insecurity we still feel from growing up in a broken home.

Let us confess our anger while naming the spiritual abuse from former pastors who have left us feeling broken and confused.

Let us confess our controlling personality while naming the racism we face as a daily reality.

Let us confess our cycles of sinful, unhealthy relationships while naming the ways people have taken advantage of us our whole lives.

Let the sinned-against in the congregation say so, so they might experience the full mercy of Christ, who will not crush the weak and will bring justice to the oppressed (Isaiah 42:3).

Practices for Churches

I want to offer a couple of ways that church leaders and congregations might begin to create a culture in which it is safe to name the ways we sin, in light of how we have been sinned against, during their gathered worship services.

First, the church’s preaching and teaching should regularly connect with the wounded hearts of the congregation. Many pastors need to consider how they might be communicating biblical truths in abstract or one-dimensional ways that keep the congregation from experiencing the fullness of the gospel.

For example, a pastor might learn to communicate biblical teaching on sin in light of the traumas we’ve experienced. Trauma, if it is to be healed, must first be named. Sin is the original trauma; because of our shared original sin, we are born into a fallen world we were not created for. If that trauma is never named, we will live in constant fear and pain and never know why. God loves us enough to tell us why we hurt and invites us to experience the safety of naming our sin for ourselves.

Pastor Dates gave a wonderful example of connecting sin to trauma in the life of Noah. Consider the example of Levi (Matthew) in the New Testament (Mark 2:13-17). A traditional sermon on Matthew would explore his life of sin as a tax collector. A pastor perceptive to the ways we are sinned against would also recognize that Matthew was not only sinning against his neighbor but also being sinned against by Roman officials who treated him as a tool to be used and discarded. Matthew’s story is an opportunity for us to recognize the ways we are caught up in cycles of sin and being sinned against. Matthew, like many of us, didn’t know any way out—until he met Jesus.

Second, the church’s prayers should be structured to invite the congregation to name the connection between their sin and the ways they’ve been sinned against. Our church has taken the traditional “Confession of Sin” and adapted it into the “Confession of Sin for the Sinned Against.” We deliberately make space every Sunday for congregants to name sin and trauma together.

Here is an example from one of our prayers we prayed each week during a short sermon series on what it means to belong to a church:

Leader: Jesus laid down his life
So that you, church,
Would know you are his special possession.

All: I don’t feel special. I’ve messed up, God.
I made you promises that I’ve broken
Over and over again.

Leader: Before the world was made,
God set his heart on you.

All: My heart is set on so many other things.
Most days, Lord, you are not my priority.
I only turn to you to get what I want.
I only serve when it is convenient.
I only give when I have too much.

Leader: God has brought us into his house.
Together, we are his children.
We belong to each other.

All: The truth is, I’m terrified of belonging.
I’ve given my love to people before
And they crushed me.
They promised they would care for me
But they left me behind.
This pain feels like death.
I don’t know if I can move on.

Leader: Jesus promised that he would build his church.
Neither death nor hell will get in his way.

All: Tell us again that we are yours.
Teach us to grieve.
Teach us to trust.
Teach us to love your church as you do.

This prayer was an attempt to name the ways we might ignore our obligations to God and his church because of how others have broken our trust and crushed our hearts. We’re sinning, yes. But we’re also grieving and afraid.

There are several other ways a congregation could develop the ability to connect sin and being sinned against; these are just a couple of ways that culture could begin on Sunday morning. I hope this post helps you, your church group, or your congregation experience more of Jesus as the compassionate one who extends grace to us in our sin, compassion in our wounds, and justice to those who have hurt us.

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A couple of weeks ago, I was setting up the church building we rent for our own worship services with a couple of other leaders from our congregation. Our conversation drifted into an analysis of Druski’s skit and commentary on the Black Mega Church. We had a stimulating and insightful conversation, given that each of us was coming from different racial, generational, and gendered perspectives.

Unfortunately, toward the end of our conversation, I crossed a line with my words that I couldn’t take back.

The idea in my mind that I wanted to communicate was something to the effect of, “I’ve noticed in many white churches that…, but in many Latino churches…, and in many Black churches….”

What I actually said was, “I’ve noticed in many white churches that…, but Latinos…, and Blacks…”

Without being conscious of my language, I made sweeping generalizations using terminology that has historically been used to subjugate entire groups of people.

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Fortunately, someone else in the conversation pointed out my offense. “Yikes, I’m going to be honest, I don’t think you should say ‘Blacks,’ but ‘some Black people.’”

I was stunned. “I said that!?” I recognized the harm my language caused. Even though I didn’t intend to speak in racist generalizations, the impact of my words was racist. I apologized and thanked this individual for pointing out my offense.

I typically avoid speaking on current events because I really don’t think it’s my place. Pastors of local churches should spend very little of their time making statements and posturing on social media, but instead should invest their heart and time into the congregation and neighborhood they serve. Once a pastor starts down the path of commenting on current events, they will be evaluated based on those events they speak up about and those they don’t. This is a precedent I don’t want to set in my ministry.

Still, recent events offer Christians an opportunity to develop our critical, ethical, and moral imaginations. Given the purpose of this Substack, I decided it was worth commenting on President Trump’s terrible video he posted which depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes.

President Trump’s actions offer us an opportunity to think critically about the sin of racism, how social imaginations play out in real time, and how we evaluate sin in light of our intentions and the impact of our actions.

Though the video was taken down, President Trump refuses to apologize for the video. He claims—and many defending him claim—that the video was not posted with racist intent, and is being taken out of context from a much longer video making fun of the Democratic Party.

How should we think about President Trump’s actions and his defense of them as Christians? Even if President Trump did not explicitly post that video with racist intentions, even if it was “taken out of context” of the full video,

The video was still racist.

Why? Our social and theological reasoning might follow along these lines.

Because sin is not measured only by our intentions, but the impact of our actions (Westminster Larger Catechism 122-133); and,

Some sins are more egregious when we consider the offender, the time and place of the offense, and those who were offended (Westminster Larger Catechism 151); and,

We must examine race and racism not through static ideas or even social structures, but through how individuals in society think about race (J. Kameron Carter, “Race”); and,

In the United States, we live within a “diseased social imagination” that exists within a “rarely spoken but always understood conceptual frame” of existence between “whiteness” and “blackness” (Willie James Jennings, “The Christian Imagination”); and,

The dehumanization of African Americans, immigrants, and other oppressed communities persists not only in our memory of concrete offenses but also in the scars borne by racial groups that continue to shape how we think and relate to ourselves and each other (James Baldwin, “Many Thousands Gone” in “Notes of a Native Son”); and,

The President’s video used dehumanizing racist imagery that portrays beautiful Black-skinned image-bearers as “beasts,” a racist move that predates Western civilization (Gay L. Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature); and,

When left unaddressed, actions like these further entrench the roots of White Supremacy that yield the rotten fruits of racial violence and oppression (Christopher S. Collins and Alexander Jun, “White Evolution”); and,

As Christians, we believe that the kingdom vision for God’s “Beautiful Community” will be realized only by those who are confronted with God’s justice through repentance and who live dependent on the renewing grace of Christ (Robert Chao Romero and Jeff Liou, “Christianity and Critical Race Theory”; Irwyn Ince, “The Beautiful Community”; Malcolm Foley, “The Anti-Greed Gospel”); and,

Racist actions and our excuses for them are a fundamental transgression of Jesus’ command to love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:28-31); therefore,

The President should repent, and citizens in our society–especially those who claim membership in Christ’s church–must no longer excuse such behavior in this administration or any other.

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We are living in a time when our political and social leaders exhibit a narcissistic resistance to basic ideals of humility, teachability, and a willingness to admit our faults. Where will we find men and women, leaders and citizens, who will demonstrate these Christian virtues to the world?

We hope and pray that pastors, leaders, and members of Christ’s Church can demonstrate lives of repentance, renewal, and justice within our social spheres of influence. We summon our leaders to repentance not because we’re pointing fingers from a distance, but because we’ve gone first in our own confession. We call our society to justice not with our words and social media posts but with just Christian communities who live according to the kingdom of grace.

Even as we protest the injustices and indecencies of our age, let us rigorously examine our own lives and cast ourselves upon Jesus, who alone can make us new.

In addition to the resources named above, here are some other books I’ve found helpful in my understanding of race and racism:

James Baldwin, The First Next Time
Allan Boesak, Black and Reformed
Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah, Unsettling Truths
Harvie Conn, The American City and the Evangelical Church
Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory
Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again
Martin Luther King Jr., Where Do We Go From Here?
Soong-Chan Rah, Many Colors
Reggie L. Williams, Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus

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For further reading from me:

Dear White Christian:

Please don’t be weird on MLK Day.

There is something about the MLK holiday that, like a full moon that appears once each year, tends to bring out the weirdest responses from white Christians.

Every night throughout the year, Downtown Indianapolis hosts a light projection show on Monument Circle called “Shining a Light,” which pays tribute to our military and Indiana soldiers who have lost their lives in service to our country. This show is occasionally replaced by other light shows honoring major holidays such as Christmas or New Year’s.

