Creating Equitable Systems and Structures - Ep 3
Show Resources:
The Elusive Dream by Dr. Korie Edwards
Show Transcript:
Kyle Brooks 0:02
Welcome to the Multiracial Ministry Mindset Podcast. In a world that feels more divided than ever, leaders in multiracial ministries face unique and imposing challenges.
Bernard Emerson 0:13
Our goal is to equip you with the principles, stories, and tools you need to lead a unified people in a divided world.
Kyle Brooks 0:21
We're not church growth gurus, and multiracial ministry is not a recipe for numerical growth.
Bernard Emerson 0:27
However, it is a recipe for growth in the fruit of the Spirit. When we lead multiracial ministries well, we can disciple a new generation of Christians attuned to how the Spirit of Jesus is speaking to the spirit of our age.
Kyle Brooks 0:40
So my name is Kyle Brooks, and I am a white pastor from East Oakland.
Bernard Emerson 0:46
My name is Bernard Emerson. I'm a black pastor from East Oakland.
Kyle Brooks 0:49
And together we pastor at a church called Tapestry church, a multiracial expression of God's kingdom, right here in Oakland, California. Welcome to the Multiracial Ministry Podcast.
Bernard 1:02
Well, welcome to the Multiracial Ministry Mindset Podcast.
Kyle 1:09
Yeah, that's a mouthful, actually, isn't it?
Bernard 1:11
Man. When you add podcast, that's right.
Kyle 1:14
When you add podcasts, yeah. The three Ms. Multiracial Ministry Mindset Podcast. Man, we're so grateful to have you join us on this journey. If you have been enjoying the podcast so far, you can go find more at multiracial ministry.com. That's multiracial. ministry.com, you can find more stuff there. We'd love to engage with you there as well. And on social media, we're so glad to be able to be having these conversations with you. We're just talking about how much fun we're actually having just talking to each other about this. And it's cool that you guys get to get to engage with us as well. And we can learn from each other. So what are we talking about today, in our first season on overthrowing fear?
Bernard 1:57
We are talking about creating equitable systems and structures.
Kyle 2:02
That's right. Creating equitable systems and structures is a core practice. Core cultural practice of a multiracial ministry built on overthrowing fear. One of the ways that we talk about this in our church is we create systems and structures to hold each other accountable, and to distribute power equitably, so that no one is afraid of the people in power. Right. And we regularly talk about and preach about issues of equity, privilege and power that can create contexts of fear for people on the margins, even in our ministry.
Bernard 2:43
Yes. So the burning question that everybody out there is wondering, why is this important in a multiracial church? Why is this important in a multiracial ministry?
Kyle 2:57
Gosh, it is so important. I almost want to make a joke about like, if you don't know why it's important, you should listen to this podcast. Because creating equitable systems and structures is directly addressing the stuff that we talked about in episode zero on why it's even called a multiracial ministry to begin with, because race, race itself is inherently talking about power. This is why it's such a hard thing to talk about. It's inherently talking about power. Its race itself is a system of inequity that structures various aspects of society, sometimes explicitly, like in the Jim Crow era, sometimes implicitly through various non explicit, but coded policies around ways that we hire ways that our neighborhoods are pleased with different types of things. Whether we are aware of it or not, whenever race is a factor, power is at stake and systems and structures are at stake.
Bernard 4:05
Well, you know, I tend to go off script. I'm going off script here. Why is it that white people shy away?
Kyle 4:17
Why is it that white people is always a great start? I love it.
Bernard 4:21
Why is it that more white people don't engage or are free to engage in the conversation of race?
Kyle 4:31
I mean, there are so many, so many, so many reasons. That I would think. I mean, it probably depends to some degree on the person. But there are some common threads that I can speak to from my own point of view. When you start to talk about systems and structures. It does sort of take us away from talking about inner intentions to some degree, which is where a lot of why folks like myself find some safety in the conversation about race. Because you can't see my intentions, but you can see our systems. You can't see my intention, so I may have said something you didn't like, but you don't know that that was actually coming from a really loving place. That's a place to retreat to, that's a place where I can go and feel safe in this conversation about race and feel like I'm a good person. But if you start to talk about systems and structures, those are external realities that everybody can see and talk about. Well, I mean, theoretically, everybody can see them. And I think beyond that, oftentimes the systems and structures whether we're totally aware of it or not, as white folks are set up for us to succeed, right.
