Christ In Culture

ultimately a man must be judged not on the basis of the color of his skin but the content of his character it takes the willingness to stand by and do what has to be done when it has to be done must not forget that our sisters and brothers are waiting for a bright beautiful future God so loved the world the black world but white world the yellow world and he loves us all the same well hello all of our friends at Victory Church as well as Eagles Nest church and all the others many who are joining us this weekend hey welcome out here I am so excited about what is happening today in the conversation that we are going to be able to have my name is johnson bui i'm the lead pastor here at Victory church sitting right next to me is Lee Jenkins he's the senior pastor of Eagles Nest Church in Alpharetta and he's done a lot of work around the city but especially in the North Fulton area of Atlanta here in the area of racial unity right next to him we have our friend Lecrae Moore who is here who is in incredible influence in the music industry in the world around us and you know I've kind of been tracking you from a distance Lecrae and just seeing that you have a lot to say that your voice is very important as we talk about racial issues and racial inequality I'm so excited to have you in the right over here we have our very own pastor Dennis rouse who's the senior pastor founding pastor here at Victory Church and he's been plowing this ground of racial reconciliation here in Atlanta for the last 30 years and so all that to say is that none of these men are strangers to this conversation and so I'm so excited about what today means and here just for clarity so we're all on the same page is that this is why we're here today we are here because what we see in the world around us is what we could call the boiling point of 400 years if we went back to 1619 that is the first time that men and women from Africa were brought into jamestown as slaves and that started this the this conversation right here and what we're seeing in the world around us is just four hundred years later from that and there's so many parts of that conversation that need to be had and hopefully we can get into some of that we're here today to affirm as the people of the Living God as the capital C Church of Jesus Christ the humanity the worth and the value of every single man woman and child we are here to counter maybe a little bit of that that other voice that says all lives matter yes absolutely all lives matter but what's important for today is to actually say with our lips that black life matters and especially the black men's life matters that black men are the ammaji o day they are also made in the image of God and this is something that we as the Church of Jesus Christ we have to talk about it has to be consistent and constant in our conversations it has to influence our lives our relationships the way we do ministry in the way that we do our lives and we are here today because this conversation matters we believe that the Church of Jesus has the authority to be able to speak on this and with that we have one of the if it should not be but it should be the most influential in the pivotal voice in the world around us and so we're also here today because we're remembering that countless men and women have lost their lives in an in just way and one of them his name was George Floyd and so as we begin this conversation today it's important for everyone watching to know that these aren't just conversations that happen publicly there are also conversations that happen behind the scenes in fact right here on this platform this past week at our victory Church staff meeting we had some of our staff members on this platform and we asked them what was going on in their mind from their perspective about the world around us and one of our executive pastors his name is Olin Holley had something profound and prophetic to share and as we start this conversation we want to start with what he had to share I woke up Thursday morning my wife gets up early to go out and run an exercise and I was there in the bed by myself around 5:30 in the morning and so I'm laying in the bed and I wake up with this soreness on the right side of my neck now I've had a stiff neck before when you're sleeping wrong but this was different and I'm like Lord what's up with this and I didn't know like yeah I don't think I slept wrong and so I just went into my Bible study that for that morning and in my study that morning I came across the scripture I had never seen before in Hebrews the 13th chapter and let me to say something staff I didn't know know how this was gonna flow today and I just asked I asked our graphics guy I just put this first I said hey just take this I don't know if it's gonna come up or not but just take it and so I don't want you to think that I have all this stuff figured out but the verse that I read when I was in my buck quiet time was remember also those being mistreated as if you felt their pain in your own bodies so I'm waking up with this pain in my neck and I'm like oh my goodness and in the moment I read that verse it was like the pictures that we've all seen with the iPhone of the officer on George Floyd's neck I see that vision right there but then it changed and it was like something you'd see in the movie Inception or the matrix the camera angle went from here and it's swung around and now I'm looking at it from George Floyd's view and I'm on the ground and I'm looking at these feet standing on a curb and I'm just hearing all the things that we heard on that video get off of him he can't breathe and so I'm in the bed with that vision and I said I'm like Lord I just can't imagine