A few years ago, my wife and I took our two young children (who have since multiplied into four) downtown to see the special light show honoring Dr. King. We thought this would be a unique way for us to have a conversation with our boys about the history of racism, Dr. King’s impact, and the ongoing struggles for justice today.

Within a few minutes of sitting on the steps of Monument Circle with our hot cocoa, our family was approached by a white pastor and two white congregants from a Baptist church several miles outside the city. As the MLK show lit up the walls of buildings all around us, the pastor began to share his gospel message with me. He told me that he and his church members had traveled into the city to make sure people knew about Jesus, who had died for their sins. He asked whether we knew Jesus and had put our faith in him.

Somewhat annoyed by his timing and interruption, I told this Baptist pastor that our family loves Jesus and that I’m the pastor of a Presbyterian church. I hoped this would end the conversation so our family could focus on the show. I was so naïve then. As I’ve learned countless times since, when I use the word “Presbyterian” around many of the fundamentalist churches in my area, I might as well be saying “heretic.”

The pastor pressed in, asking how I knew my faith was genuine and that I had truly trusted in Jesus. We’d now missed the first 90 seconds of the 5-minute show. I was beyond annoyed by this man. Trying not to lose my cool, I did my best to point out that our family was trying to enjoy a special moment together, and I asked him to leave.

Thankfully, he did.

It was clear to me then that this pastor targeted the MLK event downtown because he figured that this would be a place many non-Christians would be gathering. Like many conservative white Christians today, he viewed a concern for justice and interest in a figure like Dr. King as cause for alarm.

A Presbyterian, and he likes Dr. King? Yeah, he’s definitely not saved!

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Like any other year in recent memory, I expect that on the MLK holiday tomorrow, I’ll see several criticisms from white Christians about the legacy and impact of Dr. King. I anticipate some will give thanks to President Trump for removing MLK Day from the list of free-entry days at national parks. Others will negatively compare the Civil Rights movement to what is happening in Minneapolis. I expect to see some white Christians arguing that Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson ought not to have used the Insurrection Act to enforce desegregation orders in the civil rights era, but instead should have used it against those marching for freedom and equality. Still others will misquote Dr. King to support a whitewashed, color-blind, race-neutral vision of social justice.

Come on now.

I expect to see several social media posts arguing that Christians shouldn’t honor Dr. King because of his flawed theology and moral failings. These same Christians are likely quick to excuse the theological and moral failures of their heroes. As Mika Edmonson posted a few days ago, “With MLK, perfection becomes the price of honor. That double standard reveals racism.”

Others will likely use this day to write clickbait articles reacting to their captivity to white conservative norms. They’ll tell us people are tired of “wokeness” (a term white Christians appropriated and redefined) and ready for “biblical” Christianity in a “post-woke” culture. As my friend Nicholas McDonald recently and painfully articulated, “we are ‘Post-Woke’ if by ‘Post-Woke’ we mean our black brothers and sisters have exhausted themselves trying to be heard by white evangelicals and have, I think fairly, given up.”

I need ya’ll to see how straight-up weird you’re being, treating the MLK holiday not as a day for celebration or reflection but as one of denunciation and criticism. You’re proving the point. The Dream must continue because you can’t find it in yourself to give thanks for how God used a flawed man like Dr. King to provoke our consciences toward justice.

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The Bible has wisdom for those who would see this holiday as a day for public criticism:

Sin is not ended by multiplying words,
but the prudent hold their tongues.

The tongue of the righteous is choice silver,
but the heart of the wicked is of little value.

The lips of the righteous nourish many,
but fools die for lack of sense.
Proverbs 10:19-21

The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint,
and whoever has understanding is even-tempered.

Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent,
and discerning if they hold their tongues.
Proverbs 17:27-28

Even if you think your criticisms are legitimate, tomorrow is not the day. Wisdom lies in discerning when and how to speak. If you’re unwilling to pay your respects or to reflect with sober-minded humility, then don’t say anything at all. You might even want to consider whether your own theology should lead to a celebration, rather than a rejection, of the MLK holiday.

But it’s not only the socially conservative white Christians who need to exercise caution tomorrow.

While scrolling through Instagram yesterday, I came across an ad from a white progressive church in Indianapolis for a special MLK event. The video clip promised an insightful lecture by their white progressive pastor on “what Dr. King would be saying to us today.”

Ya’ll. YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE TOMORROW WEIRD.

Listen, I appreciate the effort. I do.

But you do understand that Dr. King, like his contemporaries Malcolm X and James Baldwin, reserved his most severe and incisive critiques for white progressives, don’t you?

Dr. King famously criticized the “white moderate” in his Birmingham letter for their devotion to order rather than to justice:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direction action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advised the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.1

We likely conceive of moderates committed to order as social conservatives. But who did Dr. King actually have in mind?

In his final book, Where Do We Go From Here?, written five years after the Birmingham Letter, King repeated this criticism but was far more specific about his target. It was not conservatives but liberals who were the subject of his disappointment. King wrote:

Over the last few years many Negroes have felt that their most troublesome adversary was not the obvious bigot of the Ku Klux Klan or the John Birch Society, but the white liberal who is more devoted to order than to justice, who prefers tranquility to equality... Even in areas where liberals have great influence... the situation of the Negro is not much better than in areas where they are not dominant. This is why many liberals have fallen into the trap of seeing integration in merely aesthetic terms, where a token number of Negroes adds color to a white-dominated power structure... Often white liberals are unaware of their latent prejudices.2

It strikes me as so weird when I see white progressives co-opting the MLK holiday as a day for posturing and endorsing white progressive agendas. Do you see that white progressive ideology has often been as unjust as white conservatism? Can you discern where progressive ideology has baptized the powers of empire today?

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Scripture has wisdom for white progressives celebrating MLK Day:

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
1 John 3:18

In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
James 2:17

Before you start using MLK’s legacy to point fingers at others, how have you examined your life for complicity in ongoing injustice? What are your resolutions to work toward justice for your neighbors? Has your life become more just, or are you all talk?

In sum, white Christian, the MLK holiday is not a day for your criticism, appropriation, or posturing. It is a day for celebration and quiet, sober self-reflection on Dr. King’s legacy and the ongoing struggles for justice.

Please don’t make tomorrow weird. Some of ya’ll just need to chill, for real.

Are you looking for a place to begin your self-reflection? I read King’s Birmingham letter every year. It pierces my heart every year.

Here are my top six recommendations for understanding King and reflecting on the importance of his legacy today:

1. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (ed. Clayborne Carson), 390 pages

2. A Testament of Hope (Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. James M. Washington), 702 pages

3. The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement (Taylor Branch), 224 pages. Note: This is a much-abbreviated version of his trilogy – still very helpful!

4. Jesus and the Disinherited (Howard Thurman), 102 pages

5. March, 3 Volumes (Rep. John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell), 564 pages. Note: You can buy these graphic novels in three separate books, a slipcase set, or a new omnibus being released in February.

6. Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (Martin Luther King, Jr.), 223 pages

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A quick personal update from me: I’m still surprised every time I open up Substack and see how many subscribers I have! You all encourage me that there really are people who care about deep thinking, a kingdom imagination, and prioritizing ministry to the marginalized and oppressed. Thank you for your patience with me as I figure out new writing routines while also preaching each week, pastoring a growing church, overseeing new staff, managing a new property, and all the other responsibilities that come with church planting!

Most of the essays I write here require several hours of research and writing. It has been difficult to find the space and energy for that work these days. That said, I think I’m close to finding the time in my week to return to research and writing, at least every other week.

Until then, I plan to write a few opinion pieces here over the next couple of weeks.

I used to think that social media advocacy and content creation were an unwritten part of the job description for faithful pastoral ministry. After all, everyone is online these days—not just our congregants, but our neighbors, too. Social media is filled with all kinds of bogus noise about religion, politics, and social events. I believed I had a responsibility to make statements that would prove to my non-Christian friends that there really are Christians who care about truth and justice. I thought social media could be a fruitful space to demonstrate to the congregation what critical thinking might look like.

In fact, I was once so active on social media, making statements and posts, that it raised concerns with the leadership of our sending church during my interview to be their church planter five years ago. I dismissed their concerns, confidently stating that we need to be where the people are. If the people are online, the pastors should be too.

I have now completely changed my tune.

I now believe that it is not only a poor use of time for pastors to regularly post online about politics, current events, and justice issues, but in most cases, it is also plain unwise. More than that, if pastors are truly doing the work of ministry, they’ll recognize that extended use of social media tends toward a kind of fauxctivism that mimics what a congregation really needs: meaningful connections where we can share our hearts about issues that matter.

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I recognize that many Christians will disagree with me. You want your pastors to be more vocal about the issues you care about. You believe that now is the time for bold faith and for churches to take the side of justice. Pastors should be more outspoken, not less.

I agree with you, and that’s why I don’t think it’s a good use of a pastor’s energy to engage online.

Let me explain.