Bernard 5:49
And I heard a lot of all my friends, they'll say something like, well, that's not a gospel issue. And I would think creating equitable systems and structure is at the core of the gospel. But they say it's not a gospel issue. Do you know why?
Kyle 6:09
Wait, say more about why you would say it's at the core of the gospel.
Bernard 6:12
Because Jesus came in, he was establishing a fair and equitable system for everybody. And a light where there's no big I's and little you's were all somebody to Jesus. That's why He died for us. We're all somebody,
Kyle 6:30
We all have sinned. He died for us.
Bernard 6:34
Not y'all have sinned, all.
Kyle 6:39
I like that.
Bernard 6:42
And so Jesus created this equitable system.
Kyle 6:46
Yeah. And I think maybe one of the reasons why I'm just spitballing here. But I think one of the reasons why sometimes people think that equitable systems and structures are not a gospel issue is because we have such a small view of what the gospel is. Because we have taken, I'm going to get really nerdy and theological here, we've taken one aspect of the gospel in which theologians talk about the various aspects of the gospel sometimes as the Ordo Salutis, the order of salvation, the various things that happen in the process of salvation. And we've taken one of those things that we call justification, this thing whereby Jesus makes us, justifies us in God's sight, right? Our sin is given to him, his righteousness is given to us, right? And God sees us as righteous. That's justification. We've taken that one part of the Ordo salutis And we've made it the gospel. Whereas what Jesus said, Jesus said, The kingdom of God is near. That's what Mark in Mark chapter one says, was Jesus preaching the gospel. The kingdom of God is near. And that encompasses all of that stuff. And it encompasses glorification at the end of the Ordo Salutis At the end of history, when Jesus comes back to set the world the rights, and do you think that when he comes back to set the world the rights when he creates the new heavens in the new earth, that there are going to be inequitable systems infrastructure on that world? No. So it's part it's part and parcel. I'm right there with you. I think it's part and parcel of the gospel. Part of the reason why we extract justice from the gospel is that we have extracted an aspect of the gospel from the whole gospel. And we said that this Oh, this one thing is the sum total. It's a very important part of the gospel. Don't get me wrong. But it's not the whole thing. Yeah. It's not the whole thing. So this is not just part of what I'm hearing you say, when you saying this is a gospel issue? This is not just a tactical issue. This is not just to make some people feel comfortable. This is core to what we believe.
Bernard 9:00
To what we believe.
Kyle 9:02
So let's get super practical here for a minute why? How does this show up specifically, in a multiracial ministry context, when we're talking about creating equitable systems and structures? How could this show up in a typical ministry, a typical church on it on a Wednesday
Bernard 9:22
On a Wednesday? The best example I can give you if you don't mind me, talking about it. Now is the best example I could give to that. And is where we were starting this church. We were starting Tapestry Church. You had your church plant.
Kyle 9:44
Which was mostly mostly white folks. New to Oakland.
Bernard 9:48
Yep. And I had my church, by The Way Church. Which was black and Oaklanders.
Kyle 9:55
And we're merging those two churches together.
Bernard 9:57
Yeah. And this is the best example I can give, I preach my best sermon to you on shared leadership because I always thought we would do a shared leadership model. I preached my best sermon to your shared leadership, and you're just like, Nah, it doesn't work for me. And then I'm just like, okay, so I preached my second best sermon to you that I had on shared leadership. And he said, bro, man, this just doesn't work for me. I'm just like, man, this dude is making me pull out all the stops here. I preached my third best sermon to you that I had on shared leadership. And you just said, Listen, this doesn't work for me, if you're not the lead pastor. And I'm just like, we'll say more about that. And your response was, because what people need to see what Oakland needs to see, what the world needs to see, is a white man submitting to the authority of a black man. And kudos to you, because I never heard a white man talk like that. But it was you creating that fair and equitable system realizing that power died, that the power dynamics of race would always be at play with a black man and a white man leading, you wanted to create a fair and equitable system?
