We would love to hear from you! Send us a text message.
We're joined by TJ Tennison, lead pastor of Crossway Church in Vicksburg, MS! We discuss TJ's personal testimony and story of faith in Christ and the intersection of that story with his beautiful family including his daughter who is another ethnicity. We reflect on the life-changing story of Brooklyn, whose adoption became a pivotal moment in the lives of many, including TJ's church community. We also ponder the intersection of theology and politics, urging fellow Christians to anchor their identities in Christ and confront the subtleties of racism with courage. Join us for another enlightening and compelling episode of Living Reconciled!
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms. Doris Powell, Mr. Robert Ward, and Ms. Ann Winters
We would love to hear from you! Send us a text message.
We're joined by TJ Tennison, lead pastor of Crossway Church in Vicksburg, MS! We discuss TJ's personal testimony and story of faith in Christ and the intersection of that story with his beautiful family including his daughter who is another ethnicity. We reflect on the life-changing story of Brooklyn, whose adoption became a pivotal moment in the lives of many, including TJ's church community. We also ponder the intersection of theology and politics, urging fellow Christians to anchor their identities in Christ and confront the subtleties of racism with courage. Join us for another enlightening and compelling episode of Living Reconciled!
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms. Doris Powell, Mr. Robert Ward, and Ms. Ann Winters
This is Living Reconciled, a podcast dedicated to giving our communities practical evidence of the gospel message by helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured for us by living with grace across racial lines. Hey, thanks so much for joining us on episode 35 of Living Reconciled. I am your host, Brian Crawford, with my incredible, good, really good, stupendous friends, netty winners.
Speaker 2:Austin Hoyle Stupendous. That's a new one.
Speaker 1:He brought it at the same time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, gentlemen, how are you doing? I'm pondering upon the words stupendous. I am too yeah.
Speaker 2:I know that we are really really really good friends because you can get your name changed and nobody noticed it, so it must be okay, even if you want to get the name changed. That even.
Speaker 1:When did we change names? Well, thank you, you know. We changed name. Last week we had Austin, we had Austin winners yeah, I was about to say Austin winners. And netty hoyle yeah, that sounds that sounds.
Speaker 2:Nobody sent any feedback back. That's pretty appropriate to me, yeah, we was trying to send an audience listening and nobody paid attention that we had names changed, nobody.
Speaker 1:Nobody realized and that he had adopted a white son. But he did last week. You had to make that decision. You had to make that decision.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could just adopt a son, and he'd be just Austin.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's trying to help you understand that we're not colorblind.
Speaker 3:I was about to say we see color. We see color here at Living Repertile. It is a beautiful tapestry.
Speaker 1:It's a beautiful tapestry. Absolutely it's a beautiful thing, beautiful thing.
Speaker 3:Revelation 5, revelation 7. It's what you would call stupendous, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know how leather, where he throws scripture in there to mix them all in.
Speaker 3:Oh, right, right, right, just to make it seem like what he's saying is okay.
Speaker 1:Right. Hey, we want to give a quick shout out to our sponsors, folks like Nissan, Atmos Energy Regions Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms Doris Powell, Mr Robert Ward and Ms Ann Winters. Thank you, guys, so much for everything that you do. It is because of what you do that we are able to do what we do, and today what we are doing is we are interviewing an incredible guest, very special friend, gentlemen, by the name of TJ Tennyson. Tj is the pastor of a wonderful church in Vicksburg, Mississippi, called Crossway Church. He has been there for 15 years. Earlier we were having a conversation about how long he's been the lead pastor there and TJ does not know, Not sure.
Speaker 3:Not sure what that means for Crossway.
Speaker 1:Church.
Speaker 2:Did we practice that part? I thought we were going to say he's been there in the lead pastor for 10 years.
Speaker 3:Hopefully it means I thought we were going to skip over that. I did.
Speaker 1:Hopefully it means that he's just been enjoying himself so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was about to say that the time has been passing.
Speaker 1:I think that's what that means at Crossway he just embodies Crossway so much, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:That there's no distinction between what his roles has been and what they are now or what there will be. Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Because he's just being TJ in that space. Absolutely, you just love it. Man, you come on a podcast and the first thing happens you get a role under the bus. No, look, this is not my first thing.
Speaker 4:I've done with Brian or he's thrown me under the bus.
Speaker 5:It's like he finds a new way to do it. I'm actually just a little disappointed that I didn't get to describe his stupendous yeah, yeah. Well, he's like, he's like, uh, he's kind of good, I guess.
Speaker 1:No, he's an incredible friend, an incredible friend, incredible friend.
Speaker 5:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Now you're trying to stop. Which is incredible and stupendous is which.
Speaker 5:Stupendous feels better than you know. He's a good, good guy or whatever. Yeah, Like, maybe he even had to open up a dictionary to find the word for you guys.
Speaker 1:So, TJ, again thanks for joining us on this episode of Living Reconciled, episode 35. I want to start by just asking you to give us a little bit of a elevator version of your, your story, your journey to faith, a little bit about your family, a little bit about the ministry God hasn't trusted to you, and even as we are having that discussion, I would like for you to journey a little bit into what drove, what drives you as it relates to reconciliation. How did that, how did that passion for reconciliation really start? And so we'll get to that later, but, but but definitely want to start with those other pieces as it relates to the elevator pitch.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah. So a little quick background on me. I had the incredible privilege of growing up in a Christian home. Mom and dad loved Jesus and for them it was important that we went to church pretty much every time the doors were open. There's that old preacher's joke, you know, when I was younger I had a drug problem. I was drug to church Sunday morning, I was drug to church Sunday night, I was drug to church Wednesday night, and anytime there was a revival that was. That was pretty much true of me. And you know, I just I look back on that now and I think, man, that's just one of God's just best gifts. I didn't even know what I had at the time and I just so God is so good to me on that front.
Speaker 5:So we have, I have three sisters, so we there's a, we were a family of six coming up and I came to Christ when I was around five years of age. We had gone to church one Sunday and my one of my other sisters had given her life to Christ and that got me thinking and and so I went to church and thought about it and I it was an evening, on a Sunday, sunday evening, and mom was talking to us in going through the nighttime routines and we just started a conversation. I basically ended up giving my life to Christ. My life, my life. My mom led me to Christ when, I was five years old Wow.
Speaker 2:Wow, she was talking to you in bed. Yeah, wow, yeah.
Speaker 5:She just started talking to me about my day and what I learned at church and all that kind of stuff and I guess she could just tell something was on my mind and we just kind of dug into that and I went man, you know, jesus loves me that much and he did that for me and hell seems really awful. I think I'll. I think I'll take that deal. And of course that's where it started and I've, you know, since then grown in my faith and so I went on. And when I was in high school there's a long series of events that you know kind of twist and turn and all that kind of stuff but ended up feeling God kind of nudging me to go into ministry. So I went to college to get a ministry degree and that was where I met my wife, my now wife and Stacy she.
