Dear Church
Dear Church, Do You Serve a God Who Sees?
I write to you not as a theologian but as a parishioner, a follower, and a friend. I acknowledge that while the “church” is made up of each of us; it is also the institution to which I address today. We, the body of Christ, are called to such a time as this. Unrest, pandemic,…
Read MoreDear Church, The Virus Attacking the Body of Christ
Dear Church, I am writing to you, sheltering in place with my family, from my home in Washington, D.C. in the midst of the 2020 Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has impacted the entire planet. Our world has changed, and it will never be quite the same again. Nor should it. My prayer is that the…
Read MoreDear Church, Make Room for Lament
Dear Church, I sit and write this letter in the confines of my home as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to sweep through the entire world. If you wake up every morning only to realize that this was not all a bad dream, I am with you. If your voice does not resonate with the inspirational…
Read MoreDear Church, Choose We Not I
Dear Church, I am always filled with a sense of wonder when I read the scriptural depiction of early church unity and the selfless manner in which first-century Christians served one another. When I graduated from architecture school just under four years ago, I searched for opportunities to apply this community ethic and to serve…
Read MoreDear Church, Resist Righteously
Dear Church, I am a righteous resistor. There are a number of passages that could relate to Black History Month, to the struggles that people of color and the marginalized have faced for centuries. I thought about the Ancestors, who were enslaved (but not slaves), who were persecuted, but knew without a shadow of a…
Read MoreDear Church, Practice the Gospel
Dear Church, I’m not a local to New Orleans. I have lived here almost 6 years now, but it’s not my native city, it’s not the culture in which I was raised. So there are certain customs and traditions that I wasn’t familiar with when I arrived, bits of New Orleans culture that I had…
Read MoreDear Church, Listen Beyond Your Racial Identity
I remember being perplexed five years ago by images I saw on the news of civil unrest in Ferguson, MO following the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man. I saw demonstrators destroying and setting fire to their own communities. “Who would do such a thing?” I wondered. I used that misunderstanding…
Read MoreDear Church, We are called to be reconcilers
Dear Church, You don’t have to do racial reconciliation alone. There’s a whole community ready, willing, and waiting for you to lead us through healing from the deep wounds we all have from institutionalized and systemic inequity. As co-leaders for National Community Church’s Racial Reconciliation small group, we have seen the power of a Christ-centered…
Read MoreDear Church, What Spaces Will You Create?
Dear Church, Lately, I have been pondering the question, “What drives my passion for racial reconciliation?” In 2002, my family moved to the suburbs of Charleston, SC from the projects of Queens, NY. I left an environment where race was freely discussed at home, school, and church to a place where the conversation of race…
Read MoreDear Church, Let’s Break Bread and Drink Wine
Dear Church, Like every good preacher’s kid, I was due a crisis of faith somewhere between my late-teens and early twenties. I would not say that my relationship with Jesus ever faltered but my relationship with his church certainly did. Now, I do not for a second regret or dismiss my Southern Baptist roots. I…
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