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Join Brian and Neddie for an episode that's both at times weighty and lighthearted as they are joined by their good friend from up north, Dr. Glenn Barth. The guys discuss a variety of topics from addressing homelessness to nurturing leadership within urban ministries, revealing how friendship and collaboration are the heartbeats of effective community development.
The dialogue also highlights the ongoing work in confronting the racial divides in Minneapolis deepened by the tragedy of George Floyd's death. The candid discussions reveal the challenges within church walls – the struggle to embrace Christ's teachings of love and togetherness beyond the brief flares of media attention. Our conversation is an invitation to witness the seeds of small beginnings grow into monumental shifts within our communities, an enduring testament that the power of Christ can indeed bridge the deepest of divides.
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.
Join Brian and Neddie for an episode that's both at times weighty and lighthearted as they are joined by their good friend from up north, Dr. Glenn Barth. The guys discuss a variety of topics from addressing homelessness to nurturing leadership within urban ministries, revealing how friendship and collaboration are the heartbeats of effective community development.
The dialogue also highlights the ongoing work in confronting the racial divides in Minneapolis deepened by the tragedy of George Floyd's death. The candid discussions reveal the challenges within church walls – the struggle to embrace Christ's teachings of love and togetherness beyond the brief flares of media attention. Our conversation is an invitation to witness the seeds of small beginnings grow into monumental shifts within our communities, an enduring testament that the power of Christ can indeed bridge the deepest of divides.
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.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome to Living Reconciled, episode 48. My name is Brian Crawford and I have the great privilege of serving as a host and I am with a very good friend and a host normally, who is here in Mississippi with me, but he is here in Minneapolis or there in Minneapolis and he's with a good friend that we'll introduce here in just a second, but I just want to give a shout out to Nettie Winters, all the way up there in Minneapolis, minnesota. How are you doing up there, nettie?
Speaker 3:I am well.
Speaker 2:That's good, that's Minnesota. How you doing up there, nettie, I am well that's good.
Speaker 3:That's good. That's good to hear. This is a great opportunity, man, as I said, to talk to you. I'm looking out the window the birds are flying, the sun is shining. It is a beautiful day in Minneapolis.
Speaker 2:That is fantastic, man. I'm glad to hear that. Like I said, I can't wait to talk to your good friend who you're sitting next to up in Minneapolis.
Speaker 3:This is my good friend Glenn Rudy Bob's with me.
Speaker 2:That's right, but before we get started, get too far, I want to give a quick shout out to our sponsors, folks like Nissan, st Dominic's Hospital, atmos Energy Regions Foundation, brown Missionary Baptist Church, christian Light Church, ms Doris Powell, mr Robert Ward, ms Ann Winters. Thank you, guys, so much for everything that you do. It's because of what you do that we're able to do what we do. And, by the way, if you would like to join this illustrious list of individuals and churches and companies and foundations that are investing in the work of reconciliation by investing in the work of Mission Mississippi, we want to invite you to do so. It's really easy to do Just go to missionmississippiorg, click on the donate button at the top of the website and you will be on your way in investing in the work that the Lord is doing in our state and beyond, even in places like Minneapolis, minnesota, which leads me to our guest for the day.
Speaker 2:Mr Dr Glenn Barth serves as the president of Good Cities. Good Cities helps city leaders combine the good deeds and good news of the gospel into the life of the city to bring about kingdom transformation. Good Cities is focused on equipping kingdom-minded leaders through leadership development aimed at collaborative, volunteer mobilization, addressing areas of need in their city. It is an incredible pleasure to welcome Dr Glenn Barth to Episode 48, living Reconciled. How are you doing?
Speaker 4:sir. Thanks, brian, it's great to be back with Mission Mississippi. Thanks, Brian, it's great to be back with Mission Mississippi. At one time I was given I think I was given an administrative assistance desk when I was down there for two months after Hurricane Katrina and Matty and I became fast friends. I told him. I said we're going to be spending more time on the road than at the desk anyway, so let's get going.
Speaker 4:It was during that time I think you might know this, brian that we put together teams of black and white Christians to go down to the Gulf Coast and help rebuild communities down there, traveling the state together and Medtronic, a big medical device concern up here in Minneapolis, medical device concern up here in Minneapolis. Their founder asked me what I was doing to help folks with Katrina and of course your founder, jarvis Ward. He and I had worked together for 10 years with Mission America. And as we had worked together, jarvis after Katrina said Glenn, I think some of the pastors would love to have you come down here and help with the recovery from Katrina. And the founder of Medtronic said he just asked me. He said are you doing anything to help with those folks recovering from Katrina? And I told him about Jarvis' invitation and of course Dolphus agreed to that and I came down there and he basically told me just send me a budget and I'll back you. You just go down there. So not many donors do that, do they?
Speaker 4:You need to send him to mission mississippiorg well, I think you'd have to come from the other side at this point rest in peace.
Speaker 2:Rest in peace, generous man. Generous man he was, but no, but no, glenn, you know I obviously I want to talk a little bit about what you and Nettie are embarking on. Y'all have this very exciting and challenging initiative that you guys are tackling up there in Minneapolis, minnesota. But before I dive too deeply into that initiative, I do want you to just take a little bit of time and just tell our listening audience about Dr Glenn Barr.