Speaker 5:She and I dated about three years before we ended up getting married, tried to run from God's call in my life multiple times and he gently but firmly kind of moved me back in a direction he wanted me to go, because I kept trying to convince him I was the wrong guy for the job. And my wife and I got married and we moved to Jacksonville and started a family we have. We have four kids that are ours. We're also foster parents, so our family fluctuates. Sometimes, you know, we'll have four kids. Sometimes, like right now, we have six. They call us mom and dad, run around the house and everything and that's a six in addition to your four.
Speaker 5:No, no, thank goodness, you joke, but the CPS has called us before and wanted to see if we'd take a sibling set of seven.
Speaker 3:Wow Okay, siblings set of seven, yeah, so how many houses do you have in your house?
Speaker 2:I mean how?
Speaker 3:many rooms do you have in your house? You said it right. How many houses do you have?
Speaker 2:You have a big house.
Speaker 5:We only have one house in our house, but I can guarantee you we don't have the house we only have one house in our house but I can guarantee you we don't have the rooms for that many people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 5:Well, the crazy thing is, you know, when we do fostering, my wife and I and our family, we kind of sit around and it's nights at the round table style and everybody can get a vote. And because it that change affects everybody, you know, and everybody's going to kind of pitch in, and so even the new kids. No, well, if we took on some that are beyond the current ones living in our home, yeah, we give them a vote too, and you can vote no for the most selfish of reasons. And we've been doing fostering now for over 12 years and I think I'm the only person who's ever voted no. Wow, yeah, that I can remember.
Speaker 5:Stacy, really, she, they called her. She said, hey, sibling set of seven, can we do it? And I mean you're talking about ages like two to up to like 13. Wow, and I looked at her like she was crazy. She was serious, she was like, can we really do this? You know I'm like no, no, babe, I love you, but no, and it broke her heart. She's a much better person than I am, but anyway. So, yeah, we have, technically, of our, four kids that are ours, ours, three of them are biologically ours and one of them is a little girl named Brooklyn, and we adopted.
Speaker 1:And this is obviously. We started out jokingly, but I pointed to the ideal of Austin Winters as a netties adopted white son for a reason. That's because this is because today I really want to dig into this idea of multi ethnic, multicultural adoption and TJ, you're well acquainted with that, yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah. So this kind of circles back around to the question you asked me about how did I become passionate about race and racial reconciliation and things like that? It really came down to when Brooklyn Brooklyn came to be a part of our family. Of course she is. I'm white and she's black and she came to be a part of our family when she was 11 weeks old as a foster child, shortly after her first birthday.
Speaker 5:We ended up adopting her and I went from a white guy living in a predominantly mostly the people I engage with and talk to and spend significant amount of time around being white people to now having a little girl who may have entered my family by different means, but I loved her the same, and she's calling me daddy and I'm calling her my daughter and we both. That's how we operate and that's how we feel, and now I have somebody who doesn't look like me. I am now interested in building a good world for her. That that sent me down a long rabbit hole of asking a lot of questions about what does it look like for me, as her dad, to build a world that's good for her? If I can I can't control everything, but I want to do the best I can to build a world that's good for her and man. That's what got me started on all of this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, tell me, tell me a little bit about some of those early lessons, right, because obviously there has to be a tremendous amount of learning that you do when you're talking about not just adoption, but adoption multi ethnic, multicultural, multi racial, introducing new culture, new experience, new background into, into your family dynamic.
Speaker 5:What's? What's some of the lessons you learned? Yeah, yeah, so there were some early. When I think about the lessons, the early ones were. One of them seems a little comical, but it is kind of where you bump into some of the culture is. I mean, we didn't know how to do black hair. I mean, I gotta be honest with you. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Like, like white, white hair, like I don't. I mean, I don't know how you do your bald, so I don't get manners to you, but I mean, like it's for me it's a quick shampoo or conditioner, boom, boom, boom, it's done Right and you know, maybe throw some gel in it later on, maybe, maybe not, depending on who you are, but we really, really, really, in all seriousness, did not know how to care for her hair and her skincare is different than and so, man, that was a massive, massive learning curve. Stacey, my wife was working on her hair this past week and I think I think she's it's not even done, but I think she put like six or eight hours into it and you know, as a white guy who's never had to do that, that's a lot brother.
Speaker 5:And then there's all kinds of products and there's just you got to care for it different, and so that was really truly I know it sounds a little funny, but for us it was a major, major learning curve and I'm really grateful for women, who black women who God placed in our lives, who went. I love you and I can see you're trying. Let me help you.
Speaker 5:They were such godsends because we would reach out in different forums and oftentimes, as soon as they found out we were white people parenting a black child, they were like we're done with you and or they were very rude and they would make you know, cutting remarks and things like that.
Speaker 5:And I'm like man, we're just two people trying, you know like we're trying to care for a little girl and we're trying to figure it out. That was definitely a learning curve. The other learning curve we had early on was we realized as soon as we started this it seemed like everybody had everybody had an opinion. It was probably going to be a strong one and they were almost certainly going to share it Like they very very, very few people.
Speaker 5:And when I say strong one, it was either very strong pro or very strong against what we were doing, and the majority of people were very strong opinionated against. That was kind of an early learning where we navigated, we had to figure out how to navigate that and and we kind of expected it what we didn't.
Speaker 2:Why did you expect?
Speaker 5:Well, because what we're doing, especially in the state of Mississippi, is unorthodox and we know it. We expected that when we became an interracial family, that there was going to be some challenges. What has bothered me is not the comments directed our way, although there have been some really nasty ones. What bothers me most are the comments directed towards her at her.
Speaker 5:You know, you think about, you have a little girl who, who didn't ask for life to go the way that it went, and she didn't exactly get a vote when she was adopted. She just found herself in a situation and I think, when the cruelest things you can do is and people just don't seem to care, they'll say and do all kinds of hurtful things to her and I'm. That brings out the dad and me makes me sort of mad. And there's, there's been some. I've had words to say about that. But yeah, those were the two big, easy, just right off the bat learning curves that we had to navigate. One was just figuring out how to care for somebody who has different needs than we have. And then, of course, there was other challenges connecting her to for lack of better terms like her blackness, the culture that she is a part of even though she's growing up and kind of a white culture family, that's still a part of her, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to. I want to jump into that in just a second. In fact, I want to go back a few steps, even if if we, if we have time. But first let's take a quick pause and then we will come back with TJ Tennyson on episode 35 of Living Reconciled. Living Reconciled is a work of Mission Mississippi, but it is not our only work. From days of dialogue and prayer meetings to consultation for schools, businesses and churches, mission Mississippi is eager to help you, your team, your church and your community live reconciled Every month. Join us for our weekly prayer breakfasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6.45 am, our bi-weekly statewide connection meetings on Fridays at 10 am and a focused time of prayer on the third Thursday of the month at 7 am. To get details on any of our upcoming events or to learn how you can invite us to your church, business or school, visit our website at MissionMississippiorg and click on the Events button or call us at 601-353-6477. Hey, thanks again for joining us on Episode 35 of Living Reconciled.