Kyle 11:24
Yeah, that's true. And so for those of you who are like, wow, he gave up so much, you know, I didn't actually in some ways. Number one, because I trust you, totally. So it was not hard to trust you with our church. But also, the reason that it made so much sense to me to do that the reason why it seemed equitable, and not inequitable, was because I am very aware of the fact that the vast majority of multiracial churches are pastored. by white men. And the natural expectation, in multiracial spaces by just about everybody, whether they're aware of it or not, is that we are going to assimilate to white culture here. They're just going to be people of various colors here. And when that is the dynamic at work, and when the denominations or networks that we're a part of use various sorts of white cultural ways and are dominated by mostly white folks in the denomination or the network. All of that is going to skew power in my favor. And if we are in our system, on a level, technically, me being white means that all of those other things actually put me above you, which is an injustice any way you frame it. But also specifically, for the reason that I had also at that point been in ministry for what, like five years. And you'd been in ministry for like, 28, or something like that, at that point
Bernard 12:59
Oh come on. I'm not that old
Kyle 13:00
It's hard for me to count when the numbers get that high. I'm not that good at math. That's why I became a pastor. But you know what I'm saying? Like, it doesn't make sense, from any other perspective than I was gonna say some that may be a little bit sensitive. It doesn't make sense from any perspective other than like one with a white racial lens on it, that I should be a co- pastor with you at that stage. It doesn't. So to me, it didn't even seem like I was giving up so much. I was just doing what made sense, and also what the gospel demands.
Bernard 13:00
And I'll tell you, when you said that, how it made me feel. For one, I'm just like, wow, this dude is trusting me with his church. And not only is he trusting me with his church, but he's trusting me with him, his family, because you and your wife were part of that church, you're trusting those two things to my leadership. And it was humbling to me. It was humbling for me, for you to entrust all that care to me for your church and for your family. So that made me like, man, okay. I don't ever want to misuse this trust, and I want to give it 110% every time I'm able to give it 110%. And when I'm not able to give it 110% I'm gonna give it 100. And that was huge. Like I said, I've never experienced somebody white talking like that, number one. But it was very humbling for me.
Kyle 14:44
Wow. I mean, I think that the only reason I could do that is because well, for one, the example of Jesus like emptying himself and what I did is nothing by comparison. but it's a simple way of actually just living out my faith. But also the reason I could do that is because you're such a trustworthy person, and you're not the type of person to lord it over people, as you know, to use that biblical phrase, you know, you're not the type of leader to use your power in unjust ways. You're very generous with your power, and very open to letting other people serve and even lead in their gifts. So I never even was worried that I was going to lose anything in that equation, because you just make it so easy to serve under you,
Bernard 15:37
Thank you. But you know what I love? I love when we're out somewhere and somebody, we tell them that we're pastors at the same church. And then somebody leans over to you and they like, Hey, I wanted to talk to you about so and so and so and so. Then you say, oh, that's fine. But you gotta ask my lead pastor, I love that.
Kyle 16:02
I'll bet you do. And you know what I love. I love when somebody comes up to me with some idea that I'm like, wow, that's an idea. And I'm like, Ah, you're gonna have to talk to the lead pastor about that one, because I'm just, I'm just an executive. You know, I don't, I don't make the big call. That's a big call. It works for both. Let's talk about other ways that this can show up in the nitty gritty of church life, right? So one of the things that's happening recently is we actually put out a job opportunity at our church, we put it out on Indeed, you know, and we're looking for somebody, we're looking to hire somebody. And we ran the job description by a bunch of people in our organization. But we also reached out to a friend who's in HR and who does like DE&I work. That's diversity, equity and inclusion for those of you who aren't familiar with it. So we ran it by her as well to say, can you check over this stuff? And and actually looking more for like, are you making sure that we're not like, you know, putting something out there that would violate any laws or anything? She came back to us with some criticisms, constructive criticism about how our language could affect potential applicants. Do you want to share a little bit about what that was?
Bernard 17:16
Well, we had a use of a word. And she’s like, you know, this word probably would discourage someone.
Kyle 17:25
And then What was that word? It was chemistry, chemistry, right. Like we were looking for somebody who has good chemistry.
Bernard 17:31
Yeah. And, and a word that I thought was harmless. Yeah. And a word that I would frequently use when talking about work culture.