Speaker 4:Just tell our listening audience about Dr Glenn Barr. Well, I'm a native of Cleveland Ohio, but I think I've lived longer in Minnesota now, so I don't know if I can say I'm a native of Cleveland Ohio anymore, While I was born and grew up there. I have to say this I came to know Jesus Christ when I was 17 years old, when two folks from the Pittsburgh area came and started Young Life Club in our community and one of the guys from Young Life shared his faith with me and I sensed Jesus Christ's presence in the room and knew I had to surrender and serve him from that point forward. And the thing that I learned about these guys from Pittsburgh, the reason they were in Cleveland of all places, I mean Pittsburghers and Clevelanders mix like oil and water. They don't like each other that much, but these guys had come.
Speaker 4:Why did they come? Because they had a vision to make Pittsburgh more famous for God than steel, and the Young Life Regional Director, as part of that vision, had drawn a 150-mile radius around Pittsburgh and said We've got to start a Young Life club on every high school campus within 150 miles of Pittsburgh, within 150 miles of Pittsburgh, and if we do that, we'll affect the future leadership of Pittsburgh as they come to know Christ and begin to live out a Christian world and life view, and so when they began to share that kind of citywide vision with me as a young man in my early discipleship years, I said now, why isn't that happening in Cleveland too?
Speaker 4:Why isn't that happening in other cities around the country? This is a vision that should happen in every city, everywhere, and throughout my years of ministry, whether it was in college ministry or as a pastor of churches, it's always been my calling to call together the leaders, the Christian leaders in the community, across denominational and racial lines, to express our oneness in the body of Christ as a united witness for Jesus Christ in our communities. And it's been a remarkable journey. It really has, and God has been gracious to me in that. I would say that there's a lot of smaller stories that go with that, and those might come out while we're talking.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Absolutely. In fact, one of those smaller stories I would imagine that played a prominent role in your life is the work of Good Cities, the organization that you serve. Right President, talk to us a little bit about Good Cities and what is the heart and mission of that work, and and how does Good Cities cross over into the work of reconciliation, over into the work?
Speaker 4:of reconciliation. Well, just before we started Good Cities, I knew you wanted me to talk right about Good Cities, but Jarvis Ward and I worked for 10 years together as the leaders, the national facilitators, for city and community ministries with Mission America, and our task then was to lead cities all over America into collaborative work in evangelism in cities and communities all over the country. What Jarvis and I discovered is we did together. We did eight national evangelism initiatives during that time, including such things as the White House Movement, passion of the Christ, the Book of Hope campaign, passion of the Christ, the Book of Hope campaign and we saw that cities would take our collaborative evangelism ideas and use them if they found them useful. But most of the time, local leaders had local plans, and local plans were the most important ones because the Holy Spirit was already leading them to do significant work together. And so I came to a point where I said you know what? We shouldn't be developing all these plans for local leaders. It's ineffective. Our most effective place as a coalition of—we had 83 denominations and 350 ministry executives involved in Mission America. I said what we should do is we should go into communities and find out who's already meeting together so that the body of Christ, I expect, if this is a movement of God, god is bringing together people across denominational and racial lines. Let's find those people and then let's figure out how we can put wind in their sails to do the things that God's calling them to do locally. I said this to our CEO at Mission America and he said well, glenn, what would you do if you go into a city and do that? He said, well, the first thing we do is ask good questions and listen to those leaders. And he said well, I don't think that's our mission in Mission America. I think our mission is to develop programs and offer them to people. And I said well, in that case, maybe we need to go different directions.
Speaker 4:And we decided to part ways at that point and within a year or so, a couple of friends from Colorado came to me and said hey, glad you know more people across the country and cities doing this kind of work than anybody we know. Would you like to help us start something new? They actually had the keys to a nonprofit that had recently had. The leader had had a fall. And they said what if we ask the board to give that nonprofit over to us and we gave it a DBA and we talked about names and we decided that the name it was called, that organization was called City Reach International.
Speaker 4:And we asked ourselves, what city wants to be reached? Well, not many, how about? Well then, what city wants to be good? Every city wants to be good and based upon the vision of the fact that the Bible begins in a garden and it ends in a garden city.
Speaker 4:You know, we said, if God's vision is that, in the long run, that the new kingdom on earth, his kingdom on earth, is going to be an incredible city revealed from heaven, that city needs to be the model for cities, that cities will, over time, christians who live in those cities will help those cities become places of healing.
Speaker 4:You know, the tree, the leaves of the tree of life in that city are for the healing of the nations. That city will be known for its ecology. It's a clear river of life that's flowing out of the throne of God and it'll be a place that's life-giving for people and it'll be an incredible city where people will find exciting purpose for their eternal lives. And so if that's the case there, that if the kingdom is to come on earth as it is in heaven, then our cities should be a reflection of that new Jerusalem that is in the future. But that future bends back and touches the present, where we're living right now. So Good Cities has a vision for developing leaders who advance the common good that everyone enjoys and the gospel of the kingdom.