Speaker 1:I am your host, brian Crawford, with Stupendous Friends Netty Winters, austin Hoyle and An OK guest and an even incredible friend, tj Tennyson. Tj is telling us a little bit about his life, his story, and also talking about the dynamics and the highs and lows, so to speak, of multi-ethnic parenting, adoption and TJ. One of the things you said early on that really stood out to me was this idea that quickly you learned that to care for your daughter's hair was going to be a different experience. I think sometimes, even when we stop, if we just stop and we just take the simplicity of hair care, what we come to realize early on is that we cannot be colorblind, is that this is a child who requires me to see her as she is in order for me to care for her properly. And, of course, we understand the sentiment of colorblindness, right, which is, you know, I want to love everybody the same, but there is a sense in which we can miss that.
Speaker 1:We do have distinction, we do have difference. In recognizing that difference and recognizing that distinction Sometimes is the difference between caring well and not caring well when we talk about just one another and loving one another well, and so that, understanding that ethnicity, understanding that culture, understanding the distinctions in the hair care even we were, you know, when you mentioned the idea that there's this real sensitivity, so to speak, and a lot of the African American community as it relates to hair care. I'm sure there was even some times in which, during those early struggles, where people looked at the struggle that you guys were undergoing and said, okay, apparently this white couple doesn't care very well for this black child, they would let her hair be like this, and so it digs even the struggle. It makes the struggle even more significant that it's already tough, and then you couple that with a lack of understanding because they see it as a lack of care. You guys are carrying your hearts out, but you just don't know how. Talk a little bit about that experience.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:So I mean, I think what we're talking about here, you know, the type of thing my wife and I are doing is not a common thing in the state of Mississippi where we live, and in fact I know it's not uncommon because we have there are case workers that we interact with the CPS, that finally, once we build enough relationship with them, they come and they see the home and they do all the things. So they see that and then they're curious, but they're so they don't want to insult us or whatever, and so eventually, when you get comfortable enough, they'll go. Hey, can I ask a few questions? Because, like, we never, hardly ever, see this and we're just wondering, you know, and they just, we, of course, are an open book with them and we're grateful for, by the way, curiosity never bothers us.
Speaker 5:It's some of the other stuff that does. Right, yeah, like honest curiosity has never bothered us, right, but yeah, like so, when there's a gap of information, when you see something and your mind has a gap of information, scientifically what happens is you fill it in with the story, right? This is just what happens in our brains, whether we know it or not, and normally that story involves victims and villains, good guys and bad guys, and that narrative is informed by a lot of things. Now, 99 times out of 100, we're going to be the good guys and somebody else is going to be the bad guys, we're the victims and they're the villain.
Speaker 5:Right. And so when people see what we do and they don't understand, they don't have a lot of information, they just have these data points and they fill in the gap of the story, which is human nature. I'm not blaming anybody for that. It's just they're working with what the information they have Right, and so you know one of the things.
Speaker 1:All the stories that we've told ourselves some true, some not true. Right, those stories are shaping how we perceive this moment.
Speaker 5:Right, yeah, exactly. And so in the African American black community, especially for young girls, hairs a big, big, big deal.
Speaker 5:It's part of how parents try to care well for their kids, and so they're going to see how we do or not doing in that area and they're going to.
Speaker 5:That's a data point for them, absolutely. And again, they don't have the whole story and there's, they're just you know, and so, yeah, you have to overcome that Again, kind of circling back around, though I am grateful for the people who came along and said you know what? I can see that you do love, or I'm going to choose to believe, right, I'm going to choose to believe you love this kid and you're doing it for the right reasons and you would love for me to kind of help you with something. Right, man, there's been some men and women along the way who've done that, who are? They've been incredible gifts from God and you know, kind of coming back to something you said earlier too, you talked about how we don't see color, but there is, there's color. I think what people sometimes do is they get, they feel like they have to do one or the other, like it's either or scenario.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 5:And I really think it's both. And, yeah, like, I think I think what we should do is we should, yes, see the heart, look for that Absolutely. You know the like kind of like Martin Luther King, the content of a person's character, right. At the same time, I think we need to also acknowledge there are differences, yep, and those differences they are, they're good.
Speaker 1:And beautiful, yeah, yeah. So John, john and Revelation you know we highlighted revelations jokingly earlier in the episode, but John and Revelation's, he sees every tribe, every nation, every tongue, every ethnicity. So he sees this, this array, this tapestry, right in heaven as he, as he, is surveying this, this and this in processing this vision right, and so that's real and that's beautiful and that's good. And so there's a sense in which, yes, we see the content of our character, the content of our hearts, so to speak, right, and that's good and healthy that we look towards that Right. And at this time, it's also good and healthy to see this beautiful distinction and this beautiful array that God has created in, in the, in his, in his image and likeness.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting. You know you talked about the shots that you and your wife take, but also you talked about the shots that she has to take.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:As though she has some choice, right, man, that speaks volumes about race relations anywhere. Yeah, you know, it's like people take shots that just like, well, I could choose to be different. Okay, show me how you do that. Yeah. And then the other thing is that my experience in pasturing multicultural families is that you have these people that's going to come to rescue. They're going automatically assume that you don't know absolutely zilch about you just walking into this blind. You're dumb, you know, and you have that, and you know I'm sitting here watching y'all talk about color blind. So I'm sitting watching you and Austin talk and communicate. I can tell there's almost day and night difference between some things that we could talk about that you and him wouldn't be the same on.
Speaker 5:Oh 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah and and. But at the same time, we think this, this color blind or this race mixing or whatever else, is like. Some strange thing is that people have personalities that matter what color they are. You know, whatever it is, they have issues and concerns and so forth. It's not limited to one or the other, right, but when it comes to the multi racial, especially in family, because it's so close to home, as you would say, is that we have these things like they don't know what to do. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, when I had my first child, they went white. I didn't really know what to do.
Speaker 1:You had a learning curve as well For the record my kids were white.
Speaker 5:I didn't know what to do either.
Speaker 2:It's like okay, this thing they don't come with structure, manuals.
Speaker 4:What does that cry mean? I don't know what's wrong with this thing?
Speaker 5:How do you operate this? And?
Speaker 2:what is that?
Speaker 3:It's like man, you got to learn.
Speaker 1:Absolutely man.
Speaker 2:So you think about that, just think about that for a moment.
Speaker 1:We had to learn how to navigate my daughter's hair.
Speaker 2:As you did. We have to learn. You know we're all playing aside. We have to learn about every child and every child is different. And I don't know how we cut this thing down to color.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I don't know, you know all those conversations got me thinking about, you know, kind of some of the other. You know those are the early challenges. You know, later on there were some real challenges. Dad, why do I look different than everybody else in our family? That was a real, you know. We had to figure out how to do that Because she kept going. Dad, why are all you guys peach and I'm brown?
Speaker 1:Right, you know, because she sees it. That's the thing she's like. I love that.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we just decided from the very beginning to kind of handle that by not pretending something isn't what it is Right, and you know. So we, just from the very beginning, you know, we told her look, you know, you're adopted. We came apart of our family, different Although you came. You came apart of our family the same way everybody else did in a sense, absolutely. Everybody is a part of this family, because if you take it all back and you go back in time, it came down to a choice.