how that fell I can't imagine what was going on through George Floyd's mind I can't imagine that and then I since the Lord say something to me and I'm not gonna tell I have to show you what he told me I couldn't just say it so hang on just for a second Lord said something said something to me in that moment that was very interesting and and let me tell you again with the emotions I just described to you Ahmad Albury watching just mercy seeing George Floyd I had I'm thinking okay I'm kind of hyper emotional right now so I'm sure this is God or what I don't know what's going on so I get up out of the bed and I'm gonna get dressed and get ready for to get on his own call in the morning and I get in the bathroom and I turn on the light I mean I stand I'm standing in front of the mirror and here's what I saw when I was looking in the mirror if some of y'all remember this this is what George Floyd was wearing when he was killed now when I go to bed at night I have a drawer full of t-shirts and I don't care I just pull a t-shirt out so I'm standing in front of the mirror and when I see myself in the mirror I don't see myself I'm saying George Floyd and at that point I felt like now I'm gonna try to be emotional what the Lord said to me when I said god I can't imagine that what God said I don't want you to imagine it I want you to feel it so I sense the Lord saying here's why I was pushing back I sister thoughts they can go into your garage lay face down next to your car because if you remember he was laid facedown right next that police cruiser so I went walked out into my garage in the moment I closed the door behind me I meant think I'm just gonna be obedient gotta close the door behind me and I just start weeping and I said the Lord told me just to put my delight on what you did and I looked at all the see Toby curve and I heard he was a get off of ice it's too late they're just for a few minutes and my neck is hurting right now without somebody putting their near butt it's a I sat down and I said Lord what's all that about as you're asking that question Lord what's all that about and what the Lord I sense the Lord saying to me is that people are talking about the politics and the policies what the police did but they're forgetting about the person of George Floyd what are you feeling that moment I don't want people to miss it the person that experienced this and then it came back to this same verse that's not bad on the screen remember those if you felt the pain in your own bodies we all process differently I don't know what what how you have to process this and this wasn't something that I had figured out and plan to do except for the fact that I felt you had to see what I experienced versus me just telling you what I also sense the gods saying to me Gaza to me is that in moments like this if you don't have a personal connection to what's going on then you can't have a personal conviction to do something about it so my prayer is that me just be sharing what is my experience was I don't know I think all of us have an experience I pray that that creates the kind of connection in your life their results in a conviction that things cannot stay the same you know as we as we watch that I told all in this afterwards I said I've heard some of my friends say that that when a Matar burry was murdered in george floyd was murdered I felt like it was an attack on me but I had never seen it until that moment I'm just saying as a white man I've never seen it and I know each one of you you sit in a unique place even in society as black men as a white man and maybe just kind of let's begin the conversation right there saying as you see that how do you process that and how do you process what's happening in the world around us I want to start with you pastor just simply because Owens our friend and executive pastor here on staff known him for a long time what what what goes through your mind when you see that as and also as you turn and look at the world around us first of all I mean it's not the first time I've seen this but every time I see it it bothers me it really bothers me and you know I've I think sometimes I think well I know how black America feels you know I've been around enough black people in my life been talked to enough to see how they feel but I can't I can't get into that I haven't never been in that place where God took : at that moment and of all people in our staff Poland you know the most soft-spoken astute you know person and our staff he's he's not the kind of person you would normally think would become that broken by this by the circumstance and I'm thinking if that affected Olin in that way can you imagine how that affects all of black America and the thing that bothers me is that a lot of people like me we don't feel it you know I feel it but I mean generally speaking a lot of people in my my race don't feel the pain of black America and like he said in that video until you feel the pain and you allow yourself to be convicted in your heart about it you won't do anything to change it and I think that's where we are I think that's my biggest one of my biggest burdens for America right now that somehow through this tragedy that and I think it's I think it's starting to happen I think we are seeing people start to wake up to the reality of what's really going on and what has been going on for many many years but it's been a struggle it's been a struggle and I can't imagine not just that but can't imagine if you are black how difficult it must be to just constantly live with these incidents year after year after year after year and then finally maybe finally one time this one event everybody's suddenly paying attention but this has been going