Speaker 2:Sound like a way of saying it to me. Oh, my goodness, I love it. I love it. You know I was for Easter Sunday.
Speaker 2:I preached at City Light Church the passage from Luke 23 about the thieves on the cross, and you know we called it when Friday feels like Sunday because Jesus tells the thief on the cross, on Friday, today, you'll be with me in paradise. And that word paradise is very much, is derived from the same language that you hear revelation about the garden, and the Septuagint in Genesis says the Garden of Eden. That's all that language is tied to that word paradise. And so you know we were talking about this reality that you know, the garden. All of us are trying to get back home, so to speak. The garden is what it was supposed, that's what home feels like, that's what it's supposed to be, and so Jesus is inviting us back home, so to speak, and when he says your will be done in heaven and on earth, it's an opportunity for us to see what home should really feel like. And it seems like Good Cities is working and laboring towards seeing that vision fulfilled and realized on earth, and that's a beautiful picture, that's an incredible picture.
Speaker 4:Christians and non-Christians long for that, brian, and I think about Joni Mitchell and her song about Woodstock. Well, people went to Woodstock and they were hoping they could find a paradise in the mud. Hoping they could find a paradise in the mud. And then she sings a song and the point of her song is and we've got to get ourselves back to the guard, back to this point where God is God and Adam and Eve play the rightful role that they should have played. So you talk about paradise.
Speaker 4:People have been singing about it and dreaming about it, whether they're Christian or not, and that's what's most attractive to the non-Christian about the Christian religion is the whole notion that there's harmony in the world and that there's a sense that people are serving the God, who really is the God of all creation. You know, it's exciting when we think about all that. So we help people discover ways to bring, you know, the peace, peace to the city, like the shalom that Jeremiah wrote to the exiles saying hey, you're going to be there for a while, folks. So pray for the peace of the city where you are and seek its prosperity, because if it prospers, you too shall prosper, you too shall prosper, and our belief is that that's true of us as followers of Christ, that we're supposed to be seeking that shalom of the city everywhere we?
Speaker 2:are, which is more, glenn, than just the absence of conflict. But is shalom, that holistic view, that holistic harmony, harmony of people?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm sorry, continue You're really you're hitting all the right notes there, brian. I mean that's really true, because without peace there can't be prosperity. Right, and when you know, the most violent places in our city here in Minneapolis are also the places of the greatest poverty, businesses won't come into those places where there's gunshots every day. That's not a good place for business to conduct. It's just too chaotic. So as Christians, we're called to come into those places that are chaotic, and part of the redemptive message is restoration, and part of the redemptive message is restoration where lives are restored and businesses and economies are restored and we begin to create opportunities for people to have family supportive wage jobs and there's all kinds of important things that need to happen. But anyway, you asked me about Good Cities and I'll just say this that Good Cities is known for our leadership development work across the country.
Speaker 4:We've most recently done work in Kansas City, missouri, where the mayor's office had developed a beautiful plan to end homelessness called Zero KC, and while it had been developed, they didn't have a good implementation plan, and so the mayor's office, together with the Salvation Army, called us to come in and help them, pull together 28 nonprofits that were working with the homeless, along with several foundations and a number of business leaders and government agencies and begin to make plans to fulfill the Zero KC Plan, which is like a 50-page document with about 250 goals way too many goals but we help them begin to learn how to do collective impact and faith-based and secular organizations actually were working together and this is something for the common good, where you're helping people come out of homelessness and having a roof over their head and finding a job that pays a living wage finding a job that pays a living wage. If we work together and don't compete against each other all the time for the resources that are needed, we can help people get back on their feet and begin to become productive. Employees have healthy families, begin to really contribute where before they were a drain on the city's resources. So that's happening now in Kansas City. We finished that work last spring there and they're moving ahead. They've had five meetings.
Speaker 4:We did three meetings with them. They've had five meetings now since we left. They're still. They're working it out so that people are getting off the streets. We did similar work in Orlando, florida, and Miami Florida not long ago. So I mean, god is using us and homelessness today has become one of the biggest problems that every city and community faces. Now we're called good cities, but we'll also work with smaller communities too that may not even consider themselves a city. I know that's important in Mississippi.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I'm sure there's some listeners here that's thinking to themselves well, we hope to see some good towns too.
Speaker 4:Yeah good towns exactly. Well, I want to say that the Bible has this gigantic city, but, my gosh, the kingdom's. The kingdom is present in every community, in in small ways, in large ways, and we're so glad to be able to do it so.
Speaker 2:Netty and I were doing a piece of good city's work here in the twin cities recently, yeah, yeah before before you jump into that work, tell, tell me a little bit, or tell the, tell the audience a little bit that's listening in. Tell us a little bit about Nettie Winters and Glenn Barth's friendship. How did this get started? And, by the way, we're 20 minutes into this conversation. Nettie Winters hasn't said a word. I think that might be a record. We need to document this somewhere archive, call Guinness Book of World Records to find out if this is indeed a world record. But feel free, nettie, to chime in and talk about the relationship and friendship that you and I were doing with Mark and how y'all got started. Yeah, you are really really cute.