Speaker 5:Right and a choice to love yeah yeah, your mom and I became a family because we made a choice. And then every one of you are here because a choice was made to create a family.
Speaker 3:That's good and that's a really good way to go.
Speaker 5:And what I tell her is actually the way you became a part of our family is actually even better. Yeah.
Speaker 5:And she's like what do you mean? You know, and I said well, everyone of your brother, your brother and your sisters, we didn't know what we were going to get. We didn't know them beforehand. We just rolled the dice and not you Like, you got here and you were a part of our family for a long time before you became forever family is kind of the term we use and so we knew exactly what we were getting and we went that I want that, and so the way we talk about it with her is she got the better choice. You know when you think about that, but that's a challenge, you know. And then audience.
Speaker 2:Are you listening? A better choice is to adopt.
Speaker 5:I think I'm very pro adoption.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:I mean, look there's, there's a whole another podcast we could do concerning my thoughts regarding what, what is good and not good and all that kind of stuff in that arena. But yeah, I'm very pro adoption.
Speaker 2:Everybody should be.
Speaker 5:I think so, I think so. Now, look, I don't think. Adoptions for everybody, sure, but you know I'm very pro adoption.
Speaker 2:Well, Jesus was pro adoption, oh 100%. Yeah, look at me.
Speaker 5:And then you have the passage in James where you know true legend is this right?
Speaker 4:Absolutely Take care of widows and orphans in her distress, you know all throughout the Bible there's these.
Speaker 5:You know, take care of the oppressed and look out for the poor and all this kind of stuff. And then you get to James and he kind of makes it real specific.
Speaker 5:Brings it down widows and orphans in their distress. If you can't get this right, what are you doing, right? So you know. So that's why we did the other thing. Another thing that I think was a challenge was and it continues to be, is she. You know, she's starting to see an experience and some of the racial tension it started with when, when Barack Obama was president, sure, and all that kind of stuff, and, and she started, you know, she's, you know, wasn't aware of that really, but she is, now that he was, and she's like, why do people speak so badly of him sometimes? And you know, and all this kind of stuff? And you know, we're just we're trying to try to help her in a way that's healthy for her Right.
Speaker 5:Because I think you know, like I think, kids were meant at certain ages to be able to carry certain types of baggage. Right.
Speaker 5:And one of the challenges of parenting is trying to figure out when are they old enough to carry what, and so you know, we're having to, in a strategic way, expose her to the reality that she lives in a world, that there are some people that are not going to like her. And it's not because she's done something wrong, it's not because she has made some mistake, it's not because she's unlikeable yeah, it's because of the color of her skin, and so that's a real challenge for us right now.
Speaker 1:Man, there's so much to unpack, and so here's the good news for those that are listening on the radio. This is a podcast and we have a way for you to actually go out using your favorite podcast app. Subscribe to Living Reconciled. Just go and search. We'll probably be the first podcast that pops up called Living Reconciled, because I don't think there's many out there called Living Reconciled. But we would love for you to go out, subscribe to this podcast, download this episode with TJ Tennyson and you can actually get the rest of this episode with so many different questions and so many so much more than we're looking to unpack with TJ. But if you are listening to the radio this week, this Sunday, we want to encourage you again to go out and download the podcast. But if you're not going to download the podcast, we want to urge you again to do so.
Speaker 2:Really need your rest of the story.
Speaker 3:And before you tune out, in order to find out the answer to my question for TJ, you need to log on to the podcast. My question for TJ is what does the TJ stand for?
Speaker 5:Don't answer it. Don't answer it until it comes back. This is the big cliffhanger. We're trying to read people back.
Speaker 1:All the more reason to download the podcast Before our radio listeners. We are signing off saying God bless.
Speaker 3:What is his real name?
Speaker 1:God bless. Living reconciled is the work of Mission Mississippi, but it is not our only work. From days of dialogue and prayer meetings to consultation for schools, businesses and churches, mission Mississippi is eager to help you, your team, your church and your community live reconciled Every month. Join us for our weekly prayer breakfasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 645 am, our bi-weekly statewide connection meetings on Fridays at 10 am and the focus time of prayer on the third Thursday of the month at 7 am. For more details on any of our upcoming events or to learn how you can invite us to your church, business or school, visit our website at missionmississipiorg and click on the events button or call us at 601-353-6477. Hey, thanks so much again for joining us on episode 35 of Living Reconciled. This is Brian Crawford, your host, bringing bonus content with my stupendous friends and your okay friend.
Speaker 5:And my incredible friend.
Speaker 3:Incredible.
Speaker 1:Incredible.
Speaker 2:Like I feel like it's that word stupendous is so close to another word that I'm just sure about.
Speaker 3:I really think he was just going to jump out.
Speaker 1:No stupendous friends, stupendous friends Netty Winners and Netty's son, austin Winners.
Speaker 2:Austin Winners Austin Hoyle I love it Austin Hoyle. Are you pleased with your father? My father.
Speaker 3:I love my father, hey dad. What did you get him for Father's Day? I? Don't know. It just happened about an hour ago. We haven't had a Father's Day consideration.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, more importantly, where are you going to get me for Christmas?
Speaker 5:Oh, wait, that's right, do you? Even know what your father's birthday is.
Speaker 3:Christmas Day. September 26th.
Speaker 1:We're having a great conversation about fatherhood.
Speaker 2:I guess I need to take him shopping, but not Austin and Netty and their relationship with fatherhood.
Speaker 1:We're actually having a great conversation with TJ Tennyson about fatherhood and parenting, and one of the things that came out on the other side of the break, before we stopped or before we paused, was a question Austin, would you add to?
Speaker 3:that question. What does the TJ stand for?
Speaker 5:Yeah. So the running joke I like to tell people is Thaddeus Josephus, and sometimes I try to say that with a very serious face, and I've even I had a guy and I said it with the most utmost seriousness, and he met me first time at church and he started laughing. I was like what he goes? Why would your parents do that? Why would your parents do that? I was like why, dude, you don't even know me. This kind of hurt me. No, it's Tommy Joshua. Tommy Joshua, okay, cool, cool, cool. And I was like what's his name? Is Tommy, and I think I don't know, I'm just guessing, but I think my parents probably started me out with Tommy and then realized, well, that's going to be kind of confusing, you know, growing up. So I think that's how I became TJ.
Speaker 5:I don't know, mom, if that's not the story, I'm sorry. He'll get details later. I said it on air, so it's gotta be real.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's gotta be right.
Speaker 1:Hey, share with us, TJ, if you don't mind. Tommy, joshua, share with us, if you don't mind, a common misunderstanding about multi-ethnic families that you've faced since becoming a father.
Speaker 5:You know it's interesting. So you, you kind of sent me some of these questions beforehand and I thought, man, I want to run some of these by my wife just to, because I'm always interested in her perspective.
Speaker 2:He came to you.
Speaker 5:He did a little bit and just because he knows that's the way I am. I don't like to walk into someone. So you know, I asked my wife this question. What's interesting is is her question is different than her answer I'm sorry, is different than mine. So she or says she answered it. She said you don't have to look like a person to raise a person.
Speaker 1:That's good TJ.