I’ve often heard that pastors shouldn’t post their convictions about political and social issues online because it would be divisive. It is said that pastors should keep their social convictions to themselves so as not to create unnecessary barriers to people hearing the gospel.

This is a weak argument. It reflects lazy, timid reasoning. Pastors should be people of conviction who, like Jesus, take sides with the poor and oppressed.1 The gospel is more (not less) than the message that Christ has died for our sins (1 Corinthians 15); it is also the annunciation of King Jesus and his reign over creation. For that reason, our gospel has a message not just for the inward “religio-ethical life” but for every area of life corrupted by sin. Our gospel speaks to politics, social justice issues, the economy, and any other topic traditionally considered “off limits” for pastors.2

Let our churches have pastors of conviction who proclaim the gospel toward our earthly circumstances!

Others would say it is a waste of time for pastors to try to change minds on social media. Facebook is not a place for honest conversation; no one changes their mind while arguing behind a keyboard.

True, but that means it’s not a good idea for most Christians, pastor or not, to spend their time engaging online.

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Here’s some advice drawn from hard, humbling lessons I’ve learned over the last four years living in one of our city’s most neglected and underserved neighborhoods. Your old college roommate’s ex-girlfriend (who, for some reason, you’re still Facebook friends with) doesn’t need your politics. Your neighborhood school does. Your old coworker, whom you haven’t spoken to in a decade, doesn’t need your convictions about the injustices of ICE. Your immigrant neighbor down the street needs you to act on those convictions.

The temptation of social media is that it quickly becomes a place for signaling and performative activism that replaces the real work of kingdom ministry in a neighborhood. Jesus warned us not to let our good deeds be known to others. Publicizing our good works draws attention to ourselves, robbing our charity and justice of their virtue. If most of us are being honest, we post our convictions online not just because we care about them, but also because we want to be seen as a certain kind of person.

Yet, as dangerous, unwise, or as poor a use of time as I think social media advocacy might be, that’s not the real reason I’ve changed my mind about how to use it.

I’ve come to see that when Christians—whether church members or pastors themselves—want pastors to be more outspoken online, they’re seeking a good thing in the wrong way. What we’re all looking for is space for meaningful connections so we can share our hearts concerning issues that matter. Social media advocacy is a poor substitute for those connections.

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As a pastor, I now see that when I was most energized to post my convictions and activism online, I was really seeking a place to share the burdens of my heart with other Christians. I’m not saying social media can never be a place to share our convictions, but pastors have a responsibility to first ensure the church they serve is a safe place for meaningful connections of the heart.

This means pastors should focus on ensuring that the Sunday worship service is a safe place for the congregation to share their hearts. We can do this in several ways. We should be intentional with the language we use in our prayers. We write our liturgies in ways that make space for people to name how they have been hurt, to give voice to their broken hearts over injustice, and to be reminded of how we should follow Jesus through the darkness affecting our community.

We also ought to be preaching with our hearts on our sleeves, going first in sharing our burdens so that our congregants know it is safe to follow. Church members shouldn’t have to go to social media to know where their pastor stands on Christian Nationalism, ICE, or economic and racial injustice; they should already know because we’re sharing our hearts with them every Sunday in our preaching. They should see our hearts demonstrated in the affection we show our neighbors.

If pastors model safety, meaningful connection, and honesty of the heart in the gathered worship of the church, the church’s culture will, over time, become a place where church members (and our neighbors) share their hearts with one another.

Similarly, when church members want their pastor to be more vocal on social media about certain issues, what they’re likely really craving is a meaningful connection with their pastor. Their pastor may be struggling to lead in a way that fosters this connection with their congregation (see the preceding paragraphs).

It may also be the case that you, as a church member, need to take more intentional steps to engage your pastor. Show up early on Sunday and stick around after the service. Take them out for coffee. Ask them to share their heart with you.

And if a pastor can’t give that connection to you? Then no amount of social media advocacy will make you feel any better.

A few months ago, our church invited Rev. Dr. Malcolm Foley, author of The Anti-Greed Gospel, to speak to us about the church’s responsibility to address economic injustice. During our 1:1 time together, I asked Malcolm for his thoughts on a pastor’s use of social media. I shared with him that my conscience was burdened because so many people have asked me to be more outspoken on social media, and I’ve declined every time.

Malcolm’s response was insightful. He said that there is a great danger for any Christian—pastor or not—in using social media as a platform for activism, because social media tends to expand our social reach while diminishing our ethical practice and imagination.

That’s good, right?

In other words, the regular use of social media as an outlet for activism and conviction will likely create an ever-widening gap between our words and how we actually live.

In local churches where pastors and church members feel the need to engage regularly in politics and social issues online, there is likely a gap in meaningful connection within the life of the congregation.

Where that meaningful connection exists, local churches become places of safety, honesty, and vibrant kingdom ministry within a neighborhood. At that point, social media activism becomes increasingly irrelevant because we’ve found what our hearts truly seek.

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Thank you for being patient with me these last couple of months while I have been silent here on this platform. Our new church, Hope Church of Haughville, began holding weekly worship services in October. In addition, I have been working on the final paper for year three of my doctoral program with Soong-Chan Rah. This new season of ministry has been completely overwhelming, so I’ve had to pause my work here. As I get into new rhythms in the new year, I hope to return to writing at least one new essay each month.

If you’d like to follow our work, check out our latest newsletter here. You can also watch this video of a big announcement our church made this week! A local journalism site did a story on the legal clinic our church hosts. If you want to hear how I’m trying to adapt my Reformed theology to our urban church, you can follow our sermon podcast on Apple or Spotify.

This essay is taken from the sermon I preached last week at our church.

Thank you for your support, encouragement, and interest in the work of The Social Question this year!

One of the most impactful movies I’ve ever seen is Hotel Rwanda, which takes place during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. In the span of about 100 days, the Hutu militia systematically killed at least 500,000 members of the Tutsi ethnic group. These numbers may be significantly higher, as official records are still under debate.

The film follows Paul, played by Don Cheadle, a hotel manager who uses his property to provide shelter for over 1,500 refugees. Paul has to navigate tense relationships between the Hutu, Tutsi, and UN forces to try to barter for the protection of refugees in his care.

Jack is one of the film’s minor characters played by Joaquin Phoenix. Jack is a reporter working for the UN.

One scene between Jack and Paul has been seared into my memory. Jack has told Paul that he has shot footage of the horrors in Rwanda. Paul is overjoyed, believing this footage will motivate people in the West to intervene in the atrocities. Jack, downcast, looks at Paul and says, “If people see this footage, they’ll say, ‘Oh My God, that’s horrible,’ and then go on eating their dinners.”

This scene captures how we have become numb to the violence of the world we live in. Our desensitized existence has only gotten worse in a social media age where we are constantly bombarded by news of violence every day, all around the world. We don’t just see reports of violence and oppression in our city, but we must carry the knowledge of atrocities happening all around the world.

It’s too much for us to carry.

As citizens in the United States, we are witnessing the rise of violence that is often motivated by clashing ideologies and hatred for people different from us.

Two weeks ago, President Trump went on national television and labeled an entire immigrant population in our country garbage. That same week, while scrolling through my social media feed, I came across an influential social media account that had created a video insulting Trump voters, essentially making them out to look like garbage.

This kind of hatred—and the violence that follows—has become normal for us. We’re numb to it.

Having become desensitized to the evil and violence around us, we become conditioned to pass over or quickly dismiss the significant evil and violence in Scripture. This is nowhere more true than in our common interpretations of the Christmas story.

There are certain words at Christmastime that get emphasized everywhere: peace, gift, birth, child, angels, light, hope, joy, and love. They’re in churches and commercials, marketing campaigns and Hallmark cards. They’re playing on the speakers at the grocery store. These words are meant to evoke feelings of warmth and beauty.

This, to us, is what Christmas is all about.

Yet Matthew’s account of the Christmas story suggests that we need to expand our Christmas vocabulary. In Matthew 2:13-23, we are shown how terror, tyrants, and trauma marked Jesus’ life. Words like peace, hope, and joy—yes. But what about slaughter? Tyranny? Trauma? Refugees? Poverty? Political violence? These, too, are Christmas words. And until we acknowledge them as such, we will not recognize all that Jesus has come to accomplish in our salvation.

Let’s consider what we can learn from three kinds of suffering that Jesus took upon himself in these verses. In each case, Matthew told us that this suffering was necessary for Jesus to fulfill what had been prophesied in Scripture. Only by talking about the fullness of the human experience could Jesus become the Redeemer who will save us from the curse of sin.

Jesus as a Refugee (2:13-15)

Herod was a wicked man. When he first came to power, he had everyone from the former dynasty murdered. He once slaughtered a number of Jewish priests who were giving him trouble. In a fit of rage, he had 300 court nobles executed. When he didn’t trust one of his wives, he had her executed. He had his own mother executed. Three of his sons were executed because he didn’t trust them, either.

One Roman official once said that it would be better to be one of Herod’s pigs than one of his sons.