Speaker 3:You know, really really cute. Yeah, and you know alluded to that to begin with in terms of him coming down and helping us do Katrina, and from that grew a relationship. Glenn invited me to be a part of Tipmakers when he was there and we did work together there. He came to Mississippi and helped do Tipmakers and other things across the state and so over the years we joined together to work in South Carolina and I even visit him here in Minneapolis to do some work together as we talk about dashboards and other things. Oh my God, yeah, yeah. So he and I partnered together to go to. That's my love way was right there, nettie. Yeah, yeah, do what now?
Speaker 2:That's my little way was right there, nettie, yeah, yeah, do I now the dashboard. It was right there, dashboards and strategic planning.
Speaker 4:Hang in there for a minute so you feel comfortable on this call. You know, I want to tell you we had a good friend of ours, wes. What was Wes's name?
Speaker 3:He's a good friend. Oh Wes, what was Wes's name? He's a good friend. Oh yeah, he knew the line.
Speaker 4:He was getting his PhD at Baylor in social sciences and he came to Good Cities and he said you know, wouldn't it be exciting if we could measure a number of different factors in cities and communities that would help, you know, really lift up the indicators that would show that they're a healthy, flourishing city for their citizens? And he came to us and was using the Microsoft. What's Microsoft BI, right? Mm-hmm? You ever use that Microsoft BI? I have not used it yet. No, I have not. And then he combined that with a mapping tool from Esri, which most governments use.
Speaker 2:I have not used Esri. I have little old fat glib that I used to be a CAD GIS manager back in my Army Corps of Engineers days, so I'm familiar with those tools.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was Wes Furlong. Thank God for digital equipment here. It gets us right in. That's terrible, you know. That shows why artificial intelligence is so important to those of us who are losing our memories. What, what, what, what what A little compliment.
Speaker 3:Excluded all right, what, what? I guess you're waving my hair, listen, brad. You know. I mean I served a number of years on the dance board, but more importantly again, I spent a lot of time together on the side of the car and doing free conference call dot coms oh my God Updates and things on Katrina we got. We had an opportunity to get to know each other at a deeper, deeper level. You know, when you spend time with people in the car, over several hundred miles in some days. We did that, yes, so we had fun together. You need to ride with Glenn sometime. He can teach you how to play. I love the. You know those guy thing on the side of the road, those little rumble strips you run the tires over on the. You know those guy things on the side of the road, those little rumble strips you run the tires over. Yeah, and he could play a tune on that.
Speaker 3:You know, I remember one day we were coming from Columbus and again he had one of those things A gentleman in the back of the car with the raised up guy between the seats. He was like, sir, are you all asleep? And Gia said no, I'm just playing sleep. He was like, sir, y'all asleep?
Speaker 1:And Gia said no, I'm just playing music.
Speaker 3:He'd go back out and say you don't understand it too. It's sort of we're important, we are friends beyond all the work or professional things that we do together. We're just friends. That's right. We pray for each other, pray for each other's families and I think that fast friend thing that Glenn talked about earlier on, when Katrina hit, god just connected our hearts together. They've been connected ever since. Yes sir, we enjoy each other's comedy, we enjoy doing the work together. We did a piece on earlier this week and we didn't do it any practice on it, but the audience thought my God man, how long it take y'all to put that together. So I didn't want to tell them about the first five minutes. We went into it. But we have that kind of relationship and friendship which I think exemplifies what the body of Christ should know.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen.
Speaker 2:Nettie, you touched on the work that you guys are currently doing there this week in Minneapolis with a group of churches, an initiative called Churches United. It's my understanding, glenn, that the imp impetus to kind of spark for this work began back in May May May 2020 with the with the tragedy of George Floyd there in the city. Talk to me a little bit about you know, because, of course, when you're, when you're in the thick of something like this, there's the opinions that people get from the outside, because we're watching the news and we have all sorts of thoughts as it relates to how we view it from the outside, but then there's the actual people, the people that are in the trenches, that are in the thick of it. Talk to us a little bit about what maybe we didn't understand about the George Floyd tragedy from the outside, and then talk to us a little bit about the work that you and Nettie are doing with a collection of churches to address some of the arrests and some of the tensions that really bubbled up to the surface during that time.
Speaker 4:One of the things that can really change a city. Sometimes can be a tragedy, but it's often a catalytic moment. When something happens, it's out of the ordinary and it calls the people to come together to do something, to respond. And honestly, I think where I was, I was away from our city when the George Floyd tragedy happened and I was with a sheriff from another city as part of their leadership team and I asked him what he thought about what happened to George Floyd. He said that never should have happened, and I think that was the spirit within the Christian community. He said that never should have happened, and I think that was the spirit within the Christian community. And geography and economics and fear to separate and divide the body of Christ, don't leave out ignorance. Ignorance, that's right. And they had lived as separate parts of the body of Christ and now they realized they needed to respond together to this moment of terrible injustice. Terrible injustice that the world could see that the Minneapolis Police Department was out of control and George Floyd's murder at the hands of Chauvin this out-of-control officer who was training younger officers, by the way that day, I mean it just showed that, systemically, racism was rampant within that police department. I mean, this wasn't the first time we'd seen it here in the Twin Cities. In the Twin Cities, you know, philando Castillo had been killed not long before that and Jamar Clark not long before that, and the things that we always saw was that the police officers had a great spirit of fear whenever they seemed to approach an African-American that was surrounded by their community. A lot of times, and in Jamar Clark's case, he's trying to get to the back of an ambulance where his girlfriend's about to be taken away because she was at a birthday party for her, but she broke her ankle, and he comes up to the back of it and is pounding on it because he wants to go with her, I think, to the hospital. Police pull him away and he resists and within a millisecond he's shot dead right on the spot. At that point the Jamar Clark killing created about two and a half months of protest in the street. So this wasn't the first protest.