Speaker 5:And you know Wow.
Speaker 2:Man, don't, don't, don't, let that, let's go find so fast.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and that came from a lot of people. So early on, you know, we were trying to figure some stuff out as far as what it means to care for Brooklyn, and she ended up on a lot of forums and platforms and there's a lot of people that either at her or somebody like us who was just trying to find some help said made a lot of comments about what makes a white woman think that she can raise a black child Right, and it kind of comes back to something we talked about earlier in that there are certain types, certain things in caring for them that are Brooklyn, that are going to be different than other children, but fundamentally, all kids pretty much need the same thing at the end of the day, which is a commitment to love Yep.
Speaker 5:Right, yeah, right. So I mean, that's what my wife would have dispelled if she would have been here. You had a question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, you talked about your wife's answer. And I love it. You don't have to look like the person you're going to raise, and I think that's the question about what would make a white woman think that she could raise a black kid. This is an out loud question After Cuff's not directed.
Speaker 2:She was just directed at us as a race and as a generation and as people of God. And white families think that a black woman can raise their children and their children can grow up calling them Nana and Mama and turn out Well. I got many friends that was raised by the. In fact my mother raised. She was the maid at the doctor's house. She raised his kids and amazing how that work. But when it's in reverse, everybody's like.
Speaker 1:It's not possible, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't understand that Right For generation, especially doing slavery. Who took care of the house and the children?
Speaker 5:Yeah, and you know, it's interesting when we, when I look back on the people who have seen us in that dynamic and encouraged us the most, it's always been your generation.
Speaker 2:You know, I've had.
Speaker 5:I've had more young people, or younger generations, hate on us for what we're doing, and I don't mean it disrespectfully, but you're a generation too above me, right, and I've had more people from your generation stop us in a grocery store and say, look, you know, I know it's probably not easy, I know a lot of people might not like it, but I want you to tell you, I want you to know, I love what you're doing and I'm cheering for you. Yeah, and I just think that generationally I know it's anecdotal, that's my experience, right, but I found much more grace from your generation than mine and below on the on that front, which which I think deserves exploring actually. So that would be one. The one I would probably go after is there's all kinds of assumptions that are made that are informed by a number of things Sure, about people who do what we do. The one I despise the most is the notion that we're doing what we're doing because we have a savior complex. I've lost track of how many times I've lost track of how many times.
Speaker 5:I've been accused of being, you know, just a white savior Right. Agulations yeah, no don't get me wrong. I mean we certainly. Her life would probably be much different Were we not in it. But I want to be really, really clear. As far as I'm concerned, she's the gift, right, I mean she's she. I tell people all the time she's one of God's best gifts to me and my family.
Speaker 2:You know I used to struggle with this Every child is a gift from God. She's amazing.
Speaker 5:You know, she gives me way more than I give her. Yeah, you know, and I have a feeling it'll be that way the rest of my life.
Speaker 5:I used to struggle a lot more with it, to be honest with you. You know I used to earlier on and I was a hard one for me to navigate, and I'm involved in Mission Mississippi on a number of fronts. One of them is there's a local gathering of pastors that I meet with in Vicksburg about once a month. I'm not able to make it every month, none of us really are Sure, but there was a guy there who's one of the group. His name is Pastor Walker and he may not even remember having this conversation with me.
Speaker 5:But he's a. He's a black pastor. He's an incredible man of God. Have a ton of respect for him. One day I was just talking to him about all this kind of stuff and he looked at me and he basically said man, you need to brush that aside. And I said what he goes? Yeah, man, you need to brush that nonsense aside, man, he said he is. The way I think about it is, if they were to say that and I was there, I was there. I would ask them where were you? Where were you? And I started thinking about that and I'm like, yeah, you know what I'm done, apologizing for being there for a kid who needed something.
Speaker 1:It's great for you, and what I would tell people is if you're truly bothered by what we're doing.
Speaker 5:there are plenty of kids just like her who needs somebody Absolutely. I mean, you know, you think about it, the critics and this is gonna I don't want this to sound harsh because I don't mean it harsh there's nothing.
Speaker 5:there's not any hate coming from my heart when I say this, but all those people who criticize me and my wife, I mean they had the same opportunity to care for her that we did. It's not like it's brand new news that there are all kinds of people in CPS custody that need a place. That's not news. If it is, you've been living in a hole somewhere. Right, it's not. It's not like. So if you care so much, why don't you stop getting on social media and running your mouth and actually go do something, because your words aren't helping those kids. You know what helps those kids A hand. You give them a place to stay, you put clothes on their back, you put food in their bellies. That's what makes a difference. We bought into this idea, and I'm not saying social media isn't powerful, but I think people have started to basically equate running their mouth with action. Absolutely, and it's not. It's not.
Speaker 5:It's a false dichotomy. It's not the same thing. So if you really want to make a difference in the world, go make a difference for somebody.
Speaker 2:The commercial I'm not going to give any credit to. But there's a commercial that says you don't have to be perfect to be a parent, Thank God. Well, I love that, and so nobody's perfect at this parenting thing. Man and skin color has little to do with the fact that you're imperfect in parenting, Right.
Speaker 5:You know I have parent friends of mine that are black, parent friends of white. Brian and I were talking about new parenting dynamics that we have entered in the new season. You know what I've noticed about Brian and I. We are facing the same struggle and we're probably doing about the same. Like we have moments where we're like yeah, I got it right, and we have moments where we're like, oh man, I really missed that, so your skin color didn't help any of that.
Speaker 2:That's, the skin color didn't help me at all, man, not at all.
Speaker 1:Not at all. I think I think oftentimes, when we're talking about this, there's, there's so much that we direct at the individual that that is a result of the baggage that we bring to the conversation. You know, all of the distrust that comes from our interactions, that come from our history, that come from our stories, that we don't confront, that we don't sit down at a table and talk through and talk about, and what ends up happening is that we end up targeting all of that at a couple that's just trying to raise a little girl yeah, just trying to love Jesus. Well, by loving, by loving, by loving his image bear as well, and that little girl is an image bear, and so there's, and so what ends up happening is that when we don't, really it's chilling people.
Speaker 2:You use it with the appendage. Now you use image bear. You want to help?
Speaker 1:made an image and likeness of God. Okay, made an image and likeness of God. And so when we don't really have the kind of conversations to unravel and unpack the baggage that that that has been created in all of our racial divide, we end up targeting it unfairly on people. That's just trying to love God's people.
Speaker 5:Well well, and that comes around to mission Mississippi and the goal of mission Mississippi and why it's so important. Because it's easy to tell yourself a story about somebody you don't know Absolutely. It becomes harder when I get to know the person.
Speaker 2:You can't dismiss a man you know you can.
Speaker 5:You can throw people in stereotypes real easy if you don't know them.
Speaker 2:Numbers and statistics and all of those. Yeah.