Do you have a picture of how wicked this man was? He was exceedingly paranoid about any potential threat to his power. This was the very real threat Jesus and his family were living under.

When the angel appeared to Joseph to warn him about Herod, Joseph wasted no time. He immediately ran out the door with Mary and the baby Jesus. Together, the family fled hundreds of miles through the desert and wilderness to escape political violence as refugees.

According to Matthew, all of this was necessary to fulfill what had been spoken by the prophet Hosea: “Out of Egypt I will call my Son.” (Matt. 2:15, cf. Hosea 11:1).

In a world that robs refugees of their human dignity, look at the crown Jesus would put upon the heads of those fleeing for their lives. In becoming a refugee himself, Jesus takes sides with every victim of violence against those who would use their power to bring them harm. While every society finds ways to create groups of people we can deem less than us, Jesus says that the person who is most rejected in the world still has the greatest value in the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:16-30).

To be Christians who engage seriously with Scripture, we must conclude that we, like Jesus, must be people who take sides with the refugees of the world. John Calvin, having fled political violence himself, knew what it was like to experience life as a refugee. He once said that if our churches do not care for our brothers and sisters who are fleeing for their lives, then we might as well have renounced God himself! Jesus came down to earth and left us an example “that we may know what pity we ought to have upon those that flee to us, and claim refuge.”1

The churches must exercise their own politics. Regardless of who is in power, we must be a people who provide care and protection to those seeking refuge with us. At Advent, we only declare our allegiance to our king if we also remember that he became a victim of political violence to fulfill the Scriptures and set an example to us for who we must become.

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Jesus as a Victim of Trauma (2:16-18)

Herod had tried to deceive the Magi into telling him where Jesus had been born. When the Magi get wise to Herod’s plan (get it?), Herod flew into a rage. He ordered his men to go to Bethlehem to murder every boy two years and younger. This was Herod’s nuclear strategy: if he couldn’t find Jesus, he would kill all the boys, just to make sure.

Bethlehem was a small town. Most scholars estimate that there were 20-30 boys who were slaughtered during the “Massacre of the Innocents” in Bethlehem. We’ve become accustomed to tragedies that affect children. These numbers may not move us as they should.

Please don’t let yourself be desensitized to this story. These are some of the most tragic verses in all of Scripture. A political ruler was so threatened by the gospel that he committed infanticide to protect himself. Herod became the first political ruler in a long line of authorities, to the present day, who are threatened by the gospel. When he realized he couldn’t use the gospel to gain power for himself, Herod became violent. As J.C. Ryle commented, Herod reminds us that those in power “have seldom done much for the advancement of true religion. They have far more frequently been the enemies of the truth.”2

For Herod, the wicked man that he was, this was just another Tuesday for him. But for Jesus and his family, this event led to a lifetime of trauma.

Can you imagine how these events must have haunted Mary and Jesus their whole lives?

How many times did Mary wake up in the middle of the night, sobbing, thinking about all the boys who died?

Did Jesus stay awake at night thinking about all the best friends he never had?

Did Mary ever blame herself?

Did Jesus ever question his Father in heaven, like he did in the Garden, asking if there could have been another way?

What did Mary say when she spent time with one of the grieving mothers? “I’m sorry Herod killed your son while he was looking for my boy?” Can you even imagine?

How many times was Jesus asked about how he survived the massacre? Surely, once people realized his age and where he was born, it would have been common to ask how he survived.

Trauma has a way of following us our whole lives, no matter how much we may have healed.

And it followed Jesus, too.

Once again, we’re told that these events took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophets. Rachel, one of the great mothers of the Jewish faith, is personified to represent all of the grieving mothers who had lost their children (Matt. 2:18, cf. Jer. 31:15).

Jesus had to become a victim of this trauma in order to become our Savior. The King of the Universe willingly took on trauma to come close and make God accessible to us. In the midst of our greatest suffering, we have a Savior who understands us (Heb. 4:15) and knows what we’re going through.

Isn’t he worthy of your trust?

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Jesus Embraced a Life of Poverty (Matt. 2:19-23)

So Jesus and his family remained in Africa until Herod died. An angel reveals that it was time for the family to return. Naturally, they’d want to settle near Bethlehem, where they were from.

Archelaus, Herod’s son who now rules in his place, is a wicked man like his father. Out of fear of Archelaus—can you see how the trauma followed them?—the family heads north to settle in a little backwater town called Nazareth.

Nobody cared about Nazareth. It was poor. It was a place nobody respected.

Jesus’ family was poor. Joseph was a day laborer. Mary and Jesus shopped on food stamps while Joseph went out for work. This was the life Jesus knew.

The King of Creation wasn’t born in palace halls or to families of status. He was born into a life of poverty to show us that the kingdom of God will break into the world first in the places that we have most neglected and overlooked.

The greatest blessing the world has ever known was found not in a place among the powerful but in a boy whose family bought their groceries at Family Dollar.

Here’s where this passage makes an interesting turn. Once again, Matthew told us this took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets, that Jesus would be called a Nazarene. The previous two fulfillments point to a specific verse in the Old Testament. In this case, Matthew doesn’t give a citation. In fact, no verse says the Messiah would be born in Nazareth. What’s going on?

Matthew was summarizing the numerous Old Testament passages that describe how the Messiah would be rejected by the people he came to save. The most well-known of those passages is Isaiah 53, which describes the Messiah as a man despised and rejected, who would suffer and endure great pain.

Isn’t this exactly what Matthew is trying to make clear to us? This suffering servant, Isaiah said, would be crushed and punished for our sins that we might be forgiven.

Yet before he was despised in his death, Jesus was despised as a child.

Before his people rejected him, he was rejected as a refugee.

Before he suffered the weight of the world’s sins, he suffered the experience of our traumas.

Before he endured the pain of death, he lived a life of pain in poverty.

Only by entering into the lowest depths of our humanity could Jesus redeem us to the heights of his glory.

The Christmas story reminds us that Jesus came not only to save us from the guilt of sin, but to redeem every area of life from the curse of sin: our rejection, our suffering, our poverty. Christmas is a declaration that salvation is here, and it is breaking into the darkest places of our existence.

Hope and joy, yes. But only because he first experienced trauma and violence.

Is this the Jesus you know? Is this the Christmas you celebrate?

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I’m taking a break this week from my series on Abraham Kuyper’s “Rooted and Grounded” to write a more personal essay that has been on my heart for some time. While I plan to reference these words in a future essay about Kuyper’s theology of ecclesial power and spiritual abuse, I felt it was necessary—and possibly helpful to some of you—to share some of my own experience with spiritual abuse.

I’ve been hesitant to write this essay for several reasons. When I’ve shared details of my experiences with spiritual abuse in the past, I’ve noticed that my words are quickly used by people for their own agendas, often causing me more harm.

Others have insisted that I’m a coward because I won’t go public with my story and confront the person and systems that hurt me. I think it is very problematic when victims of any kind are pressured into confrontation. To say that victims must also bear the responsibility of confronting others is itself a form of abuse. We didn’t choose what happened to us; taking away our right to choose how we respond only causes more harm.

For that matter, my story isn’t mine alone. Several other individuals and families were hurt by the same person and systems that wounded me. Sharing my story is also sharing theirs, and not all of us agree on whether we want that story told. The potential risk to many of us is just too high.

I could go on. This essay isn’t about what happened to me. You can ask, but I’ll remain silent. I’ll just say this: the harm was real, and my family still bears the consequences. I endured one of the darkest years of my life, second only to the year my parents divorced and my brother took his own life. I almost left the ministry altogether. The financial toll on our family is something we’re still trying to recover from. The loss of relationships will impact my ministry and vocational opportunities for the rest of my life.

This essay is not my story. It’s also not a diagnosis of spiritual abuse, nor is it a recommended plan for how you should heal from abuse you’ve experienced. I am grateful for the growing availability of literature on spiritual abuse, both in print and online. However, I am often concerned about how this literature might lead victims to read too much into their own experiences. If we misdiagnose what happened to us, then that’s just another barrier to finding any kind of healing.

Spiritual abuse is deeply personal. It is best diagnosed, understood, and healed through relationships with trusted friends and counselors.

I want to emphasize that I haven’t fully healed, but I am still healing. I still feel pain. I am aware of the emotional and spiritual scars I carry. Somehow, dead nerves still hurt. Yet this pain is no longer a defining part of my life. With God’s help, I’ve learned how to find joy again in a world that has shown itself to be cruel and violent.

I offer you five ways I have found some measure of healing after experiencing spiritual abuse. I hope that some of what I share might aid you on your journey or help you as you care for others on theirs.

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Time

I once read a sentiment from the English Presbyterian John Flavel (1627-1691) that has stuck with me:

Just as with the sea after a storm, which still continues working, muddy, and disquiet, though the wind be laid, and the storm over: Thy heart must have some time to settle.1

Time alone cannot heal our hearts. It is like medication we might take for blood pressure; it can help regulate our bodies and relieve symptoms, but unless we take action to resolve our underlying issues, we will never truly heal.