Speaker 4:When George Floyd came along, I mean, there was a real outrage about what a hair trigger it seemed like the Minneapolis Police Department had when it came to policing the black community. And so what can I say about George Floyd, except that this happened, and at a church in North Minneapolis, which is where there's a concentration of African Americans living in our city. There's a church there called Shiloh Temple and one of the leaders in Churches United is Bishop Richard Howell. He leads that church.
Speaker 4:Some of the suburban pastors of megachurches realized that they had been standing too far away from the black community Silence, silence. And so they said what can we do to come alongside you in this time? And Bishop Howell was very good in beginning to help them find ways that they come together. In beginning to help them find ways that they come together. At first there was real tension between the black and white pastors as they began to talk, because the black pastors of course wanted the white pastors to call a meeting with them to talk about justice. And the white pastors said what we'd like to do is come together and pray, and so they had to work out.
Speaker 2:This conversation happens pretty often, doesn't it?
Speaker 4:It's amazing and they did come together and they called a joint meeting of the black and white churches. That George Floyd event caused them to realize they had allowed, for all kinds of bad reasons, they had allowed themselves not to fulfill the call and the very well-expressed will of Jesus Christ that we would all be one. And you know, jesus prayed for it. He prayed that love would be at the core of our relationships. He taught that. In fact, we just celebrated that on Maundy Thursday. A new command I give you that you love one another just as I have loved you. That's what Maundy Thursday is about. If your listeners don't know it, it's not about a dinner, it's about love. That's what Maundy Thursday is meant.
Speaker 4:If your listeners don't know it's not about a dinner, it's about love. That's what Monday, thursday, is meant to be. You know Holy Week and Jesus promised.
Speaker 2:So you'll repeat service sacrifice after all.
Speaker 4:And just too often now, brian, we allow for all kinds of excuses to be separate from one another and we don't make enough reasoned responses to Jesus' prayer. If Jesus prayed for something, as Christians, don't you think it's our responsibility to live it out? He prayed for us to be one John 17. And he doesn't leave a lot of options. And then Paul, the most successful early missionary of the church, and all the letters of Paul that compose the New Testament. His major message was that the body of Christ would be multicultural, Absolutely, and it would be Jews and Gentiles that means everybody and that reconciliation happens first between us and God. The minute you're reconciled, you're part of a new family, and that new family means that you're part of people who were one of people before, and you become a people together when you listen and love one another and address critical issues.
Speaker 4:So the pastors I'm going to tell you some pastors fell away shortly after those first prayer meetings, and that happened. I mean, those pastors even said at this recent meeting you know what, when there's a crisis in the community, our response is to come together and pray and then, after we prayed, we go away again and we forget about things until there's another big event and then, when there's another crisis, we come together and pray. At that point, you know, these pastors in our Churches United meeting said we can't live like that anymore. We have to be concentrating on how we build the relationship so that, when a crisis happens, people look to the church, not to some other organization out there, but they look to the church because they know we're meeting, we're praying, we're looking for the peace and the prosperity of the city and the prosperity of the city.
Speaker 3:You know, brian, when I talked to the pastors and they talked about that, one of the things that stands out to me is that not only can we live like that, but also, you know, it exposed the church in a way that had never been exposed before. And then the pandemic comes along and really exposes the church for what it really is as it relates to that, and so we find that we come together to pray around an event or something like that to happen, but you know, on an ongoing basis, we don't have that, and on an ongoing basis, we don't have that. And on an ongoing basis, we don't have disciples. We have membership, we have church attendance, we have, you know, check the block. And when these pastors decided they were going to do this, some more people stepped away within those congregations and said you know you're too woke or you know that's not what we need to be doing in terms of that.
Speaker 2:So you know, just like Glenn said, just operating according to Jesus' command, loving one another as we love ourselves, sacrifice sermon on the mouth, good Samaritan type theology. Because we've been poorly discipled. We just hear things that the Bible's preaching and teaching us and we say, well, that's woke. It's like what are we talking about? Unless you're calling woke what Jesus was saying 2,000 years ago? Yeah, that's the Bible.
Speaker 3:It's just the Bible. Yeah, you preach one of his parables and they say where you get that libert thinking from right? No, I got that from Jesus. Well, you're going to be preaching that.