Speaker 5:You can buy into whatever narrative getting shoved in your brain or you were taught to believe or whatever it is, but when I know somebody and and I know them beyond just a casual hey, how you're doing it just has a way of dismantling some of that stuff. I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. You know and this is probably going to connect to some other question you were thinking about asking me but Stacy and I don't want to speak ill of her, please don't take I hope people don't take it this way but Stacy had a grandmother who I think, generally speaking, was a good woman, but she was raised during a time when white people thought a certain way and, quite frankly, it was racist and and she was, she would. I mean, she didn't think about it that way, which was strange. Even if you pointed out she's like no, that's not, you know. So that's a different conversation.
Speaker 5:But, she was a very you know I would have called her a racist individual. I still loved her, but you know she was what she was. So I'll never forget the very first time she held Brooklyn you know we had, we'd adopted Brooklyn and she'd seen pictures and stuff like that and I watched as she held Brooklyn the first time and she stroked her face, just like she stroked every one of my other kids faces, and I watched tears roll down her cheeks and I'm telling you, I watched 80 years of racism get washed away in a moment when someone went from just a, just a generalized category to someone that they knew.
Speaker 5:And I'm. I just think that's the power of it and that's why Mission Mississippi is so important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I had a friend that breaks down those generalizations, sorry, I worked with a friend for 30 years or more and her grandson adopted and, man, the first time she held that kid. She couldn't wait to call me and tell me how we changed her life when she first was telling me all this you know, everybody gets excited about grandkids and all that stuff and I just kind of didn't listen closely enough. She's you know. And so she rehearsed that again and it broke both of us up as she was telling me having that kid and holding it, because she thought it was a bad idea for them to do that. That's why would y'all do that, all these you know, et cetera. I had the same mind you got nothing like kids and et cetera, et cetera. So why would you do that? And so it just changed the the, the, the.
Speaker 5:You know I won't there's another guy but it also.
Speaker 2:You know, you, you hadn't said this.
Speaker 5:I don't know whether you contemplate it, but they, but it also changed the whole family from generation old to generation you know, yeah, and that's not the only time that Brooklyn has had that effect on people, and it's not like she set out to do it.
Speaker 2:She was, she was just her, she's just been a child and she was a baby.
Speaker 5:There was this other guy and he's a really good guy, and so I'm not going to even say his name, but who who confessed this to me?
Speaker 1:he said Austin Hoyle.
Speaker 5:Yeah, austin Austin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he did.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't said anything like yeah, maybe, maybe he said to wake you up, man, what's going?
Speaker 3:on with that, austin winners yeah, so wait, what are we talking about?
Speaker 1:So he podcast listeners is not Austin Hoyle.
Speaker 5:No, it's not Austin Hoyle, to be clear. He goes to our church and he was you know he's I think he's in his 60s or 70s somewhere in there, and it was back when Brooklyn was a baby and she was in nursery and of the church and and, by the way, our church has been so welcoming. I want to give a huge shout out to Crossway Church. They have loved her without question. It's like they they know she's black but they don't care, and I just think I'm I'm just so fortunate to pastor across.
Speaker 2:So, but this guy came up and he's a good crossway to child. Get that shout out the crossway.
Speaker 5:If you're in the Vicksburg area, we'd love to have you Sunday morning. But he held her in the nursery and he told me later this was a little while longer. He went in there, he volunteered from time to time and he told me he goes. You know what he goes and he told me this in tears or running down his cheeks he's just broken about it. He goes. You know, I went in there and I was holding your daughter, brooklyn, and you know, I held a little white girl and then I held Brooklyn and I felt different about it and I felt different about her and he said I didn't know why, I didn't know why. And then it occurred to me that maybe there's some racism in my heart that I had to deal with. And he goes and he goes. I had to confess to God and I'm just so ashamed and I said well, brother, we're all working through it.
Speaker 5:You know, and I'm just glad that God God spoke to you and is helping you grow in this area, and I can promise you Brooklyn didn't know any difference, so you know. But she has done that and it's simply just people ended up in some kind of relationship. That's why I think again Mission Mississippi I'm sounding like a broken record, but that's why we're so important in what you guys do and our church, of course, supports you guys and partners with you guys.
Speaker 2:So the two finished telling us all about the rest of the family and rest of what's going? On with you and so you know you told him to talk about his family. He got three other kids right.
Speaker 5:Yes, I do. My oldest is 19. She's in college.
Speaker 1:That's where Brian and I are in the same phase of life trying to figure out how to be good dads during that. And we've had a bunch of stories To our college freshmen.
Speaker 5:It is, you know, the hardest part about all that is, I've learned it's not my daughter that needs to grow up.
Speaker 2:It's me that's amazing. You got to send your daughter off to college to grow up.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's. You hear that I'm like man. It is revealing all kinds of immaturities in me and I'm just just ashamed, honestly, and God's just been.
Speaker 5:I mean, I am grateful for God's work on me, but that has been the biggest lesson of the college, but I have a daughter who's 19. I also have, and she's in college. I have another daughter who is in high school, in the 10th grade, and then Jacob. So my son and Brooklyn, the girl that we adopted, my daughter, are actually right around five months apart, so their whole life we've explained that to the folks.
Speaker 2:When you tell them just my son and daughter they thought months apart right, oh yeah.
Speaker 5:And what's even, what funnier is, we've called them the twins their whole life.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's real, y'all really have fun messing folks up, right, and that's what they'll respond to it.
Speaker 5:You know, tell one of my other kids hey, go get the twins. They're like okay, they go get them, you know they come back with crazy. Look on the face right Like everybody else is looking at us like right right.
Speaker 5:And right now we have. We have two foster sons one is seven and one is four and they've been with us since, I think, about April yeah, so I think. By the way, we've been fostering for about 12 years now, okay, and we've fostered over 20 kids. Wow, close to half of them have been black. You know interestingly, because Brooklyn is back you want to talk about how it affects us as parents. We are a lot quicker to take on black children as foster parents, and if we were ever to consider adoption again, what we hope to adopt is another black child. Mostly, mostly, we would love and care for them on their own, obviously, but we understand that it can be tough when you don't look like everybody else, right? So there's somebody else in the family that looks like you and we think that'd be good for her and also good for whoever we may end up adopting now. So we're not seeking to do that. What if the opportunity arose?
Speaker 2:But that's good for the body. You know we're talking about the body of Christ here, and so that is good for the body to see the model and examine. Especially, a pastor is modeling what he preaches, amen, Modeling what Christ says for us to do so that's a great model of understanding and appreciating that in terms of raising the family, but also for the church.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk to us a little bit about the church. I mean you pastor one of the larger churches in the city of Vicksburg. So when you think about your majority context predominantly white large church.
Speaker 2:CS other matters. Yeah, we're Southern Baptist, yeah.
Speaker 1:I didn't have that on the tip of my tongue but I know. But what are some of the challenges that you face as a large church pastor, majority white church pastor, when it comes to matters of reconciliation?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so, um, and there's a lot of challenges in this area, and I'm broadening it beyond just because this isn't normally my church doesn't struggle with what we're doing. I don't think at all, as you know, being an interracial family, but in the arena of race and racial reconciliation, one of the, I have several big challenges that I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not alone on this, but one of the biggest challenges is helping people to be able to see the difference, because there's so much people integrate them so hard, the difference between theology and politics, right?