on for a long time and of course we didn't have video cameras capturing it for many many years but I think this is I'm processing it I'm trying to think okay what what can I do how can i how can I allow myself to feel this pain enough to really drive me into a an area of my life where I'll just give my life to change this to do something about it okay it's extremely painful it's a mixture of emotions and if I'm if I'm being 100% honest or not for the Holy Spirit living in me and transforming every part of my being I would probably feel nothing but pain and anger and I think you should feel anger or righteous kind of anger but I think my anger is wielded by the spirit and and it just you know I just sit there obviously I'm angry at the injustice and the moment of that life being unnecessarily taken but then I did but I just backtrack all of the historic wounds that I've just piled up and piled up and piled up and it feels like this feels like you working so hard to move forward and then and then this happens feels like my three-times great-grandmother was brought from africa at nine years old and was a slave and worked so hard and then she was freed and then you know moving down the lines of my great-grandmother who struggled and had no opportunities to my grandmother who had to leave school at 13 years old to to work to push so that her children could get a quality education in my mom who went through civil rights and couldn't even go to certain schools and finally I'm able to move forward and do some of the things that they couldn't do and then I get choked out on the street that's what it feels like that's what it feels like that's really I am heartbroken I am outraged but I'm not surprised and I wish I was surprised I've lived long enough I'm in my late 50s now and I never thought in 2020 that we would still be dealing with this and the reason I say still would still be dealing with this is because I have seen this my entire life I grew up in the south I grew up in Atlanta my parents were from South Georgia and I have been telling people for years especially my white friends what is going on and they wouldn't believe me it was always not all of them but many of them yeah but it was almost like we had to have proof and I couldn't prove it to him and then mobile phones came out and I we started saying things on video and I said finally there's proof and I thought that many of their hearts would be broken like mine and I thought many of them would show the kind of compassion that I thought a human being should show when you have proof and the compassion meter I thought if it was from zero to ten I thought it would at least be a ten and it probably went up a couple of points and it still wasn't good enough for some people so if this whole thing has just broken my heart but then there's another part of me and I've been a pretty calm person my whole life but I was outraged angry and I wanted to break something I wanted to kick something and so one of my good friends who's a white pastor here in Atlanta he said Leah can you explain this veloute and I couldn't really explain it very articulately except I said a part of me feels the same way they feel and so I feel helpless sometimes as a black man in America I feel like no matter what we say or what we do people just don't get it but here's the good part for the first time in my adult life I've had more white friends to call me I've seen more white people protesting I've seen more white people broken and showing compassion that I've ever seen in my life and so for the first time in my life I am encouraged and maybe we can tackle this problem together so as a black man I am discouraged more than I've ever been but believe it or not I am encouraged more than not ever I've ever been about this subject oh man you just you just mentioned that key word which is kind of the hop board right now looting right and you know we know how quickly the story can get hijacked we know how quickly the narrative can get kind of stolen and redirected to something else lecrae I'd like to ask you that is you kind of look around you see you know the the protest and then there's always opportunist in the midst of the protests and and it seems like that's what people are getting more upset about people are getting more upset about the looting than some of the other things that happen what's your perspective on that yeah as far as the diluting in the riots are concerned I do believe it's a very nuanced subject you know there's not like this clear-cut this is who is doing it this is why it's happening the first thing I would address to anyone who's questioning their their knee-jerk response is what do you have to say about this looting you know I think that their priorities are upside down we should be saying what do we have to say about this murder and and instead of addressing the outcome of the heinous crime that has taken place let's address the heinous crime that's taking place and so uh you know I kind of have a unique vantage point as it pertains to that I mean obviously we've seen some people inciting it some some some groups provoking it and in wanting it to happen for various different reasons um but I can speak to it from the vantage point of a kid who you know when I was a child I was brought to the Rodney King protests by my mother and um and I was so mad you know I was just so angry that I just found myself breaking anything that I could find around me and it wasn't because the people who owned the building in front of me did anything to me it was because I had no voice because I had no way to express the outrage and any and I was mad at a system that didn't see me and I thought maybe now you'll see me is almost like a