The Price of Faith

We can’t afford to not do this...

Yesterday I was on a Zoom call with leaders in my community who were open and willing to talk about race relations. The topic was regarding a program that taught structured conversation techniques to use dealing with difficult conversations. The program has been used across Georgia for corporations, communities, and individuals to lean into issues of gender, race, sexuality, environmental concerns, community development, and conflict resolution.

On the surface it seems to be a very useful tool to have difficult conversations. But that’s it. There is no goal in mind when having these. The conversation’s only purpose is to truly listen to one another. Kind of a scary thing in a community with a ton of type A personalities. 

I listened to the call. I didn’t hear anything new. We’ve been recycling the same script for quite some time. “We need to do something.” So we talk about needing to do something. But never actually do more than meet. And while this seems to be the same on the surface, having a goal or agenda is often a filter to check a box to say we did something and not to allow true transformation to happen. And transformation happens when we develop relationships with one another and see our story as one.

So we took a vote one by one. My response: “We can’t afford not to do this.”

Reconciliation

Reconciliation work is part of our calling. We are to be reconciled with God and with one another. And the cost for that reconciliation was paid with the life of God’s son. If reconciliation was worth that for us, then we can’t afford to not do everything possible to reconcile with one another.

Until Everyone Hears,

#prayer

#faith

#umc

#reconciliation