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The best way for a white church to serve alongside black pastors is to first think of themselves in a subordinate role—to first listen to what black pastors say the needs are and then to submit to black pastoral leadership. Far too often white churches approach black pastors assuming they know what is best for communities in which they do not live and for people they do not know. It is the same posture that is needed in international missions: Americans go to other countries and follow the lead of people who are there on the ground. Cross-cultural relationships in America are not different. This posture of humility will yield amazing dividends for the Kingdom.

—Anthony Bradley, in “The Black Church and the Black Community: A Conversation with Anthony Bradley”,
Trevin Wax, Kingdom People

Discussion

  • Ame thought to say:

    “Far too often white churches approach black pastors assuming they know what is best for communities in which they do not live and for people they do not know.”

    ab.so.lute.ly.

    my friend was on staff at a large church and in charge of ministries and creating ministries when i was a single mom. i told her that i remembered going to a ss leadership training many years earlier, when married but before kids, and they told us that the two groups they did not know how to minister to were widows/widowers and single parents. my friend agreed. then i asked my friend who grew up in an intact home and had been married to her husband since they were young, ‘have you ever asked a widow/widower or single parent what they need? she answered with light-bulbs going off, ‘no.’ it had never occured to this staff where they were all married to their first spouse and had no clue what the single world after marriage was like, to ask those who were/had been there.

    i’m not sure what it is that causes us to believe we always know what another person needs. this causes us to meet our perceived need of another person. sadly, this is rarely the real need.

    “to first listen to what black pastors say the needs are and then to submit to black pastoral leadership.”

    listen … and then submit to what you hear, even to the point of submitting to their leadership over what you hear. so simple, yet so seemingly elusive at the same time.

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