temper tantrum that a a child throws because their parents just can't see them do you see me and and I was just talking to my son and he kept saying but Dad but Dad but Dad but Dad and because I'm the parent I can overpower him and I can say hush your mouth and listen to me and he just has to endure that even when he's right and I'm wrong and it just makes him mad he wants to storm upstairs and he just starts tearing up his room his old room why because he felt unheard and he felt like he didn't have a voice and maybe you know they'll see after this or I can express myself and then I've been a Christian and I've been in riots and seen it and was trying to quell it but I understood I understood that these were people who felt like they were voiceless in a community and so I'm not justifying it by any means but before we defend you know or or get on the defense about the looting in the rioting or on the offense excuse me let's be on the offense for the murder that has taken place that would be my you know can I just say something about this because I've been processing this a little bit thinking through how this diversion that's taking place with with the rioting and the looting how it's taking the attention off of the real issue the real problem and I think part of the part of the goal of a few people is to do that and I think what happens is the goal is to put to incite things in the in the community with a few people that are organized I was talking to a police officer the other day and he was in down in the midst of it he said they there's there's groups that come in from out of the state they start running towards a certain area to draw the attention of people everybody starts going there and then another group and another side is the one who starts doing the looting and then it puts all this attention of the media on a storefront with a bunch of black youth coming out with something from the from the store and so if you're sitting there in white suburban America and you're watching this you begin to just form all kinds of opinions and judgments about black America based on those visuals instead of understanding that that's just a diversion that's a of the enemy I mean that's one of the deceptions of the enemy that make think people to think that all black people although is given the opportunity they're gonna rob they're gonna steal they're gonna pillage and and when in fact the majority of the people that are down there are down there peacefully protesting and then this this group stirs it up and gets the diversion away from what's really happening which is whites and blacks together walking together in protests in a peaceful manner like Martin Luther King called for to try to achieve some kind of change in the community and so I feel like we need to say I don't justify Ludi and I don't think any of us on this stage justify looting but that seems to be the focus sometimes of the newscast that's trying to paint a narrative and take the the attention away from as you just said the actual murder of a young black man on top of a murder of another young black man on top of the murder of a young black woman and just on down the line and so I just want to say that to our church into Leigh's church into anyone else that's watching us that this is this is if you're really wanting to just to be a solution to this you can't as a Christian you can't allow your heart to buy into the narrative of what the media paints you have to really look at it soberly you have to process it soberly through the scriptures and think okay I'm not gonna give that I'm not gonna let this be an excuse why I can't change dr. Martin Luther King jr. said and Lecrae really alluded to this that length that Lou during looting is the language of the unheard and when people feel like they can't be heard I mean what are they supposed to do go knock on the office door and say hey I want a meeting with you can we meet in the conference room you think that that will accomplish anything no they feel unheard and it's not productive but at the same time they don't feel like going it going about it and the normal ways would be productive either so it brings attention so I did have a guy to call me he said well there's white guy said man looting is just playing into the stereotype that of what people already think about black men and so I kept trying to take him back to the to the real issue the real issue is not broken windows and broken doors and burned buildings it's a broken life it's a life that was snuffed out from us how can we care more and we shouldn't care but how Shu how can we care more about a broken window than a broken life so the problem with the looting thing is it the narrative starts to change especially with people who don't want to face what the underlying problem is the only thing I just wanted to add a just a thought for some people who struggle with this one of one thought is this is Martin Luther King Pete marched and protested peacefully he was still murdered colin kaepernick took a knee peacefully he was still banned and no one paid attention and they made an up world for what he did and so people feel like well what can we do to be heard and the other thing I would say is that's not to justify it but I would also say as Christians we're used to being stereotyped we know what this is we know the tricks of the enemy when someone says well the reason why I'm not a Christian is because all Christians are this way or all they do is this when we know that there may be some people in the name of Jesus who have done some heinous things but that's not who we are as a body and so I would I would use that same lens as when I'm thinking about the people out there protesting that