The gun handle stuck out from his waistband as he stood by the slide. He quickly pulled it out, showing it to my son and me.
“It’s not real. See.”
Memorial Day. I took my oldest son to play at the park. I heard the music blaring before we opened the car doors. A large group gathered in the park pavilion. They brought a high-powered, professional sound system.. My 4-year old son and I were at least 600-700 feet from the speakers, yet we could clearly hear the N-word and F-word countless times over the speakers. The music was also filled with language about having sex with multiple women. An immediate reminder I live in an area very different than that of my childhood. Thankfully, my son paid no attention to the music and began playing with children on the playground.
A little black boy came from around a slide. He wore jeans and a white tank top undershirt. He fidgeted with the bottom of his shirt, pulling it up so everyone could see what he held in his waist band. He walked with a swagger, obviously trying to look like the tough guys he saw on TV (or maybe real life). The gun handle stuck out from his waistband as he stood by the slide. As soon as I saw it, I told him he shouldn’t play with a toy gun like that. I explained it was dangerous to make someone think he had a real gun. He quickly pulled it out, showing it to my son and me.
“It’s not real. See.”
But it looked very real. The orange tip on the end was only visible sign this gun was a toy.
It hit me how dangerous this situation could have been for this boy. Did you catch it?
He quickly pulled it out and showed it to me and my son. What if I had been a police officer? What if this boy had quickly pulled out his realistic gun to show the officer the gun was a toy? “This is how tragic accidents happen,” I thought. “I need to tell his parents.”
I look for the boys’ parents. I can’t find them. It appears he walked from nearby apartments. The boy quickly left. My son and I spent the next 15 minutes playing with other children on the playground. We played with two little black girls. Their loving father kept a watchful eye nearby. He soon had the girls stop playing so they could take big drinks of their water. It was hot that day. This dad and his little girls were not part of the loud party happening on the other side of the park. After I heard the F-word for the umpteenth time, I told my son it was time to go. We said goodbye to the little black girls and hopped in the car.
11 months ago, I shared my journey as a white pastor trying to faithfully serve and love my black neighbors.
I’m still playing “catch-up” a year later. In my formal studies, I ignored conversations and elective classes about racial diversity, holistic economic development, racial equality, etc. I recognized how important such issues were (or maybe I didn’t). But I naïvely believed God would call me to pastor in a setting similar to my upbringing…white and middle-class.
The same racial issues I addressed in that blog post last year are in the forefront of my mind today. I am a white, male pastor who came from a privileged, middle-class two-parent home. Yet, most of the neighbors on my street are Black. To my knowledge, our two boys are the only white children on our street. Our block has many duplexes and small apartments serving those in lower-income brackets. Few households seem to have two parents. Several on the street face unemployment, or under-employment.
God definitely called me to an area that looks different from my upbringing.
Our church attendance leans more to the “white” side than when I wrote that blog post last year. We’ve lost diversity for a few different reasons, most of them have nothing to do with Race. Some people moved away. Some weren’t happy about our church closing and preparing to re-start.
But I do think Race has been a contributing factor. Multicultural churches are a difficult environment for many. “Cultural Fatigue” is real; it becomes most evident around stylistic issues in church (music style, leadership style, clothing style, preaching style, etc). One thing hasn’t changed since last year…our summer day camp and feeding program.
In the summer of 2014, God called our church to step out on faith. On paper (especially our church treasurer’s papers!), our church had no business starting this ministry. Our 4th annual summer day camp and feeding program is now in full swing. In partnership with the local food bank, we give breakfast, lunch, and a day camp to as many children as our volunteers can handle. Our goal for this ministry has always been the same…provide Christ-centered summer childcare for the poorest families in our community. Families of all socio-economic levels are welcome, but we started the ministry for our poorest neighbors.
Every summer our day camp (Camp FUSE, as we now call it), mainly serves non-white families. The vast majority of those non-white families are Black. Naïve white pastor that I am, “Race” never crossed my mind when we started the camp. I honestly never considered the demographic makeup of our camp attendees. But God has used our summer day camp as a beautiful tool to break down racial barriers.
I walked into the gym the other day during camp. Almost instantly, I received a surprise hug from a sweet little black boy. I scan over the group that day. Our white volunteer associate pastor and camp director is playing with the kids. Our two white ministry interns (a third intern is Hispanic) are at the check-in table. A mainly white church youth group is with us for the week. I see the teens throughout the gym, playing with our campers. I’m bothered by the “optics.”
It bothers others, too. A black mom, who sent her daughter to camp last year, emailed me. She asked, “Will there be any African-American adults there this year?” My reply is honest: I hope so, but we don’t have any African-Americans scheduled to volunteer with us; can you help us find some? The woman did not register her daughter.
I keep praying God gives us church and camp volunteer leadership that looks as culturally diverse as our camper attendance. One day God will give us that diversity.