Nevertheless, the limitations of time do not make it any less necessary. Psychologist Diane Langberg, known for her expertise in helping trauma victims who have endured every form of abuse, has said that time is needed to heal from any type of pain, including complex trauma. However, there are two aspects that frustrate us about time: “1) there is nothing we can do to make it go faster, and 2) when we are in pain, that is exactly what we want it to do!”2

It has been almost a decade since I distanced myself from the people and places that hurt me, and I am still healing. Time affects everyone differently. Some may take longer than I have; others might heal faster.

Over time, I have had experiences and formed new relationships that have taught me how to incorporate past spiritual abuse into my life without letting it define me.

Distance

Distance, like time, wouldn’t have been enough for me to heal. Without it, I don’t know if I could have ever started to heal.

In the first few years after getting out of spiritual abuse, I remained close to the people and places that wounded me. My proximity kept my wounds at the forefront of my heart and mind. With my pain still very much at the surface, I engaged in practices that only kept my wounds open. I questioned my reality, constantly revisiting past events in my mind to try and reinterpret them in a way that made sense. I had a strange sense of FOMO, and I couldn’t help but keep tabs on those who hurt me from afar. I regularly checked their websites and listened to their messages. I tried to maintain relationships with people close to the situation, but my interactions with them always caused pain.

I was paranoid as a result, seeing threats everywhere. I became jaded and cynical. I questioned everything. I was anxious and reactive. You didn’t have to poke at me for long before my pain oozed out.

After a few years, I realized I needed distance. I cut off certain relationships and established boundaries in others. I stopped attending events where I might encounter anyone who could stir up the pain. I deliberately worked to move on and accepted the loss of community that often comes with spiritual abuse.

These boundaries still weren’t enough. After a few years of doing my best to stay away from the people and places that wounded me, I realized I couldn’t live like this forever. I couldn’t keep going in ministry while constantly looking over my shoulder. I didn’t just need relational distance but also physical distance.

I had to leave.

In the summer of 2021, our family left the DC area, our home, to come to Indianapolis.

It was the best decision I’ve made.

Advocates

I thank God for good friends. I couldn’t have experienced any kind of healing without trusted friends with a listening ear who could sit with me as I found words to express what happened to me. “Friends” should probably be a sixth category in this essay.

Advocates are more than friends. While friends might make space for us, advocates actively intercede when we cannot defend ourselves. Their solidarity in our suffering goes beyond mere words. Hispanic theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz describes true solidarity as more than altruism; it is action “grounded in common responsibilities and interests which necessarily arouse shared feelings and lead to joint action.”3

I would have given up on ministry if it weren’t for three incredible older pastors who stood with me and advocated on my behalf within systems that were stacked against me. They took the hard meetings with people who wished me harm, standing in the gap for me when I had no strength left to defend myself.

I don’t know where I’d be today without them.

I didn’t find my advocates; they found me. Here is the paradox of healing from any abuse: If you open yourself to new relationships, there’s a good chance you’ll get hurt again. If you don’t allow yourself to pursue new relationships, you’ll never meet the people who can help you heal.

We need advocates who pull us out of the darkness and stand up for us when we can’t stand up for ourselves.

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Therapy

It took me nearly five years after getting out of spiritual abuse to start therapy. This was a mistake.

The pain of spiritual abuse worsens when we can’t find the words to describe what happened to us. We’re left speechless with broken hearts and confused minds. Without words for our experiences, our wounds fester like a severe infection.

The Black pastor and activist Howard Thurman captured this well in one of his meditations:

Often there is great relief in being able to put into words the quality or the very nuance of need and suffering. To suffer in dumb silence, to be able to find no word capable of voicing what is being experienced, seems degrading to the self... When we are articulate, it means that detachment from immediate experience makes possible an ability to name it.4

My therapist, a wise older Christian man, has walked with me for three years as I’ve learned how to name my pain for the first time. With his help, open wounds have become scars.

Purpose

Years ago, when I was the Assistant Pastor at the beloved Shady Grove Presbyterian Church, the Lead Pastor and I planned a short sermon series on depression. I believed the series should emphasize the darkness of depression and the church’s failure to respond with genuine, holistic compassion. I’ll never forget the wisdom Pastor Charlie shared with me one day in his office.

“Ben, I agree with you that we need to help people understand their depression and care for others who might be depressed. I agree with you that churches haven’t handled this well. But if we only focus on what is dark and terrible, how will people ever know there is reason to hope for something more than darkness? Because of Jesus, we can offer hope that no one else can. It’s possible to have joy in sorrow.”

Wise words. I think about them often.

Theologian Serene Jones, in her work on a theology of trauma, has said that we can identify three stages of healing from trauma in John Calvin’s work on the Psalms. First, through prayer and dependence, we need to establish a sense of safety. Second, by learning words to pray, we lament and express what has happened to us. Finally, through thanksgiving, we learn to integrate joy into our experience of suffering. Jones is worth quoting at length:

Here Calvin not only shows readers how to render praise to God for their deliverance from the harm of grand enemies and vast nations; he also uses quite commonplace references to ground his descriptions of everyday, commonplace praiseworthy events. He refers to the splendor of nature as a hallmark of God’s continued presence with us. Imagery of eating, feasting, resting, walking safely, sleeping peacefully, of life lived in a web of secure relations and hope—all these serve as reminders that the God whose providence protects us and whose witnessing ears and eyes receive us, is also a God who offers us a future. In that future, violence need no longer be the determinative reality of our imaginative landscapes because God gives us food, sleep, daily work, and the bonds of human community. Through these psalms, in other words, Calvin takes a world that has been thrown out of kilter and not only stabilizes it, but also weaves it back into a worldview where violence itself no longer determines the central features of one’s ongoing experience.5

When our family moved to the Haughville neighborhood of Indianapolis in 2022, God began giving us new reasons for thanksgiving and hope. Through the beauty of our community, we saw that God has a special love for the forgotten and despised places of the world. Through the resilience of our neighbors, we learned to praise God for how he gives strength to the weak and weary. In their pain, we rediscovered that Jesus is still good news for the wounded and oppressed.

In thanksgiving, my sense of purpose was renewed. There is meaning to be found on the other side of spiritual abuse. Thank God for Haughville. Here, in this precious place, I found my purpose.

Final Thoughts

These five practices found their meaning from the rhythms of spiritual disciplines and communal life in a local church. Week after week, as I stumble along with God’s people, I have seen Jesus remain faithful to his promises. He is the wounded healer whose scars (John 20:27, Revelation 5:6) testify that he understands my pain (Hebrews 2:17, 4:15). His heart has broken over what has happened to me (Matthew 9:36). He is worthy of my trust.

I hope you might discover the same to be true of him.

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If you want to learn to love a place, pay attention to the birds.

Last year, our family bought a bird feeder that’s now attached to our front window. This feeder gives us a front-row seat to the comings and goings of the birds in our neighborhood.

I had never really paid much attention to birds before. They’re so common that they mostly just existed in my mind as background noise.

This feeder has given me reason to notice.

The birds would bankrupt me if I let them. Within hours of filling up the feeder with a mix of various seeds, it’s empty again. I tell myself that I stagger feedings to protect our budget. The truth is that most days, I’m too busy to slow down enough to pay attention to the creatures.

Sometimes we catch an earful of all the latest birdie drama on Jaybird Street. With our blinds still closed, the early-morning crowd of robins arrives with loud tweets and scuffles as they argue over who crashed their rockin’ party last night. As the sun shines through the blinds, their shadows become a kind of birdie theater. Our family has been known to give them voices.

All is well until the Cardinal shows up. These crimson beauties are particularly fowl creatures. They bite and shove until they have the feeder to themselves. Their presence reminds us of those investors and “leaders” in our neighborhood who arrive with a smile but intend to devour.

Any slight movement near the window is enough to scatter the flock. Most of the birds jump from their perch on our house to the top of our fence, several feet away. Others glide to the power lines just above the street. They sit and wait patiently, wondering if the buffet will reopen when the noisy kids go away.

When I step outside, the birds decide they’ve had enough and fly off to their next stop. I wonder whose house they’ll visit next. What juicy gossip will they take from our family to pass along to the birds down the street?

I look down and realize that, once again, my front steps are covered in specks of bird poop. Like giddy teenagers, I’m sure the birds are laughing at me. “How many times did you poop this morning? SIX!? We sure got him.”

Yeah, you did, Robin. See you tomorrow.

The Bible has a lot to say about birds. Several passages in Scripture show God’s concern for them. The Psalmist declared that God cares about even the smallest creatures on earth; he knows all the birds and insects because they belong to him (Psalm 50:11). The prophet Hosea spoke of a day when God would make a covenant with the birds and other creatures so they can lie down in safety (Hosea 2:18).