Speaker 3:So we have moments that people come to grips and understand that they know they're not cut out to be disciples, followers of Jesus Christ. Right, and the sad commentary is that when they signed up they should have known that that's what they were signing up for. And so we find, with the pressure of incidents like the George Floyd incident and other things, we find that people rather no, let's go to a more comfortable place, a more congenial place, a more place of peace and happiness, where they really don't know what that means. But just don't confront me with this stuff, and you know we'll be all right, you know. And so these churches had the courage to stand up.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm reminded of Acts 5.20, where the angel delivered him out of the gym and he says you know, go and speak to the people of these issues of life. And so these pastors and churches have come together to say we're going to speak, we're going to stand, we're going to speak and we're going to pay the price. I'm telling you they're paying the price for it. There are. I mean not in the sense of funding us to do it, but in the sense of what it costs to them, as people reject them or leave or abandon them in a sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you People reject them or abandon them in a sense. Yeah, I'm sorry, glenn, you guys have hinted at that. Talk a little bit about. You know, obviously, in protecting those pastors, those leaders and their church names, we're not interested in that, but just talk a little bit about the price that they've had to pay in summits.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, it's interesting. I was surprised when Bishop Howell in our first meeting and unfortunately Nettie couldn't be there because of some family health issues. But in the very first meeting Bishop Howell shared that even in his congregation people called him too woke, him too woke and they were leaving. Some of his parishioners were leaving because they felt like he was trying to build the bridges between black and white Christians and to serve Christ in the midst of this terrible circumstance. But we had two pastors of megachurches One megachurch said pastors of megachurches. One megachurch said and they made this statement before the current pastor was even called that they thought about moving out because their community was changing and their community was becoming more diverse. So they said, well, maybe we should move out further where our church can be kind of like it was. And the current pastor at that time his name was Steve Gould. He said, no, I think we're called to stay right where we are and minister to the people who are in this community. And he did that.
Speaker 4:But as George Floyd came up, I think that the thing that happened with the pastor who's currently there was that he took on that vision of trying to minister to the people who are currently there. But he also made some very clear biblical statements about what justice looks like in the midst of the George Floyd experience, and he's a very biblical pastor. He's teaching the Bible and he would have people come up to him right before he was going to preach and come into the sanctuary and he had one guy come up to him because actually they have a diverse congregation. It's not just black and white. We have about 165 languages spoken in the home in Minneapolis and St Paul. So he had some Arab Christians in his midst and a church member came up to him and said Wow, pastor, I just want to say to you that when this church is bombed by those Arabs, you'll have blood on your hands.
Speaker 4:And these people made very public confrontations of pastors as they would leave. They would say you would say you, you become too woke, and they would shout it out at pastors and they're calling the other. You know congregational members who might believe, like they were, that you're too woke, probably 8,000 to 10,000 member churches that lost over 1,000 members after George Floyd's killing and I think even more. I know they've had to cut staff, but the thing is, is that these pastors who are the leaders? At first, they were just blown away. That one pastor I told you about. He said, I think what I came to realize was, after all these years of pouring biblical knowledge into our members, we weren't doing a very good job of discipleship, because they should know the church is meant to be diverse. What's wrong with this picture? And the other pastor that I think about is, you know, joel and Joel. He's become more bold about his proclamation of what the church should look like and how we should be behaving and how we're going to reach out and develop these relationships.
Speaker 3:You know, brad, as is here in Minnesota as well as the Mississippi. What I find interesting is that in challenges of adversity and difficulties and those things, pastors do one or two things, or churches do one or two things. They either flee or they fight and in this sense, these churches have chosen to fight both within and without. That's sad commentary, but you know, you got both what's outside as well as inside to fight with it and be challenged with. But these pastors have decided to do that and really the truth be told and be very candid about it, is that if all the pastors would do what we've been called to do as pastors, we would have this difficulty, challenge coming long before an incident. You know, in terms of when you buckle down and say you're going to make disciples of folks.
Speaker 3:I've had people to say every now and then when I was pastoring and we'd get into discipleship, get into disciplining the church. I preached 18 months and taught 18 months on disciplining the church and I had people to lead because, number one, you don't take all this, you don't need to spend the time on it, yeah, but y'all fight with one another, y'all don't know how to handle differences and discussions, and so that's what I was led to do. But you know, when you dig down deep what I call a deep dive into the divide, deep dive into the cyber shield, deep dive into difficult circumstances you get what you get you get. You know you get wet, you know you can't dance around in the shadow of water. So you know, he told Peter, launch out into the deep. And so if you're going to address what Jesus wants us to address, you got to take this deep dive. And these churches decided they're committed to taking the deep dive and to doing really what they feel God is leading them to do, not only in the moment but for the long term.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know I mean what you guys are talking about is so powerful for me because the incidents oftentimes serve as the primary catalyst, when for the church they can be an auxiliary catalyst or an additional catalyst. But for the church the catalyst has to be love. And that's why you have this kind of start-stop so many times with these incidents, where people get a lot of energy mustered up because the news media has flown into it, because the communities are protesting and marching in the streets and neighborhoods are outraged and so, and so you get leaders and you get churches that say, hey, we got to do something, we got to respond, and so they ratchet up the intensity to respond. But if that's the primary catalyst, then it's not going to be sustained. The primary catalyst starts with John 17.