Speaker 2:That's a big, wherever you are.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think. I think Christians in general have gotten the cart before the horse on this one.
Speaker 5:Yeah, talk to me about that, like our theology, should be leading us to where we land politically. But I think what's happening is, you know, jesus says render under Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are gods. And I think we're rendering under Caesar, often times, the things that are gods. Now, right, yes, you know. So what happens? I think for a lot of people they don't even realize it because they're raised in it and they're watching Fox News non-stop or CNN non-stop or MSNBC non-stop, and they're listening to. You know, tick-tock, the algorithm figures out they like certain things. You know just endlessly. What happens is people pick a political position and they go to scriptures to support it right, right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it worked out.
Speaker 5:No, no, no, we are. Our number one obligation is to Christ they're. Everything else takes a far second place, or should, if we are believers. But again, in the South I've I just, and I think this probably happens everywhere, and again, I don't think I'm the only one who struggles to help people figure out that you know that our theology should have formed our politics, not the other way around, and that is a huge, huge, huge challenge, because people don't even see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the water that we swim in. Yeah, and, like you said, part of it is the king. There's a certain conditioning that comes from watching the same Teachers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Right and so right indoctrination. Yeah, indoctrination, cable, cable news. We're being oh yeah, we're being discipled 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and so it becomes just the water that you swim in, I mean.
Speaker 5:I'm not sure what we expect when we spend more time in our news outlets and our tick tock than we do our Bible.
Speaker 4:Right, I don't think we should be shocked when that happens, and you?
Speaker 3:know, and this is, this is a problem on either Ideological side of the spectrum. Oh yeah, I left left, left and right, it's a it's a.
Speaker 3:It's a universal human problem. We oftentimes try to Subplain our identity of in Christ into other things, either through a political position we hold them I can't tell you how many times people have, you know, justified doing something or, or having a certain position that you know seems harmful, just by saying, well, I'm just liberal or I'm just a conservative, like as if that's the, that's the kind of blanket saying well, I have license to to do anything and think any way that I want, because Because other people out there in the world also happen to think and do this way.
Speaker 1:It's just like right?
Speaker 3:No, I mean. But what is truly rooting yourself into the identity of Christ? There you go, there you go.
Speaker 5:Man. That's the. That's one of the biggest ones. Another big one again. This has probably has to do with the fact that I'm any predominately white church and, by the way, I really do desire to be a more multi-ethnic church. And we're, we're taking strides, we're just getting there slowly and you know that bugs me but it is what it is.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm grateful for the people who have from the black community, who have Seen my heart on that and are like I could sign up for that, even if it's slower than and I didn't we want it to be sure but some of the big challenges convincing just white people that something's wrong. It gets pretty complicated and I'm not gonna dive fully into it. But I've had people, you know, like my people tend to think well, you know, I don't have any problem with a black person and you know I'm not, you know I don't. I don't, you know, hate them, and so I've got a black friend or two, or I got a couple black employees we get along and, oddly, they say that and then, in the same conversation sometimes will say something that is Overtly racist and I'm like, bro, did you just hear yourself? Like I mean right you know and I Love these people?
Speaker 5:I do. I just think they don't see it right and what's crazy. And, by the way, if, if I have here's how it shows up a lot, they'll say it. They'll look at me, realize I have a black daughter, go, oh, but that's not true of your daughter. And I'm like bro, if you have to make that caveat, guess what?
Speaker 1:we've already lost the plot. You are.
Speaker 5:Definitely racist. We've already lost.
Speaker 5:Yeah, if you're trying to like hedge it, because you just realized you said you stepped on your you know. So, yeah, that's a real, real challenge. And, by the way, we tend to think this is maybe a white community thing. I don't know if this exists in the black community. Yeah, you know I can't speak for them, but we tend to think that the goal is that we shouldn't hate them. Yeah, but the goal isn't to just not merely not hate somebody who's different than us. If we're believers, the goal is to love them and Love them well, absolutely. So if you can't make the case that you're loving somebody that's different than you as well as you possibly can, you've got room for growth in this area, absolutely we talk about it all the time to you.
Speaker 1:We we've shared this often as friends that the the opposite of love is not hate, is apathy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was about this indifference, right. Yeah yeah, I was bring up the yeah, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, no, and and we oftentimes think that because we don't, if we don't have overt hatred, then that means that we're okay, that we, that we're exempt, when the reality is is that overt hatred is Not, is not the goal to avoid overt hatred. The goal is to love well, which pushes us past apathy.
Speaker 5:Well, I think you know, let's just think about the nature of Satan for a moment. You know, I'm assuming the people are listening to us, are believers. So, I'm kind of working from that, that premise, mm-hmm. But if he his goal is to steal, kill and destroy and his nature is deception, do you think the real dangerous stuff is gonna be obvious?
Speaker 1:No, absolutely not yeah.
Speaker 5:So in this, in this arena, in the racial arena and racism.
Speaker 1:The father of lies. He's the father of lies, he's gonna yeah.
Speaker 5:So I mean, I think it's the oh, the covert stuff, the stuff that we can't see, that we probably should be very, very, very concerned about, absolutely Absolutely. So that's one of my answers, and the other real challenge for me is there are some people that I I work with who go yeah, I see a problem, they just don't care enough about to do something you know, Like.
Speaker 5:So when I get together, we have these joint services with some other pastors in our community or we, we do a thing called a racial reconciliation picnic every year. You're part of that Absolutely, and I'm like man, you feel strong. This could be a great step. You agree, take the step. It's just like it moves me. You know there's cognitive agreement that does not change their life, which makes you wonder if they really agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I care, just not enough to be inconvenient. It's apathy.
Speaker 5:You can get the agreement you know absolutely, and then it's still a just a slightly different form of affidavit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and you know I'm thinking of this, you know we're noticing the difference between love is just indifference. You know, indifference is the absence pretty much of any passion, of any really Taking it, of a concern of someone else. Yeah, hate, I oftentimes is a reaction to Wanting love but not necessarily seeing love there. Oftentimes, because it's a very, it's a very passionate response, hate is a very passion, absolutely Right. Love is also a passion word. Yeah, right, and oftentimes they can, they can, they can match each other in terms of, in terms of passion, but but. But hate is operated in such a way where it's usually operating out of that passion, of a place of hurt right yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 3:So oftentimes when you know not just just not operating out of hurt, yet that's, that's a good thing, that's a good thing to do, but also when, when someone is, when someone hates something, it's usually because they really want to love it. They just can't find themselves oftentimes to love and they don't know how to react to that situation.
Speaker 2:You know you said earlier about you know I'm licking about that what white folks don't see. You know, dan Haaland, I've been working at this for a long time and we used to have these days of dialogue and running around the state. Some of the things we learned is that because people are not fighting in the streets, calling you out, raising cane, standing their place and all these things that people don't get to sense that well, everybody's happy. What's the problem? Everybody's getting like you know, you've talked about.
Speaker 2:I got a couple of employees and I got some friends and so forth, so they're not raising cane about how bad we are or whatever else. So therefore it must not be a problem.
Speaker 1:And Dan said.