Remarkably, a consistent sign of God’s judgment in Scripture is the absence of birds. When judgment arrives, Jeremiah warned, every bird in the sky will fly away (Jeremiah 4:25). It is right to lament for a place when the creatures have been driven from the land (Jeremiah 9:10).1

The sound of birds signals that God’s light and life are present. Perhaps this is why Jesus told us that when we feel anxious and overwhelmed, we should pause and notice the birds (Matthew 6:25-33). We see evidence of God’s goodness not through the sights and sounds of our material age, but in his care for things we tend to overlook as background noise.

If you want to learn to love a place, you have to slow down enough to embrace the little things. In our capitalist and individualist society, we are conditioned to use place as a means to serve our own interests. Christians in the West, having tied their theological imagination to the American Dream, are no less guilty of this exploitation.

But if we could recover God’s vision for the renewal of the places we inhabit, churches could become institutions that teach people how to love their neighborhoods the way he does.

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The Suburbanization of Christianity

Forty-two percent of White evangelicals in the United States live in the suburbs, nearly double that of those who live in cities.2 This preference for the suburbs among White evangelicals stems from their fear of cities in the early twentieth century. The Reformed missiologist Harvie Conn has documented how the suburbs enabled White Christians to isolate themselves from the ethnic and economic groups they considered incompatible with their way of life. For White Evangelicals, the suburbs offered the chance to establish a “white haven” that would safeguard their vision of the good life and their Christian faith.3

In Sanctifying Suburbia, Brian J. Miller explores the influence of American suburbs on White evangelical spiritual development. He writes:

In a suburban setting marked by a racial homogeneity, pursuing a middle-class lifestyle, and the ideal of a nuclear family living in single-family homes, the cultural toolkits of evangelicalism emphasizing individualism and anti-structuralism found a home…. To understand American evangelicalism today is to also engage with the American suburbs and the way these places have shaped religious identity and practice.4

It’s not just that White evangelical families and churches prefer the suburbs; their dominant institutions, including non-profits, seminaries, and publishers, do as well. Miller identified several suburbs where White evangelicals tend to cluster their institutions, with the most influential being Colorado Springs, Grand Rapids, East Los Angeles and Orange County, and Wheaton.5

Through these institutions, White evangelicals have promoted their vision of the Christian life, a vision which is curiously intertwined with the good life promised in the suburbs. The rise of the Megachurch and seeker-sensitive Christianity grew from promises of middle-class comfort. White evangelical politics, which tend to emphasize priorities like the nuclear family and free markets, have flourished in an environment of upward mobility and affordable single-family homes. The privatization of White evangelical faith, with its focus on personal piety, has thrived in communities where neighbors are geographically encouraged to keep their distance. Racial homogeneity has influenced White evangelical perspectives on racism, including their hesitance to acknowledge systemic sin and injustice.6

White evangelicalism, as a kind of suburban colonialism, has learned to exploit place to gain influence, wealth, size, and power. In doing so, they have confused prosperity with blessing, creating communities centered on taking and distancing instead of mutual giving and receiving.

The connection between the suburbs and evangelical faith is significant. Many recent critics, in a flurry of books written for and about Christians in the suburbs, have presented their case. Ashley Hales, the author of Finding Holy in the Suburbs, states that the suburbs “seek to fill good hungers by offering us the suburban gods of consumerism, individualism, busyness, and safety.”7 She suggests several disciplines Christians should practice to resist the dangers of the suburbs, including hospitality, generosity, vulnerability, and rest.

However, if the Christian view of place is limited to resistance, then our theological perspective on life will still be influenced by distance and separation rather than embrace and renewal.

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(Re)implacement

Neo-Calvinist theologian Craig Bartholomew has argued that the redemptive story, when viewed through the lens of place, takes the form of implacement, displacement, and (re)implacement.8

Genesis 1-2 presents the story of creation and the purpose for humans to live with God in an embodied place. The Hebrew word for humans in Genesis 1:26-28, ʾādām, is closely associated with the stuff we are made from, which is the ʾădâmâh, the earth. Because we are embodied beings, our connection to specific places is inevitable. We were created to dwell with God in a place full of life.

To be human is to belong to a place. Genesis 3 shows us that life under God’s judgment involves being displaced, driven from the place where we are meant to belong. Since the fall, God’s people have struggled with their relationship to the land. Place, which was once a source of blessing, has turned into a curse marked by toil, abuse, and exploitation.

Theologian Walter Brueggemann explained how our flawed relationship with land and place has distorted our spirituality and churches. We get sidetracked by false divisions, “as though the issue was liberal/conservative,” when the real issue is “the agenda of land which undercuts all postures.” Christians have “so interpreted the Bible away from its agenda” that they have, “perhaps unwittingly, embraced the status quo inequities of landlessness and landedness.” He concluded:

It is likely that our theological problem in the church is that our gospel is a story believed, shaped, and transmitted by the dispossessed; and we are now a church of possessions for whom the rhetoric of the dispossessed is offensive and their promise is irrelevant.9

The places we inhabit were intended to bless. In our displacement, we use them for selfish ends. But our displacement is not the end of the story.

Jesus described his redeeming work as “the renewal of all things” (Matthew 19:28), indicating his restoration not only of souls and beings but also of places, land, and creatures. The biblical narrative concludes with a vision of a “new heavens and new earth,” a “Holy City” where God plans to dwell forever with his creation (Revelation 21). The story of redemption is about (re)implacement, where we will one day live in harmony with God, and everything we have used for greed and exploitation will be restored to blessing and peace.

Just as God intended.

The Church and the Love of Place

Jesus did not come to make a new world but to make the world new.10 As theologian Abraham Kuyper declared in Rooted and Grounded, “a glorious life will germinate from this world,” because Christ will develop the new creation from the seed of this creation.11 The Christian’s attitude toward this world is not avoidance and separation, but to live toward the world as it will one day be, as it is renewed by Christ.

Our local churches should have a similar attitude. “Ours cannot be a colorless Christianity,” as if churches should be replicating models of success and growth from one suburb to the next. Instead, anchored in the organic life of a particular people and place, the calling for local churches “in every place” is to be a unique “congregation with its own hallmark.”12

How can churches cultivate a love for the places they inhabit? I’ll offer two suggestions that have been key to our young church in the Haughville Neighborhood of Indianapolis.

First, churches should act as keepers of local history. This is crucial for urban church planters, who are often seen as threats that might change the neighborhood. During the first few years of my ministry in the neighborhood, I dedicated myself to learning as much as I could about the people who have called my neighborhood home. I Googled. I visited multiple libraries to read from special collections. I sat with specialists at the Indiana History Museum, who pulled out numerous folders of newspaper clippings for me to review. I took residents out to lunch to listen to their stories.

This history has shaped our church’s ministry priorities, but more importantly, it has influenced how I view the neighborhood. This place is not primarily meant to be changed by me, but to be embraced as a community where Jesus is already working out his redemption. The neighborhood has needs, but it also displays unique aspects of God’s beauty that should be celebrated.

Any invitation to minister with us begins with a call to love this place as God does.

Second, local churches should think about how to embrace the arts. Artists have a special gift for capturing beauty, telling stories, and creating a sense of belonging. Through the arts, congregations are discipled into slowing down and noticing God’s blessings in small, everyday moments.

Our Creative Arts Resident, Rome Herbert, recently released an album inspired by his experiences living in our neighborhood. Through this project, Rome highlights both the beauty and struggles of people of color in Haughville. His music encourages me to slow down and notice how others experience my community. Rome’s art creates space for people to be heard and remembered, fostering beauty and dignity in a place often overlooked by the rest of the city.

American Christians have been conditioned to embrace speed, size, and influence as the measurement of God’s blessing. This theology has led to a distorted view of Christianity that uses place as a tool for cursing rather than blessing. If only we could learn to see the places we inhabit as God does, our neighborhoods might become spaces of embrace, not resistance.

And our neighbors may discover that Christianity isn’t about ignoring this world for one that is to come, but about learning to follow Jesus as he is coming into the world.

If you want to learn to love a place, slow down and notice the little things.

Just watch out for bird poop. It’s everywhere.

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This essay follows a series that is influenced by Abraham Kuyper’s influential sermon and essay, “Rooted and Grounded.” I am writing this essay earlier than I had planned in the series to address some recent events and concerns.

I usually avoid commenting on national events, as they tend to be irrelevant to daily ministry here in Haughville. Spending time on them would be an injustice to my neighbors. However, in the weeks following the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk, I’ve often been surprised and concerned by how quickly White evangelicalism has openly linked its hopes for success to the growth of political conservatism. More than I’ve seen before, White evangelicals are merging political ideology and Christian ministry in ways that I believe can only lead to disaster.

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But before I get there, pause with me for a moment as I fondly remember my late friend and mentor, Randy Newman.

Randy was a curious, gentle, and hilarious guy. His presence alone was enough to create a space where people could be heard and understood. You knew that he would listen. It’s no wonder that, after years of ministry as an evangelist on college campuses, Randy realized that Christians had relied for too long on prepackaged, one-way presentations as the only way to share their faith. Randy understood that people are more than just brains on sticks, and the good news of Jesus is far more than a series of propositions to be received and agreed with. People need to be engaged where they are, and they need to be shown, on their own terms, how Christ’s infinitely great story of redemption can answer their biggest questions and meet their deepest longings.