there are some people who are doing some things that they shouldn't be doing but that's not who black people are that's not who the community of protesters are I think you said this so well earlier Lacroix you said what a good heart check is why are some people more upset about the looting than they are about a murder it's a really good heart check you know we're just talking about dr. King something else he said is that silence is betrayal and you're talking about a group of people who are crying out basically that our voice if not our voices have not been heard for a long time and you know dr. King also wrote to a silence primarily a white pastor you know and you know your silence is screaming what would you say or how could we talk about that where we can begin using our voices why is it important for us to talk about this and I'd also say this why is it important for us to continue talking about this because I believe that so many times the media drives the narrative and it feels like in about two weeks we're gonna be talking about something else so why is it important for us to talk about this now and to continue talking about it and what would you say to the ones who are not saying anything that's really I like to make the statement that you cannot cure what you will not confront how can we cure cancer by not talking about it so people say that well you're racist if you talk about racism if you stop talking about it it will go away that's ridiculous okay but we haven't wanted to confront this cancer this sin in America and we're getting the result of not confronting it the right way so I have been disappointed like dr. King was in the 1960s of the white Christian Church not because they have been perpetrators of this but because they have been silent now that is starting to change over the last few years and it has warmed my heart and I'm certainly encouraged by what I see now but in 2012 and 2013 when I saw what happened to Trayvon Martin and Walter Scott and Elton sterling in 2016 and Philander Castille and Sandra bland and I could go on and on and on for the most part my white brothers and sisters were silent or were diverting the conversation to something else but now I hear more voices and I'm encouraged because now we are confronting the issue and I believe as we confront it more we will get closer to a cure it won't ever be a cure because of the human heart however we should be much further along right now than where we are and so silence in this case is deadly yeah totally agree I think that first of all I is disappointing it's disappointing that after you know we can go down the line from every name he mentioned you know Rodney King Alton Stirling Trayvon Martin it's it's discouraging that we had to have the right angle the right video footage the right circumstances the right every jot and tittle had to be perfect for our white brothers and sisters to say okay okay this is wrong that's discouraging and so you know when we talk about silence I think sure there's a lack of silence now because of course this is wrong and because your silence or your voice does not cost you anything when everyone is saying something so if your voice doesn't cost you anything sure you'll say something but it's when your voice will cost you is when you have to count the cost of carrying that cross so when you have to count the cost of bearing one another's burdens and it costs you something then you're on the right track now you are truly being vocal and so I think especially you know in in America where our white brothers and sisters dominate culture your voice carries more weight your voice I mean a true story and literally a voice when I say voice is funny I was I was trying to rent a house and in Memphis Tennessee years ago my wife is a black woman she does not have a code-switch voice she didn't have a white voice that she can turn on she sounds very black and so we're trying to rent a house and she's like yes man I can't excuse me I like to rent this house and and it was very obvious as a black woman and they said oh I'm sorry this house is not for rent and I said no babe I just saw it and online is for rent and I said let me try something and I call and I said hello how are you doing yes this is Lee Moore I was calling about the house that you had for rent all of a sudden the house became open became available that voice got me through a door that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to get us through they would've been very embarrassed to have said that there's a house for it and when when we showed up they were like oh never mind so we you know what what I'm saying is that your voice does make a difference in our society and in our culture so I would say probably my greatest frustration pastoring this church for 30 years has been the lack of the white voice in this area especially especially in the church of all places and you know of course when you read the letter in the Birmingham jail for Martin Luther King it was his greatest frustration was with the white clergy and their apathy towards this cause and their unwillingness to step into the fray knowing that it would probably cost them people and I think when we made the decision years and years ago that we were gonna speak into this into this issue we knew it was gonna cost us something we knew it was gonna cost us a lot of people I say to people all the time we've had to go through thousands and thousands of people to get to the people we have now and and there is there's something about that that in my from my perspective I think that's Jesus I think that's what Jesus does I think Jesus he does what's right not what's popular he does what changes society not what accommodates