Speaker 2:he said, you folks talking about me, it's so gracious and forgiving. The last time we don't realize from a white perspective that there's a problem Because you're not calling it out or in a sense, and so there's a lot of that violence. And all of that doesn't mean you know, that means there's peace or something.
Speaker 1:I was about to say, the absence of conflict does not mean the presence of peace. No, peace is wholeness, peace is holistic, it's, you know, love is deep and it's abiding, and so oftentimes we confuse the absence of conflict with love, and that's not love.
Speaker 2:I eat. The conflict during the civil rights movement. You know all of those conflicts and protesting and peaceful protest, whatever you wanna call it, all of that stuff is like okay, what's the problem? Right. And when that goes away or dies down in some sense or gets silent for a while, well, everybody think everything else hunk a door. Absolutely.
Speaker 5:Until another.
Speaker 2:George Floyd or whatever else happened.
Speaker 5:And then all of a sudden, you have an explosion and people start going well, why, why, why why?
Speaker 4:Well, the why has been there for a while. We just haven't been paying attention.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, hey. For someone, tj, who's living a fairly monoethnic life at this point and has yet to see their family, their friendships or their church integrated in any meaningful way, what kind of tips, first steps or encouragement would you give them?
Speaker 5:Man, I think that's a great question. If you're a, I think, if you're a pastor and you wanna see your church become more diverse, I think, especially if you're a white pastor and probably even this would be true, I think, in a black church or a black pastor pastoring a predominantly black church you have to, if you want to become more diverse. You have to give black people a legitimate seat at the table. You have to, you have to plot, you have to give them a place where they have a voice, where and it's a visible thing I think what happens is is, you know, people do. What we all do is we walk into, whatever context we walk into, we we start looking around to see if there's people like us. I don't blame people for that, I think that's human nature and if you a church who's trying to become more diverse and, by the way, I live in Vicksburg, mississippi, which is about 50-50. So if I'm serious about reaching my community, this should be, you know, beyond the work of race or reconciliation you talk about reaching your community.
Speaker 5:You should, we should be about it. You know, when 50% of the community might walk in and man, they don't see anybody like them. That sends a message. Now, you, you know it's probably an unintended message, but it sends a message nonetheless. So you know, I found some. What we try to do at Crossway is we try to find some, some. You know, there's some people who decided to sign on with us and, by the way, I've actually heard from some of them about what it costs them with their family and friends to come to a predominantly white church.
Speaker 5:And they give. They give them so much grief over it. And so when I have somebody who's African-American comes to our church, I try at some point to pull them aside and go look, I'm sure it costs you to be here. I'm glad you're paying the price and I hope you still do, and if you ever need support I'm right here. So you know that's one of the things we do. I'll tell you this.
Speaker 5:Or vice versa or vice versa, yeah, yeah. So, man, it's hard work. This, this is let's just be honest with you it's, it's not for the faint of heart. The advice I would give for people who are trying to do to go about the work of racial reconciliation is probably a couple of things. I'd say one you need to be willing to play the long game. You and I, brian, have talked often about how you and I may labor perhaps our whole life so that a generation or two down the road might yield the fruit you we have to remember and I get it not get not seeing results is discouraging. Yeah.
Speaker 5:It really can be. It can be hard to keep working for something when you see you keep pushing and pushing and it feels like nothing's happening. So I'm not trying to discount that at all, but we have to. I think sometimes we measure wrong. We should push for results. We should be results oriented. At the same time, god's standard for us when he gives us an assignment is simply faithfulness. That's it. You know some water and some read the harvest.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 5:And and again. I'd like to kind of, I think, when we think about this stuff, we got to frame it biblically Our job is faithfulness, our job is obedience, our job is to try to do what, what God's placed in front of us, to the very best of our ability. And we have to remember that results are not our job, absolutely. Results are God's work. That's it. Those are God's job, that's it.
Speaker 5:Our job is obedience. What he does with that is his. We need to offer up the best we get to offer and and let God do what, what is his job to do? So you know, play the long game, be okay If, if you nail faithfulness but you don't get results. And and just remember, you know we love our kids and our green kids. Sometimes the sacrifices that we are called to make are not something for our benefit, but for the benefit of people down the road. And and you know what I think? I think that you should celebrate that you're doing right for the sake of doing right.
Speaker 1:Amen, you know like we.
Speaker 5:We live in a world nowadays it seems that you know if they don't get results and get it quick and get what they want. We've lost this notion that right is right no matter what and we should do it because it's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Pragmatism is too high of a value in our culture right now. We only do it because we, because it quote on quote works right, rather than doing it because it's right Right.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and then you know, I encourage people to maybe just celebrate the small victories as they come, and they're passage in the Bible that says don't despise small beginnings. Right or don't be weary and well-doing.
Speaker 2:Amen For a new season, and and and we make a mockery of all of that based on a lot of times, our actions, but we say it, but our actions that we're up to in terms of productivity and staying faithful to the call.
Speaker 5:Yeah, right man. Yeah, I mean, I've got to be honest with you. I think there are God. I have never. I don't understand, and I won't until maybe one day he explains it to me. I don't understand why God sometimes gives people tough assignments and some people seemingly easier assignments. I think it's easy to label something, by the way, easy assignment from the outside looking at. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know the God size of slamming disease, but anyway we looked that way.
Speaker 5:Right, Right. So I got to tell you I'm not nearly as impressed by the people who are faithful with what seems to be an easy assignment as I am. The people who are are faithful with a tough one. I really think those are the types of people we should start celebrating and honoring, just in general.
Speaker 1:Amen brother, amen TJ. It's been an incredible, incredible episode. Marathon run we are at an hour of podcast in the day. This is the longest episode we've ever had, oh really.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, man, absolutely, I set a record, you set a record. Wait, wait, wait, we still have another.
Speaker 1:And I was about to say and there and there's a surprise. There's a surprise TJ is going to hang out with us and he'll be around for next episode.
Speaker 5:In episode 36.
Speaker 2:In episode 36. And I could see it In a much different capacity, yeah.
Speaker 3:I could see it, yeah, so I could not wait. We're roasting Brian Crop.
Speaker 2:That's why Brian was so nice to TJ.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's why he was nice to him. He really was. Yeah, he was really nice to you. I want his.
Speaker 2:TJ going to be nice to Ryan, so.
Speaker 3:I think Brian's saving it all for when he's the host just so he can he doesn't have the responsibilities of making sure things you know run smoothly.
Speaker 1:So please join us in the next episode, because TJ will join us in a different capacity on Living Rec and Sound, but it's been incredible. Thank you, tj. Thank you for your vulnerability, for your heart, for committing so much good wisdom to us on today and hopefully our listeners have been able to glean a ton and I know that I know they have. I know they have. But for our listeners, please share this episode and also just share this podcast with all your friends and family during this holiday season, and we want to wish you guys a Merry Christmas and a happy new year and until next time. We're signing off saying God bless, god bless, god bless, god bless. Thanks for joining Living Rec and Sound. If you would like more information on how you can be a part of the ongoing work of helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured, please visit us online at missionmississippiorg or call us at 601-353-6477. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you guys next time.