Kyle 17:41
Yeah. But she clued us into the fact that it's not a word that's often used with DE&I informed hiring practices, because words like chemistry, words like culture fit, those are words that come across to potential applicants as code for implicit bias will be a factor on this hiring process. That people are going to look at my culture at my background, and they're gonna go, not a good culture, if all things being equal, right.
Bernard 18:14
I never thought of it, but it seemed so obvious when she pointed it out. And it was just like, oh, man, I see why.
Kyle 18:23
Yep, absolutely.
Bernard 18:24
I see why. But like, I never would have thought that a word like chemistry
Kyle 18:30
Can be like coded language like that.
Bernard 18:32
Yeah. Coded language.
Kyle 18:34
I didn't either. And that's part of the reason why, you know, just casting the net far and wide to the people with different types of wisdom in our circles is really helpful. Like, we could not have seen that ours, we wouldn't have seen it ourselves.
Bernard 18:46
Oh, I didn't see it.
Kyle 18:47
No, we're not HR reps. You know, like, I don't know,
Bernard 18:51
We couldn't see it. I didn't see. That's why I was there. And she pointed it out.
Kyle 18:56
Yeah, exactly. So you know that those types of things are really important to pick up to create equitable systems and structures, because one of the things that you need to do in a multiracial church setting or multiracial ministry setting is you need to hire people from various backgrounds. Like there needs to be one equitable system is your hiring system so that you can have equitable representation in the staff and leadership of your church in various aspects. So that's one thing to be thoughtful about. Another thing to be thoughtful about, is who you ask to volunteer for what? Who do you ask to volunteer?
Bernard 19:37
Don't just pick a volunteer because they're there?
Kyle 19:40
Well, right. Yeah. It's hard because sometimes you just see somebody you think, Oh, I'm just going to ask him, but just take a little bit more time to be a little bit more thoughtful about how to ask this person within the context of our whole system already. How does that inform on how our ministry takes shape and who sees themselves as potential leaders in this way, or potential volunteers of this type.
Bernard 20:08
Well, Connect Groups.
Kyle 20:11
Yeah. Okay. Connect Groups are our words for small group or community group or whatever.
Bernard 20:17
In Connect Groups, we have a system where we do not pick two people of the same race, same color, or the same identity to lead a Connect Group. There has to be two different people.
Kyle 20:31
Right.
Bernard 20:32
Why is that?
Kyle 20:33
Well, we really want to be a church that is not just aesthetically diverse, but is racially united. And, and part of that means that we don't just show up to church on a Sunday and sit next to somebody who has a different racial background than we do, it's that we actually get into each other's lives. We know each other. We were going to talk about this later. But you know, that idea of like, being lifelong learners of the other, that is a critical part of a racially united church, and a witness to what racial unity can look like in this world because of Jesus. If that's true, then we have to be getting together in our homes, we have to be getting together midweek, we have to be talking to each other about real life. So how do you get folks to get together with people who are different from them? Well, they have to see that there is representation that is diverse, facilitating the group or leading the group in some way, shape, or form so they know that they are going to be safe in that group. So we made a commitment, really early on, that we would never start a Connect Group that didn't have a racially diverse ministry or leadership team. Which has not always been an easy thing to do. Right? Let's be honest.
Bernard 21:55
It's way harder than it sounds. But that's part of creating no structures.
Kyle 22:01
And it's been I mean, by and large, like, really helpful, I think.
Bernard 22:08
Oh, definitely.
Kyle 22:09
It's not always been successful in the sense of more groups, more people because if it was just like, we could just put groups together, however, we wanted. However, it seemed organic and natural to us. We probably have more groups with more people in them. But they'd be like a white group over here, or a black group over here. And we might have more of them, but they wouldn't be serving the purpose of being an embodiment of the gospel in the neighborhood. So those are equitable systems and structures. Those are examples of equitable systems and structures that we can get into and, and you know, we're not actually just like doing this, because DE&I is a big thing in the 21st century. We're doing this because in the first century, the early church said, this was a big deal. Like did create equitable systems and structures in diverse churches in ethnically diverse churches. So tell us a little bit about how that happened.
Bernard 23:09
Yeah, so you remember in Acts, the sixth chapter, where the Hellenistic Jews were getting overlooked?
Yeah. And the widows of the Hellenistic Jews that were getting overlooked in the food distribution.