society and so there I feel like for many of my pastor friends we need a little more courage there needs to be some courage now I mean it is interesting that as you mentioned that everything had to be just perfect for us at white America to believe that this was unjust because all the other ones well maybe he was committing a crime or he did this or he did I'm an armory he's you know he might have attacked that guy around the truck we don't know what he did on the other side of that truck there's always the way we view things is through the lens of our how we view things I mean it's just our life our culture and so I think that what I'm hoping and I'm praying for for right now out of this is that that many of the white leaders of America will not blend in to the Vitt role that we see in politics right now and we'll just say okay enough is enough I'm not a Republican and a Democrat I am a godly Christian representing Christ in the earth I'm not focusing my life around politics and who's who's gonna get elected and so I'm gonna take that narrative through the way I talk about this issue and I think if we would do that in the church and quit bowing our knee to the peer pressure of our people and just say what the word says do what the word says regardless of the result because I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with with white pastors who said Dennis if I do that I'm gonna lose half my congregation if I start talking like you talk if I start doing what you're doing I'm gonna lose them and I don't want to lose that kind I don't want to lose the congregation and and I'm like do you understand that the very nature of Jesus and this is hard for people to understand was losing people as soon as the crowd would follow him he would turn to them and say if you want to be my disciple you got to be willing to forsake your mother your father and even your own life to follow me he never said okay guys let me tell what do you want to hear let me tell you what you need to hear so you'll keep following me let me keep giving you some fishes and loaves and making sure that you're hung you're fed and you're happy and you know we're in the boat together and we don't rock the boat he thinned the crowd out to the point when he went to the cross there was just a few people still there and yet we're here we sitting on 2,000 years later and look at the millions of millions of people I'm a Christian you know calling themselves Christians but we all know that there's a definition of Christianity and our nature in that nation that's not real true Christianity and I can't see a person who is truly born again really has a born-again spirit inside of them that could hate or have race racial thoughts towards towards another race in a negative way once you get born again you now view things through the lens of Christ living in you no longer I that live but it's Christ Jesus that lives in me so while we say well we don't see color yeah we're all color we color we see color but what we're trying to say is we we see each other beyond our color we see each other beyond our race and our culture and we appreciate our differences and we celebrate our differences and we celebrate the beauty of that and how it it all blends into one beautiful thing called the body of Christ right oh I want to jump off of that and we could do this another 14 hours well we only have three more hours left I'm just kidding I want to jump into straight lightning round okay I'm gonna ask each one of you a question with just a few minutes that we have left lecrae I want to kind of jump off of what pastor Dennis just said a second ago one of the things that we kind of hold hold dear to is that oneness is not sameness and that Jesus calls us John 17 he calls us to be one he calls us to be United but that is not the same thing as us all being the same acting the same looking the same talking the same you know having the same accent being from the same places and I know is you're talking about having a voice that costs you something I know you've made some decisions along the way that cost you some things I mean I remember now to bring up if it's sore I don't know we haven't talked about this but I remember it hit the headlines very loudly that you were divorcing white evangelicalism you know and I'm sure that wasn't just a racial thing but I'm just saying like their their expectations inside churches sometimes spoke and sometimes unspoken and I guess the question is from a church perspective but also to all of us with all the different backgrounds we have what is a way that we can be united that we can be one without putting the expectation on the other person you have to act a certain way look a certain way talk a certain way that that may even you know dominate culture you have to act more white than where you come from can you kind of speak to that just for a second yeah I think um you know in order to be an authority on something you have to submit to an authority and so for me to be in authority on Scripture I've got to submit to the authority of the scripture allow it to transform me change me so that I can rightly divide the word if I'm going to be an authority on how to do something amongst the multicultural group of people well I've got to actually submit to their authority I've got to know what they're thinking how they interact how they perceive things and I think that's what hasn't happened with my white brothers and sisters is they haven't submitted to the authority of black leadership or any other kind of leadership to help inform their decision making process oftentimes there's no black leadership in some of these buildings and in some of these churches so how can they ever know what