Dear Friends,
Recently, Pastor Tony Evans said, “Seminars are not reconciliation, it’s information…reconciliation is service.”
Pastor Evans said, “This means you connect with other families who may be different from you, you not only get to know them, but guess what you do? As families together, you go serve another family that is worse off than you.”
I am writing to you with a sincere and burdened heart. The Grand Rapids Dream Center has had the privilege and opportunity to grow and be a part of a diverse community of race, tribe, tongue, and nation in Grand Rapids. If you haven’t experienced our city, or the GRDC community, it is a beautiful tapestry of diversity and culture. It has created hundreds of close relationships which reflect the GRDC work and just doing life together. So you can imagine my heart, and in fact, our hearts, when we see the pain and injustice that has occurred with George Floyd and many others. It hurts on a number of levels because it was not only the injustice, but how the injustice happened. I have personally been moved to tears. “Why so much,” you ask? It hurts so much because of the many African Americans and brown skinned relationships we have in our community, and the city of Grand Rapids at large. At times I have personally seen and heard the injustices play out to my brown skinned friends. I acknowledge as a white man I have almost never experienced anything like this. It’s real, it cuts deep, and it hurts. I could never imagine having to coach my kids to talk to police in a certain way because of their skin complexion, or how to act in certain places simply because of their skin tone. And this would not only be coaching them on how to act, but in doing so to possibly save their lives?
That said, Bishop TD Jakes said, “90% of police officers are good people, I have a lot of them in my church black and white. Good people for a little bit of money put themselves in harm’s way every night to make sure we are ok. They’re not all bad people, we need to stop generalizing where we think all of anything is bad, there are a lot of good people out there. But, you can’t be a good one of those and see a bad one and look the other way.”
I believe because we have experienced diverse peoples and culture in GRDC, this conversation is not new to us. We have had the honor to sit at the feet of some dear African American friends who have shared what this is like and how it has affected them for years and even decades. Because there is listening and understanding, we have continued to create a relationship culture that allows these conversations to take place 24-7. When you are friends with someone, you stand with them in their pain while standing up for them when harm comes their way or could come their way. So the question is, what do we do now? Now that a nation hopefully has awoken to these realities in a more meaningful way? We believe the answer lies in the Kingdom of God!
“Now all things are of God, Who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” II Corinthians 5:18-19 NKJV
Our downfall as a nation and society is the result of sin. Racism is sin. In fact, these sins run deeper than just “skin color”. But here is the good news, when we are reconciled to God Who graciously forgives our sin because of His sacrifice, we can become one with Him. This is an undeserved grace and mercy that allows us to be in unity with God. This is the same love that can empower us to have reconciliation with our fellow man and overcome deeper issues linked to the sins of racism as we work on fixing it wherever we find it in our society and in our civil systems.
But how does this happen for an existing church of God’s people? Reconciliation takes place through relationships. This has been a major learning curve for us all the last six years with GRDC. We have learned that for us to get to know one another in different communities, we have had to be intentional to reach out on a consistent basis. This has also required a persistence to break out of our comfort zone by going into communities where we don’t know anybody and some people might not look the same as us. We are so glad that God’s grace has enabled us to expand our community. All of the diverse peoples allow us to become bigger, better people who are loving big together. We are experiencing exactly what Pastor Evans said by being a part of a community that has relationships with many differences, who are joined together to do service to make an impact in people’s lives.
Reconciliation starts with COMMITMENT to relationships with those who are different than you. Going forward, GRDC is committed to continue to maintain and grow a diverse culture. We have intentionally been getting into conversations with our African American and brown skinned friends, asking them how they feel with the recent events. We are committed to playing a part as God enables us to make a difference and to stand up where unrighteousness or injustice exist in a righteous way.
I don’t write this letter today as one with all the answers or saying we have this all figured out in a perfect GRDC community. No, not at all. We still need to grow in several areas. But one thing I do know, we do life and have relationships on almost a daily and definitely a weekly basis in a diverse community. Our service is founded on the love of Jesus Christ.
My heart encourages you to pray, repent in areas where God might be challenging you, and to press into relationships in areas where there are different people. And, be committed!
I also want to recommend that you would take a humble posture of listening to powerful African American leaders in the body of Christ who are speaking out of experience and from Biblical truth so we can understand and make a difference.
Sincerely,
Greg and Leah Molchan
Recommendations:
Pastor Tony Evans: https://youtu.be/O7y4RD43vKA
Bishop T.D. Jakes: https://youtu.be/O7y4RD43vKA
https://georgemossmusic.com/updates/blog/dear-white-friends