Speaker 2:Jesus praying Father, I pray that they be one, as you and I are one, and us having that rooted deeply in our hearts and saying, hey, if our God and our Savior wants that, then we want that. That's what keeps you going. When everybody else goes off, when the news cameras turn off and the media fades and the stories fade, it's still this beating, this pulse, that says Jesus wants this, so I want this. And so oftentimes, like you said, you see that energy getting stirred up and then it dissipates because the primary catalyst is off. And so we, you know, as a church, you know, to you guys point, we really got to get to the heart of what it means to follow Jesus, which means to walk in his love.
Speaker 2:You know, paul, paul prayed in Ephesians three. I pray that you'd be strengthened, um, I kneel before the, I kneel before the father, the, you know who, who every family on earth has been named, and I pray that you be strengthened through the spirit in your inner being, in order that you might be rooted and grounded in love. And so he prays for a power, and that power is for us to walk in love. Right, and that's what's driving this. And when that's what's driving it, then that's where the courage comes. We talk about needing to reach the nations, and they still open our front door and we have these crazy things that some people are saying about them.
Speaker 3:It's just yeah, you know, brian, when I think about these instances, like George Floyd, the upheaval of what takes place, I'm finding that and I'm beginning to think in my mind. I'm finding that the upheaval is about quieting it down more than it is about resolving it. I'm thinking that you know you again talked earlier about the lack of conflict doesn't mean it's peaceful, right, we are comfortable, we don't like uncalled, we don't like inconvenience, we certainly don't like to get outside our conference. Also, when something disrupts that, we get up in the hubs. And I don't know whether we are fighting for the status quo or fighting for change. And I think sometimes people are fighting for the status quo and when they see this is not going to happen, that's when they, you know, flee the situation or turn or do something else or just become silent altogether.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking about the conflict we hear about around the world. You know, the stuff that we're facing in America or in North America is a cave walk compared to 24 hours of bombing, and not just for a few days, or to 24 hours of bombing, not just for a few days or a few weeks. Man, I'm trying. Year after year, generation after generation, these people are faced with persecution, not just bad stuff or saying you're going to be responsible for the bombing or whatever. I'm trying acquisitions is one thing, but those people are at, they're bombing, they're shooting, they're killing. I thought this is 24-7.
Speaker 3:Some people in the world don't know any other way other than the way we are talking about. All their lives there's been some kind of conflict of those things happening, and so I think that's really what we're talking about here. And so we want to get back to convenience, we want to get back to comfortable, and you know, I heard a preacher say the other day I thought it was really cute he says comfort of the couch and safety of the sofa. I think that describes us very well in terms of how we want things. I call it bedside and math and all of those things we like that. The pandemic and Zoom and live streaming really talk about the safety of the sofa and comfort of the couch and all of those things that we can get what we need without ever getting out of our pajamas and just, you know, relax and do it. But that ain't what Christianity is all about, man. You know, from my perspective, if we would read the first two chapters of Acts, when Jesus gave him the commandment to go be my witnesses here, and it's better than matter to the uttermost parts of the world. If persecution and difficulty hadn't changed, we'd still be in Jerusalem, right, right.
Speaker 3:So I think these incidents what do you want to call them? Some get high visibility, more than others, but we got this going on 24-7. Than the others, but we got this going on 24-7. It just don't get the news and the Instagrams and the TikToks and the cameras running, but it's happening. It's happening, man, when I walk around the inner city in Jackson or in Minneapolis, or just pick a city, it's there, but we're doing everything we can.
Speaker 3:I'm reminded and I'm going to let Glenn talk here, but I'm reminded when the blind bottom ass was yelling, the son of David and all the religious folks said be quiet, you know Jesus is coming through and he was saying even more. That's why he was out. He heard Jesus was coming by. Man, he didn't want to be missed and so we got crying out for Jesus and we're saying we love words, we want to restore people for Jesus, right, and Jesus comes home and people start crying out for him.
Speaker 3:Don't take all that, be quiet, be quiet. Don't ever air it. We'll go hide somewhere. That's right. These churches have decided they're no longer going to be in the shadows of silence or ignorance or fear or inadvertently or what I say inadvertently but indirectly promote hate. Peter made that mistake one time. He told Jesus you know, jesus, come here, step aside, I need to talk to you. And he said you don't want to do this. And Jesus said to him get behind me Satan. And there was a lot of good intentions, of being woke, and you know we don't need to do all of this kind of stuff is we're getting voice to the devil and we don't even recognize that we're doing that?
Speaker 2:Wow, wow, wow. I'm 52 minutes in. I promised, I promised Nettie Winters that I would finish in time to get him on a plane flight back to Mississippi. Glenn, give us a final word as you reflect.
Speaker 3:A minute ago you were concerned that I wasn't talking. Now you sound like my relatives, man. When I was growing up they said we thought you'd never talk. Then, when you started talking, we thought you'd never stop. Come on, glenn I love it.
Speaker 2:What's the final word as you reflect on your work there in Minneapolis with Churches United, with Nettie? Give us a final word what's bringing you hope as you think about the work that you guys have been doing for the last couple of months?