And they bought it to Peter and Peter is like, hey, you know, we don't have time to deal with this. Let's create an equitable system and structure to have someone deal with this.
Kyle 23:33
Yeah. And in case you're like, those are not exactly the words that Peter used. They weren't, but a reader of the New Testament in that day in Greek and any member of that church would have noticed that every name of every leader that the apostles put in power to govern that system were Hellenistic names, Greek names. So in other words, the apostles did not say, Well, look, it probably just wasn't their intention to overlook the widows. Why do you have to like go like make it's like a heart issue you know? It's not a heart issue, they just really care about you, too. It's just you know, and they didn't say it's just a couple of bad apples in the breadline. You know, there's just a couple bad apples there are just some guys who really don't like the Hellenistic Jews, we just get them out of the breadline. It'll be fine. Like they didn't say that.
Bernard 24:29
Nor did they say, we'll just replace those volunteers and the problem will go away.
Kyle 24:35
Exactly. Now, what they did was they created a system of accountability and responsibility, where they designated the same people who are on the underside or a power dynamic.
Bernard 24:48
There you go.
Kyle 24: 50
That is important to lead the dynamic. To rectify the issue. It wasn't a matter of, oh, how can we get the people who are in cultural power to be more generous, right? It was how can we get the folks who are typically on the underside of this power dynamic to help us rectify this and make this equitable? So that is the model that we are given by the apostles in Scripture. And it just stands to reason that we should be extrapolating that for our time and place in the ways that we hire and the ways that we bring in volunteers in the hierarchical structures of our org charts. Making sure that our pay scales are equitable. Now people are like backup, backup, but that is not just a 21st century, sort of Western value. It's a value that's deeply biblical.
Kyle 26:00
Okay, so I'm the resource guy.
Bernard 26:01
What do you have for us today?
Kyle 26:03
What am I a resident recommender. Is that what we decided? So today, I have for us a book by Dr. Cory Edwards at The Ohio State University called The Elusive Dream. The power of race in interracial churches. It is a book based on a whole lot of research. Dr. Corey Edwards is a sociologist, and she talks about lots of ways in which interracial churches aren't necessarily always fulfilling the promise of interracial churches. And she talks about various systems and structures, including worship. And not just music, but also like the cultural ways of worship and how we address when people worship differently. It's very impactful.
Bernard 26:49
And the Elusive Dream has a podcast.
Kyle 26:53
They do. Yeah, we just discovered this. And maybe many of you have already listened to it and write about this journey. But yeah, it's a really great resource for anybody who is practicing or doing multiracial ministry. And it is a way that you could dive deeper into the practices of multiracial ministry in a systems based way, in a in a structured way and see where see where the church often falls short in those ways, because we're just kind of leading with our best intentions, and not paying attention to the systems and structures that form us and shape us together.
Bernard 27:31
Yes. Well, that wraps it up for us. Listen, if you are enjoying this podcast, please, like, share, and subscribe.
Kyle 27:43
You can find it anywhere you get your podcasts, it's gonna be distributed all over the place. So if you're listening to it on Apple on your like, I prefer Spotify, you could go there and find it. It'll be there. And also, if you're listening to us, and you're not watching us, you can also watch the podcast on YouTube. And you can see Bernard's big, beautiful beard, as we talk together.
Bernard 28:04
Oil running down the beard of Aaron.
Kyle 28:06
That's right. There's no oil involved. That's not the sad thing that we've done so far on the podcast, but you know, maybe we'll get there. So thank you so much for joining us on this journey. We're looking forward to seeing you for episode four of our first season where we're going to be talking about being willing to fail. So we'll see you next time on The multiracial ministry podcast. Oh, and go to multiracialministry.com If you want to find out more.
Bernard 28:38
All right, thanks.
Kyle 28:39
Thank you.
Bernard 28:41
We want to thank you for listening to the Multiracial Ministry Mindset podcast, where we are dedicated to helping you lead a more unified people in a divided world.
Kyle 28:50
And if you enjoyed this episode, why don't you share it with a friend or follow and subscribe yourself. And if you want to connect more, you can always find us at multiracial.ministry.com and on Facebook and Instagram at Multiracial Ministry Mindset. See you next time.