Randy’s first book, Questioning Evangelism, was his attempt to articulate how evangelism should be a two-way dialogue, not a one-way presentation. Randy’s book reshaped the evangelical landscape and continues to influence a new generation of evangelists today.

It was in Questioning that Randy began to work out a concept of pre-evangelism, which he would differentiate from evangelism itself. Randy recognized that most people will not be ready to receive and believe the gospel (evangelism) until they’ve first been shown that Jesus is good, beautiful, and true (pre-evangelism). Pre-evangelism is how we come alongside people and help them gather the intellectual, emotional, and experiential “data” needed to make a decision for Jesus.

Randy expanded on these ideas in books like Unlikely Converts and Mere Evangelism. He understood how the Scriptures incorporate pre-evangelism. In Randy’s view, the Old Testament serves as a pre-evangelistic narrative that prepares God’s people for Jesus. Stories, such as the parables told by Jesus, help people see the world in a new way. Testimony, like that of the woman at the well (John 4:39-42), opens hearts and minds to the gospel. Paul’s sermon in Athens (Acts 17:16-34) creates common ground to make the gospel believable.

The need for pre-evangelism also rests on practical common sense. After decades of ministering as an evangelist, Randy realized that people come to faith gradually, communally, variously, and supernaturally.1 I often think of Randy’s practical wisdom when I consider how to share Christ with my neighbors.

My ears perked up a few days ago when I watched a video clip circulating from Josh Howerton, a conservative megachurch pastor in Dallas. In this clip, Howerton argues that if pastors and churches want to see more people convert to Christianity, they should be involved in conservative political action. In Howerton’s view, conservative politics are an effective form of pre-evangelism that prepares people to believe in Jesus:

The advancement of generally and correctly defined political conservatism is a significant and powerful force for pre-evangelism because it installs a plausibility structure that leads to intuitively understanding Christianity is true, right, and good. To accomplish the Great Commission, we need to advocate for it at the political level…

Actual data is showing us that when political conservatism spreads, more people become Christians… There’s a reason for this… Conservatism, in general, calibrates the conscience in such a way that it pushes people toward the God from whom the principles from which the concepts game. Progressivism, whether you like it or not, this is just a fact, is generally built on a secular, Marxist view… It calibrates people away from what is true, right, and good.

For Howerton, the reason pastors and churches should support conservative political action as an evangelistic tool is based on the “facts”: politically progressive cities have fewer churches than conservative ones; therefore, political conservatism effectively promotes the gospel.

Note that this is different from those who are encouraging the Church to welcome those whose spiritual convictions have been awakened by the tragedy and grief of this cultural moment, as my friend Chris Spangle has been doing so wonderfully. Howerton and those like him are forcefully arguing that Christian churches should be embracing conservative political action as a genuine expression of ministry.

This is incredibly dangerous. It is also a false gospel.

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There are numerous issues with Howerton’s position. First, even if Howerton is correct that progressive cities have fewer churches than conservative ones, he doesn’t acknowledge the many reasons why this would be the case. The legacy and influence of conservative cultural Christianity are still shaping our present ecclesial realities. White evangelicals have been leaving cities for generations.2 Suburban geography has played a significant role in shaping the theology and mission of evangelicalism.3 Denominations and networks direct most of their efforts in booming population centers, a majority of which are in the conservative Southern and Southeastern United States. 23% of church plants from the nation’s two largest church planting networks are in Texas and Florida alone.4

I don’t think it’s too strong to say that White evangelical mission is often focused on where White evangelicals feel most comfortable, rather than where the greatest need exists. Considering these additional factors, Howerton’s premise is at best a stretch.5

I could go on.

Yet, more significant than their problematic reasoning are the real threats of Howerton’s arguments to the ministry of the gospel, the purity of the Church, and the health of our society. What Howerton (and the many pastors who follow this logic) proposes is not pre-evangelism but a dangerous ideological syncretism that can only end in disaster.

The Dangers of Political Syncretism: Lessons from a Free Church

I don’t think Randy would’ve gotten along well with Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper, but I do believe they would agree on this: merging gospel ministry with political action is a bad idea.

In his powerful sermon and essay Rooted and Grounded, Abraham Kuyper outlined a comprehensive vision for the Dutch Reformed Church of his time. This vision included a call for the church to be free from the influence of the state:

Let the church be free from the state, and thereby correct the enormous mistake committed by Jesus’ church fourteen centuries ago to curry the emperor’s favor. Precisely because the church wanted to dominate, it did not dominate the nations, and only if it is willing once again to serve will it win back its dominion. As long as a crown adorned her brow, the church was the do-nothing queen, princess without influence, and the mighty state, no matter how much it appeared to be her servant, was in truth her master… Therefore, whoever seeks to force the operations of our church law to conform to the requirements of civil law or the workings of public law is confusing what in principle is distinct. They are surrendering the freedom and independence of the church organism.6

Let the reader note that Kuyper was not only an accomplished pastor and theologian but also a prominent politician. He founded the Anti-Revolutionary Party and served as the Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1901 to 1905. Yet, even with Kuyper’s prominent political role, he was adamant that the church must not bind itself to the state.

There is a difference between engaging the political process as a Christian and trying to make the political process Christian. Kuyper maintained throughout his life that the Church must remain separate from the state. Rooted contains an early summary of Kuyper’s position: whenever the Church aligns itself with the success of the state, it becomes subordinate and loses its true spiritual influence.

Kuyper continued developing his political convictions until his death. He has left us a wealth of Christian political thought to learn from. When revisiting some of Kuyper’s works, we see that he repeatedly warned against four dangers that come from merging Christian ministry and political ideology.

First, whenever the Church aligns itself with state power, it becomes complicit in the oppressive use of authority. As Kuyper stated in the cited paragraph above, history shows that when the Church and state merge, the state directs the Church, not the other way around. Under such theocratic rule, Kuyper said elsewhere, “it always ended in tyranny and the corruption of a people.”7

Second, it is incredibly unwise for pastors and churches to become directly involved in political action and advocacy. Pastors and elders simply lack “the gifts required for giving laws for civil society that evince intimate knowledge and understanding of civil life.”8 If you think about this for more than ten seconds, Kuyper is making complete sense here. You don’t want people with a three-year master’s degree in ancient Near Eastern texts to be giving political advice or making political decisions. We simply don’t have the training for it. Our advice is likely to be limited, and our solutions are probably narrow.

Third, the overlap between Church and state fuels a lust for power within the church. In his provocative address “It Shall Not Be So Among You,” Kuyper warned about what happens when the Church conforms to the power structures of the world:

Precisely by this world conformity, our [Church] has fostered sin in the hearts of the powerful. The sin of passion, the sin of power lust, the sin of class prejudice… The [Church] began to stimulate that sin in the men who sat in seats of power. The high dignitary gradually changed in character. The box office clerk became his model, the civil servant his example, and maintaining status his passion.9

Michael Wagenman, a Kuyperian scholar, summarizes this danger: “When the church begins to imitate or resemble the forms of power within other institutions or adopt practices which distort the power of the church, the result is the misdirection and abuse of ecclesial power.”10

Fourth, the alignment between Church and state obscures the true gospel, because it relies on state influence to bring conviction where only Christ can. The Church must never give in to the appeal of coercive power. The Kuyperian political scientist Govert Bujis succinctly expresses this thought:

The public sphere should be a sphere of spiritual freedom, not of force or religious coercion. Only in such a context of political freedom can the spiritual battle take place properly. Calling for a secular state is obedience to Christ as King; calling for an explicitly Christian state is heresy, apostasy.11

Strong words like these are necessary to confront the real danger of political syncretism. Kuyper understood, as history has shown, that blending the gospel with political ideology leads to large numbers of professing Christians who know nothing about repentance and grace. As Padilla described syncretistic movements in Latin America, political syncretism results in a nation of people who have been baptized but not truly evangelized, let alone discipled.12

We need to receive Kuyper’s warnings afresh today. In a world of pastors like Howerton, who want to see the Church hitch itself to the success of a political ideology, we need more leaders like Kuyper who know how to engage politics as Christians while keeping the gospel pure, prophetic, and redemptive.

And we need more friends like Randy and Chris—people who ask thoughtful questions over coffee, listen with genuine interest and compassion, vulnerably share their own stories, and point to Jesus instead of Caesar as the one who saves.

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This essay is the second in a new series where I am exploring how churches can develop new ministry forms and expressions to reach forgotten and marginalized communities. You can find the series introduction here.

One of my favorite memes is the “Men would rather ____ than go to therapy.” In this cultural moment, where men, in particular, are struggling to find their way, this meme effectively uses humor to highlight a significant, systemic, and problematic issue. Some of these memes are fairly lighthearted: “Men would rather learn everything about ancient Rome than go to therapy.” Or, “Men would rather wait outside the city gates all night in a wooden horse than go to therapy.”