I pry the little black boy’s arms off of my body. He loves giving hugs. He’d give hugs all day long, to every volunteer here, if we let him. He’s mildly autistic and doesn’t always understand expected social norms. This sweet boy asks us to make him paper airplanes. But if they’re not perfect, he throws the airplane away. He then returns and asks we make him another one.
But his autism is mild. My mind begins to consider hypothetical future scenarios. So mild, in fact, he may grow up to be an independent man…a man who can drive a car. But he would still be a mildly autistic black man driving a car. What would happen if he gets pulled over? He’s not good at making eye contact. Would that make him look suspicious? Could he obey the commands he’s given? A few years ago, such questions would have never crossed my mind. But Jesus called me to serve in a place where I’m now constantly thinking about such questions.
When almost all the campers have gone home for the day, I bring over our 4-year-old son. Our fair-skinned redhead plays on a chalkboard with a little black girl. He loves coming to play with the remaining campers. Every day, he asks Momma when he can join Daddy in the gym for day camp.
As my son is playing on the chalkboard, a few older black boys are playing basketball. They’re funny, kind, rambunctious boys. I have a shtick with them. I take the ball and tell them I’ll teach them how to really play basketball. I make an exaggerated granny shot, and completely miss the goal. They love to laugh at me.
An older black boy in our neighborhood is part of our church family. He and his two sisters hardly ever attend our Sunday services. But they rarely miss youth nights with our white husband-and-wife youth directors.
We invited the youth directors over for dinner a few weeks ago. I live in the church parsonage (the church-owned house on church property). As we sat in our living room, our front door was open. This teenage boy saw our youth directors and came inside our house. We teased him about wearing a hoodie. He always wears a hoodie. It can be 95 degrees outside, but this boy will still wear a hoodie. He stays for an hour, talking and joking with us. Then he leaves… with his hoodie. I would trust this boy to house-sit for us. But I know others may judge his appearance and assume his stroll in the neighborhood spells trouble. I pray for him as he walks out into the evening dusk. Lord, please let him not be wearing that hoodie if he ever gets into trouble with the Law.
August 28 marks 54 years since Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have A Dream” speech. Of late, I’ve thought much about one line in that speech. It’s the line where Dr. King dreams of a day when “little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”
My wife and I face “cultural fatigue” as we serve where God has called us. Following Jesus is good, but it is rarely easy. We’re in a setting dissimilar from our neighborhoods as children. I believe God called me to serve our church and community for at least 20 years. This means, our boys will grow up in a church, and on a street, where they will always have opportunities to join hands with “little black boys and black girls.” I look forward to the day when the church their daddy pastors (and the pastoral staff) is just as diverse as our neighborhood.
Social media fills my news feed with tragic stories. Black boys, black men, and some black women are shot and killed. Their faces remind me of the black boys, black dads, and black moms in our day camp. I read the stories of their deaths. I read the stories of the court cases to follow, and the rulings juries and judges give about those who caused the deaths. I am a white pastor, striving to lead a multi-cultural church, with a summer ministry that serves predominantly black families. And my heart hurts. I know God’s heart hurts.
I wish I had paid attention many years ago to discussions about Race. I wish I had more answers. I wish I knew how to help our white church members understand our black neighbors. I wish our black neighbors understood the heart of this naïve white pastor who desperately wants them to feel loved and welcome in our church, but who can’t figure out how to make that happen.
My mind daily swims in a sea of questions for which I have no easy answers. I think of Jesus’ disciples. One time, he told them to all get in the boat to travel to “the other side” of the lake. But then a great storm happened while they were on the lake. If they hadn’t followed Jesus, they could have weathered the storm from the safety of land, inside a dry building. Instead, they’re on a small boat, with hardly any shelter from the rain, in the middle of the lake.
I imagine those disciples on the boat each time a well-meaning friend recommends I pastor a different church, a safer church, a suburban white church. When denominational leaders or other churches with a strong budget (whatever that is) recommend I submit my resume for review, I picture Jesus asleep on that rocking boat.
Jesus does not call everyone to the same work; it’s dangerous to assume otherwise. Jesus has called others to serve in those churches; He has not called me there. Amidst the racial storms taking place in our nation, and in my own community, I see Jesus with me in the boat. No, I do not have answers to all the questions such racial storms have created. But know with certainty I am following the correct path Jesus laid out for me.
I grew up on one side of the “lake,” a side with people who all looked like me, lived like me, thought like me, and talked like me. I’m on a pastoral journey to the “other side,” a side filled with (sometimes, uncomfortable) diversity, serving and worshiping with people who do not look like me, live like me, think like me, or talk like me. Rarely is this journey easy. But I know Jesus is in the boat with me, calling me to participate in Dr. King’s dream, one that involves being the best pastor I can be to “little black boys and black girls.”