Speaker 4:Well, first of all, let me just go back to that word, catalyst, one last time. There are catalytic moments that happen in the life of every city, every community, even some that are national. I know, for instance, when Rodney King was beaten in Los Angeles, it affected my work in Muncie, indiana, when I was a pastor there, and I began to call together the black and white pastors in the community that began to meet and to say what is it we need to do to make sure that everyone you know that kids are doing well in school number one.
Speaker 4:And we looked at, you know, community policing and firefighting. How do we help the police and fire departments look more like our city? And that's a small city. You know, it's not a large city Muncie's about 80,000 people but it was important that we did that. The Black and White Ministerial Association, like many, were meeting separately and they still do meet separately in many cases. We started to have at least the leaders of those groups meet together in a public place where everyone could see us and where we could talk about the issues of our city and address it.
Speaker 4:Why? Because there was a catalytic moment that happened thousands of miles away and I just want to say, when a catalytic moment happens, be in touch with the Holy Spirit. It is an opportunity to call the body of Christ together, not for the short term, but for the long term. Think about this the catalytic moment of George Floyd resulted in Churches United, which is a small beginning to what we hope will be a big movement. It's just seven churches. We have the teams of five, two pastors and three lay people from each team, each church. And what's the date now? And what's the date now? We just finished our third day and a half session and now we're in 2024, and we're near the anniversary of George Floyd, that's four years afterwards. So the catalytic moment meant that some champions for racial healing and for the results in community impact they haven't given up on it and now they're saying we're going to take a small beginning like this and it's our hope and prayer that as more churches come to be involved in Churches United it, we will begin to impact not just the increasing the social capital between black and white Christians, but where we learn to love each other and have meals together.
Speaker 4:But ultimately the economic life of the city gets impacted. I want to tell you what we have a shortage. What do they call it? We call we have a we we. We have a shortage of workers in the twin cities. You know how many people from jackson want to move up north to minnesota, where it's 10 below zero in the winter? Nobody, nobody.
Speaker 3:But what we realized was hey Brian, if they're looking for a raise of hands, I'm setting them up.
Speaker 4:But I want to say this that we're a gateway city to the world and people from tropical areas of the world like Cambodia and Somalia. We have the most Somalians in the Twin Cities outside of Mogadishu. We actually have more people who are Hmong than Cambodia and Laos combined. We have 165 languages spoken in a home. So people from all over the world come here and they find a future and a hope. We always are. I would say that a catalytic moment can result in something big Absolutely, and so it doesn't have to start big, though Right. What you want is a committed core, and even this committed core, nettie and I can tell you right now our hopes were much bigger than what we saw develop. What developed was, I would say, a lot of great opportunities for people to really get to know each other and love each other. But, uh, there's a long way to go from here before people see real economic impact in in the lives of the poor, but it gives us.
Speaker 2:No, it gives us.
Speaker 2:I heard it once before, guys, that I heard this preacher pastor say this years ago that most of us would like to perceive the Christian life as moving from adrenaline rush to adrenaline rush to adrenaline rush.
Speaker 2:But most of the Christian life is the adrenaline rush to catalytic moments and then, after that, the steady heartbeat. And the steady heartbeat is the power of the spirit, the power of the gospel. The rooting in the word, the rooting in prayer that holds those catal churches and those leaders and those pastors together is the power of the spirit activating love in us, deepening our, our resolve to continue to walk this thing out for Jesus, you know. And so, when everybody else is long gone, those same pastors will remain, because there's, because there's something in the power of the spirit that fortifies them, and so and so. That's, that's the hope and that's the prayer, not just for Minneapolis, obviously, but we down here in Mississippi have the same hope and the same prayer for the work that we're doing here as well. And so, eddie, I tried to give Glenn the last word, but I'm going to give you the last word, because it looks like you've got it.
Speaker 3:I just wanted to say you know, dan said it really well, but all I want to just piggyback on what he said in terms of the comments we got coming out of this was like you know, this changed my whole perspective. It changed In some comments we could tell that it went from hopelessness to now I have hope and I'm going to get re-energized and get back in the fight if I was ever in the fight. So we see God doing a great thing, not only in this city, but across the nation now. This discipleship term is jumping in hot beat now and so we're finding out, based on the pandemic and incidents like George Floyd and all of that. We got to do a better job of discipling folks, and so I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 3:I'm excited to be a part of the shield with the good cities and part of what is happening in the city. I'm excited that we're strengthening. See, one of the things about what we've done with Church United and somebody said it in a group is that I am more now of cooperating and doing what I need to do in my church. Just help me be a better member. They were a member, but I'm a better member, a better leader in my church now because of what happened. So I tell the pastors they get a WMA me out of this in terms of their leaders are getting equipped to be real leaders as well in terms of that, and so we're excited about what God is doing here and across this nation as it relates to the body of Christ. Amen, amen.
Speaker 2:Glenn Nettie. Thank you guys so much for carving out some time. I know y'all have had some long days so it means everything to me that y'all carved out a little time talked to our audience about the good work that the Lord is doing through you up in Minneapolis. And Nettie Winters safe travels as you head back to Mississippi and we pray the Lord's blessing on both of you guys. This is Brian Crawford, with Living Reconciled with my good friends Nettie Winters.
Speaker 1:Glenn Barth, signing off saying God bless. Thanks for joining Living Reconciled. 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.