Within Christian ministry circles, this meme can take on a more serious tone. It is often said that “men would rather go to seminary than go to therapy,” or “men would rather start a church than go to therapy.” You get the idea. Evangelicalism, in its over-emphasis on young, charismatic, male talent, tends to overlook the basic biblical requirements of sound character and emotional maturity in its leaders (see 1 Timothy 3, for example). In a society that has failed to help men find purpose or learn to be vulnerable, many Christian men see ministry as an easy way to create a purposeful life while suppressing their emotional, spiritual, and relational needs.

Yet attempting to serve others without self-awareness comes at a great cost, both to the servant and those being served.

A lack of self-awareness is not exclusive to men, of course. Consider Brené Brown’s work, as she is one of the most prolific authors who has helped many women and men develop healthy self-awareness in their personal lives, relationships, and leadership roles. In her excellent book Daring to Lead, Brown states that one of the greatest obstacles to healthy leadership is a lack of self-awareness. “The real barrier to daring leadership is our armor—the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that we use to protect ourselves when we aren’t willing and able to rumble with vulnerability.”1 Until we learn to embrace vulnerability and become more aware of our thoughts, motives, and behaviors, we pose a danger to ourselves and those we lead.

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This is a lesson that everyone serving in ministry needs to learn, whether as volunteers in the congregation or as leaders in roles such as elders, deacons, and directors. Every Christian who desires to serve others in healthy, life-giving ways must learn to be vulnerable and practice self-awareness.

When we lack self-awareness, we remain blind to how we interact with others in unhealthy or even destructive ways. We don’t realize why we become impatient and demanding—we may not even recognize these behaviors in ourselves. Unresolved trauma shows itself in our reactive words and actions. We’re insecure, so we blame others and defend ourselves with cynicism.

Healthy self-awareness is even more essential for effective multicultural urban ministry. As missiologists Harvie Conn and Manuel Ortiz identified, when we are unaware of our own cultural perspectives and prejudices, we cannot be genuinely shaped by other cultures in our neighborhood. Instead, we tend to try to transform the diverse urban community into a culture that mirrors our own. This is especially true of White middle-class Christians moving into underserved urban neighborhoods. We naturally impose our culture and will on others, which suppresses cultural differences and hinders true multicultural relationships.2

The dangers of such a situation should be immediately apparent. Urban ministry leaders need to regularly perform thorough self-analysis to determine if their values and behaviors are evolving. If they are not, it’s likely they are blind to their harmful relational patterns. As my doctoral advisor, Soong-Chan Rah, has said, when they lack awareness and rigorous analysis, urban missionaries are often little more than urban colonizers.3

An Example From a Sad Pastor

Abraham Kuyper’s inaugural sermon as pastor in Amsterdam, which inspires this series, is a great example of a self-aware pastor who can recognize his actions and the emotions behind them. Rooted and Grounded, before it is a theological or missiological work, is the product of a sad pastor who left behind people he loved and needed time before he could fully embrace a new congregation.

Consider these words from the opening paragraph of Kuyper’s sermon:

Accept then my testimony that I come to you with a full heart… I ask only this: Do not require that I already now celebrate in a happy mood that bond with your congregation. At the moment such happiness is impossible for me, since the farewell to so many longtime friends has only just faded from my lips. Were I able to rejoice already now, then either my testimony of pain to them or my display of joy to you would have to be mere pretense, betraying a shallow heart in which pain and joy could displace each other so quickly. For that reason, no matter how warmly I thank you for the love with which you have already greeted me, no matter how much within your congregation appeals to me, let the requirement of the heart, I pray of you, run its course for the present; bear with me as I accept my ministry in your midst with sedate sobriety and quiet gravity.4

The longer I meditate on this sermon introduction, the more I am deeply moved. I don’t know about you, reader, but I’m not accustomed to a pastor so willing to lead with his heart on his sleeve.

This sad pastor is a great example to us of the benefits of being vulnerable and self-aware. There is little doubt that Kuyper had a mission in Amsterdam. He was determined to challenge the Dutch Reformed Church’s complacency and cultural captivity. Rooted and Grounded, as we will see in future essays, is a masterful vision for any church that wants to bring the kingdom of God to bear.

Yet rather than rushing right into the doing of ministry, Kuyper shared his heart with those he was called to serve. He named his own emotions, which for him amounted to a broken heart. He clearly communicated to his new congregation that he would need some time and distance as his heart healed. He set realistic expectations on the church and on himself. In his willingness to be vulnerable and self-aware, Kuyper likely avoided a significant amount of relational damage that he could’ve otherwise caused.

We can love others well when we are willing to be vulnerable and self-aware.

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Six Kinds of Self-Awareness

Mark Clark Moschella’s Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice has been an extremely helpful resource for learning how to conduct meaningful social and historical analysis of my community. Central to this ethnographic work, Moschella states, is the process of self-analysis, which she calls reflexivity. Reflexive analysis helps us become aware not only of our motives, emotions, and behaviors but also of our influence and the power dynamics within relationships.5

In addition to the dangers I mentioned above, Moschella helps us see how the strength of a community’s formation depends on the self-awareness of its leaders. “Real communities” form when people realize that they are “free to be themselves and know that they will be accepted, a place where conflict can be expressed and resolved, and a place where diversity of opinion is honored.” By contrast, a “pseudo-community” might “seem friendly at first, but it is not a safe place in which to express an opinion that diverges from the group’s ideas—you will be made to feel you don’t fit in, that there is no room for you here.”6

Church planters and planting groups should pay close attention here. Your willingness to be vulnerable and self-aware now will decide whether your church becomes more like a “real community” or a “pseudo-community.”

From my experience, there are at least six ways Christians need to develop their self-awareness to become healthy church members and ministry servants.

Personality Awareness

At a fundamental level, we should cultivate a healthy awareness of our personality traits, strengths, behaviors, and limitations. This awareness enables us to practice genuine humility, where we can honestly acknowledge who we are with others without pretense or apology.

The two resources that have been most personally edifying to me are the StrengthsFinder Test and the Enneagram. There are many others. Follow my friend James Lansberry, who often discusses the benefits of these tools.

Cultural Awareness

Until we recognize how our culture has shaped us, we cannot distinguish between universal truths and cultural preferences. In ministry settings, this also increases the risk of confusing culture with objective biblical teaching, thereby maintaining the status quo of the majority culture and undervaluing minority cultures.

Without cultural awareness, we won’t be able to truly appreciate and embrace the God-given beauty found in different cultures. Those from predominantly White evangelical and mainline traditions have a lot of work to do here. You likely underestimate how much your views are shaped more by cultural preferences than by Christian doctrine.

I truly benefited from taking the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) and reviewing my results with a cultural coach. I highly recommend both the IDI and cross-cultural coaching to anyone serious about urban ministry. You can learn more about the IDI and how to find a coach here.

Emotional Awareness

Until a few years ago, I only had five or six colors in my metaphorical Crayola box of emotions. I was unaware of how my unhealed trauma from my childhood was still affecting my emotional health and my relationships with others. I was reactive in my anxiety, but I never understood why.

Years of therapy have helped me recognize and name my emotions with others. I not only know when I am anxious or sad, but why. I am a better husband, father, and pastor because therapy has increased my emotional awareness. I still have a lot of room to grow.

My only regret is that I didn’t start therapy sooner.

Spiritual Awareness

Does your life demonstrate dependence on Jesus? He teaches us that apart from him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). The most “impressive” ministry is nothing if it’s not rooted in a desperate dependence on Jesus. True spiritual awareness acknowledges that we need Jesus in everything.

Two resources that I have found helpful for deepening my dependence on Jesus in my life are Ruth Haley Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership and Rich Villodas’ The Deeply Formed Life.

Institutional Awareness

Institutions, like our denominations or church networks, are not neutral. They have a culture and they reinforce that culture within their own ranks. Why haven’t evangelical denominations, including my own (the PCA), made significant progress in marginalized communities? This is not primarily a theological or methodological issue but a cultural one. White, middle-class institutions have a culture that pushes away the diverse populations of urban communities.7

Healthy institutions and their members are aware of their institutional cultures and narratives. They are honest about their strengths and weaknesses, and they will welcome critical reflection and disagreement.

Urban missionaries will need to learn how to be honest about their institutional baggage without bringing it with them into the neighborhood.

Prejudice Awareness

No one wants to admit that they have sinful prejudices and stereotypes in their heart, but we all have them. Many of us are unaware of how deeply ingrained our prejudices are because we’ve only chosen to live next to those who make us comfortable. Until we move toward people with whom we have significant differences, we will never discover those darker places of our hearts where we still need the Spirit to conform us more into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29).

I could recommend a hundred books here, but none will be as helpful as the Spirit’s illuminating work as we practice vulnerability before God. Perhaps this is why Calvin famously started his Institutes with the statement that there can be no knowledge of the self without knowledge of God, and there can be no knowledge of God without knowledge of the self (1.1.1-2). Only with God’s help can we develop the awareness to love like Christ and serve in His name (John 13:34-35; 1 John 4:10-12).

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