someone likes what someone doesn't like how can they ever know if they're super imposing their culture on someone else and oftentimes white brothers and sisters don't believe they have a culture they say well we're all American but American is a very distinct culture that is pretty white baseball is pretty white if you didn't know that and so what what we believe is we're we're just saying hey just be American but what you're saying is don't be the subculture that you are with in America so we're saying strip down your african-american is your Hispanic Nisour Indian as' and the American but to what they're hearing is just be white and that shouldn't be the case well that should be in multiple books maybe find a way to sing a song about tonight can I just can I just ask you a question Lee because this is a dialogue that Lee and I've had a few times about the difference between white leading a multicultural church and a black leading a multicultural trying to lead a multicultural church and I can't count how many countless black pastors who I've tried to help coach and talk to and then how frustrating it becomes for them when they just can't they did white people just won't go to their church and and submit to a like black leader and of course in our culture we have black leaders white leaders Hispanic leaders Asian we have all the different cultures so people are used to you know submitting to the different but that's an anomaly it's not a norm speak to that because in your you planted your church a few years ago and you tried your best tell me what you experienced well Dennis you have done a great job of modeling racial diversity and unity in the church but it is easier for a white leader to attract black people than it is for a black leader to attract white people say it again for the people in the back yes yeah all right it is easier for a white leader to attract black people than it is for a black leader to attract white people now the beauty and it is a beautiful thing of being a minority is we have to learn how to assimilate if you are a minority and you want to be successful you got to learn how to do what the white people do sometimes okay when I first got in business as an investment advisor I had never picked up a golf club in my life now I know black people play golf too but I didn't have I didn't know anything about golf but I had to learn how to do some things that I didn't grow up doing so that I could build relationships with white people okay and that's just an example so in other words I had to not completely but I had to drop some of my blackness sacrifice some of that in order to assimilate in someone else's culture and way of doing things and that was good and some of it was bad because I felt like I had to drop it but the good part is I got a chance to get to know people and but here's the deal when you turn it the other way around many white people aren't willing to do what black people do they aren't willing to come into an environment and follow a black leader because they've never followed a black leader before I had a white got to tell me well Lee that's not the truth my football coach in high school was black well you didn't have a choice in football coach you can't do that okay and so you know I want you to choose a black leader so most white people have never assimilated or nofollow' a black leader then number two they've never assimilated into a black culture because to assimilate in a black culture means you have to be the minority and most of them have never been the minority because you're part of the majority culture and then a third thing I've seen is a lot of white people I shouldn't say a lot but many when they they're little children growing up in a black environment they began then that daughter comes home you know and she says Oh Jamal is cute mama all of a sudden they leave our church so so here's here's what I want to invite my white brothers and sisters to do we don't bite we want to invite you to our party and we want to invite you into our life into our culture and I'm telling you you will grow as a human being in fact you'll love it we have a good time okay and I think diversity and I'll end on this has been a one-way street black people or minorities go into majority environments and we celebrate that as if that is good and it is but it's only half of the story we need diversity to be a two-way street we need whites going into black environments black born in the white environments and I believe when I see that that will be great so our church is in the middle of a white area Alpharetta we're predominantly black and we've been inviting white people in and I hate to say this but some of them come in and they love it that's a good thing but then they start trying to change us and that's what's been heartbreaking but we're getting more and more black I mean white members and I celebrate that well Haley I would go to your church Wow that's the word of the Lord man diversity is a two-way street it's not just one person giving up their rights it's apricot to submit one to another and about this word we talked about a mutual assimilation we we we assimilate until the majority culture now we need the majority culture to assimilate with us there needs to be mutual assimilation that's so good so I'm gonna say one more thing then pass it off to you Pastor Dennis if you want to say any kind of final thoughts and pray us out but we had something this past Monday with one race movement where we were able to go down to Liberty Plaza right across from the Capitol steps and make some proclamations talk about what we call the Atlantic covenant and what I saw there as we gathered together was there was almost this breath a sigh of relief of people who didn't know what to do they didn't know how to use their voice and this was finally an outlet for people who love God to use their voice they didn't feel comfortable in some of the protests environments they just I feel like there's a lot of people who don't know what to do outside of making a post on social media and so what I want to do I want to invite you June 19th Juneteenth Freedom Day Liberation Day actually as one people we were doing something called the march on Atlanta and this is something we're gonna have a probably a multi mile march here's the link for it right here this is with one race we're trying to assemble literally thousands of people from one around the city to Christ in the 'majide and the the worth of value the honor and the justice and the righteousness that belonged to God and so we invite you to join us on that day on June 19th pastor so thank you guys Thank You lecrae and thank you Lee for coming and taking the time I don't think we would have gotten you if we hadn't had kovat 19 I think you'd be out there singing and rapping all over the place but but now you're here with us and we're so thankful for that appreciate you taking the time to be a part of this service and Thank You Lee for representing Eagle's Nest Church and all of you that are watching this this this is kind of a combined service for two for two churches at least and we're just so thankful I think you guys just really hit the hit the nail I mean you really share things that I think all of us need to hear need to understand and so I just think in closing I just want to say this to all of you that are watching first of all obviously let this conversation continue in your home in your community in your fellowship and at some point you got to be intentional you can't just wait for this to happen you've got to be intentional and that's kind of what we're here to do is to try to stir that up inside of you there's a little bit of a little different service we haven't used a whole lot of Scripture and taught a 3-point message this has just been a dialogue from our hearts we didn't have any preparation for this we just said we're going to come out and share what's inside of us and the question is what's inside of you what's inside of you and is this challenging you in this moment that we're in right now an unbelievable moment a divine moment right now that's happening in our world as difficult as it is and challenging as it is with Cova 19 with all the racial tension with all the politics all the stuff that's earned around us in the heart in the center of that is Jesus and he came not to condemn us but to set us free to deliver us from prejudice to deliver us from bitterness to encourage us when we get down and disappointed to lift us to be the lifter of our heads hang that are hanging down and have been hanging down and to bring us into a place of true surrender to Jesus so I just want to tell you that from our perspective we can talk we can dialogue but without Jesus nothing is going to change and so I want to encourage all of you that are watching us right now to consider your relationship with Christ and where it stands and I want to pray and if you have never received Christ into your life this prayer is not what saves you but it's a starting point into a journey with Christ and I believe that if you have something going on inside of your heart that's maybe stirring to change it I need to change I need to change the way I think I need to change the way I live you can't change without crisis you really don't have the power to do it you know how the power to forgive your sins you don't have the power to stop doing the things that are sinful in your life until you receive Christ so I want to lead you in a prayer and if you want to start this journey with us just pray this prayer with us today as we just kind of consecrate ourselves before the Lord let's say this together Jesus right now I repent of all of my sins I turn away from any darkness in my life any deception in my life and I turned to the light that's in you Jesus Christ God I believe that you are God I believe Jesus you are God in the flesh and that you died on a cross from my sins today I want to start this journey with you surrendering my heart to you to you and I invite you now to come take over my life from this day forward in Jesus name have you prayed that prayer and you really meant it from your heart this is a starting point for you it's not the finishing line it's the starting line as you start to dive in start to participate in the things of God read a Bible start to talk to God in prayer as you start to move towards him he says if you draw to him he will draw to you so I just encourage you let's be a voice and not an echo in the world let's take this Jesus that's living inside of us and let's make a difference wherever we are we want to celebrate a change that's happening in America even though it's very difficult right now I believe in in the end result is going to turn out to be something good for America so we just thank you for joining us I'm going to close us in prayer and we're gonna be blessed and you'll be sent father bless all of the people that are watching us online all of our church members from eagle's nest from victory from other churches bless everyone God and I just pray that from this day forward we are setting our hearts truly to value every person the way Jesus values them in Jesus name and everybody said amen god bless you and have a great week

Channel: Eagles Nest Church Atlanta

Views: 1,131

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: bDV0hVUZqNY

Length: 57min 23sec (3443 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 07 2020