The Antioch Podcast was initially conceived as a podcast of recorded conversations among friends and leaders at Madison Church – the multi-site church who hosts our podcast – about learning to lead in multiethnic churches. We started making these recordings in the autumn of 2016 with a team of three leaders, completely unaware of what … Continue reading Episode 45: An Antioch Roundtable – “Understanding White Supremacy Culture.”

The Antioch Podcast was initially conceived as a podcast of recorded conversations among friends and leaders at Madison Church – the multi-site church who hosts our podcast – about learning to lead in multiethnic churches. We started making these recordings in the autumn of 2016 with a team of three leaders, completely unaware of what … Continue reading Episode 45: An Antioch Roundtable – “Understanding White Supremacy Culture.”

The indigenous nations that originally populated North America now make up approximately 2% of the US population (1) and 4% of the Canadian Population (2) . Two-thirds of aboriginal Canadians remain with the Christian church despite the fraught history (3). 10% of Native-Americans in the United States call themselves Christians (4). The story of how … Continue reading Episode 44: Indigenous Christian’s Roundtable – “The Blanket Exercise.”

The indigenous nations that originally populated North America now make up approximately 2% of the US population (1) and 4% of the Canadian Population (2) . Two-thirds of aboriginal Canadians remain with the Christian church despite the fraught history (3). 10% of Native-Americans in the United States call themselves Christians (4). The story of how the indigenous people of North America were nearly exterminated is largely unknown to many. Most people have little knowledge of the roles that faith communities played in this story. But there are a rising number of truth-tellers in the Indigenous community who are trying to make their stories, and the stories of their peoples known. Their voices are critical for nations and churches to hear, understand, and wrestle with what it means to meaningfully repent in the present. We can only begin this healing journey once all people involved have the same historical narrative to guide their route. For those of us who are Christians, it would be safe to say that unless our church is built on a reservation, every church in Canada and the United States is built on land stolen from the Indigenous people forcibly removed against their will from the very locations where we now worship. It is not a stretch to say that the religious freedoms of these two countries were bought with the currency of injustice paid in blood by the original inhabitants of these lands.

I had the privilege of meeting a delegation of Indigenous Christians from Canada and the United States at the offices of the Christian Reformed Church of North America where this group had gathered to share their stories using a small-group activity they call the “Blanket Exercise” (5). I attended the Blanket Exercise, and the next day we gathered around a table to talk and hear more about each other’s stories.

 

(1) https://www.infoplease.com/american-indians-numbers-1

(2) https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-656-x/89-656-x2015001-eng.htm

(3) https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-april-1-2016-1.3516122/majority-of-indigenous-canadians-remain-christians-despite-residential-schools-1.3516132

(4). http://evangelicalfocus.com/world/1777/Christianity_grows_among_Native_Americans

(5). https://www.crcna.org/aboriginal

http://cdn.antiochpodcast.org/044.mp3

This is the second episode on our two-episode mini-series on Racial Identity Development. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the first episode yet, go back and listen to Episode 42. Every leader who is serious about addressing racism in the church must start with understanding his/her own racial identity. This goes deeper … Continue reading Episode 43: Stacia Hoeksema & Jevon Willis – “Racial Identity Development Part 2.”

This is the second episode on our two-episode mini-series on Racial Identity Development. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the first episode yet, go back and listen to Episode 42.

Every leader who is serious about addressing racism in the church must start with understanding his/her own racial identity. This goes deeper than just knowing what racial categories they identify with, it is about knowing how those racial labels have affected our people groups and ourselves. The power of racism affects us all, whether we are aware of these effects or not. America’s system of racism was developed to advantage some people, at the expense of other people, in terms of resource extraction, labor, wealth accumulation and legal power. Echoes of this system have reverberated through the decades, often taking the form of new laws and policies which continue to have the effect of segregating and disempowering communities of color. The outcome of this system is that for many people in the dominant culture, their way of life is unquestioned, generally more comfortable, and assumed to be superior, standard or “normal.” Individuals who awaken to the knowledge that other ethnic communities don’t share in their privileges often experience this realization like a death, vacillating between the various emotions of the grief cycle (denial, anger, guilt, and depression) before having periods of acceptance that look forward to dismantling racism in the future.

But for People of Color, the effects of racism are not limited to intellectual abstractions. Their reality is quite the opposite, because the effects of racism are experienced often, if not continuously. For many, life starts from conception being affected by racism, being born into a racialized society where black and brown people too often still live in communities where the compounded effects of generations of systemic racism are everywhere. But even if you get some advantages, it is impossible to avoid all the effects of racism in society. After all, a person never gets to take off his/her skin to take a break from a racialized society.

But the subtler experiences of racism are perhaps the most poisonous because they don’t come from outside, they come from within in the form of self-doubt in ones opinions, intellectual capacity, or potential for achievement. This internalized racism is often experienced as a perpetual sense of being inferior or being “non-standard” and learning how to navigate people and systems serving the majority culture whose objectives may deviate or even denigrate their own. While it is sometimes possible to retreat from the racism of outside society for brief times, resisting the sense of oppression and doubt that plays over and over in one’s mind is quite another matter.

Today’s guests to the Antioch Podcast are generously sharing their individual stories with us today, to use their lived experiences as examples of how different people develop their own racial identities. Stacia Hoeksema is a Professor of Social Work at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mi. Jevon Willis is the Assistant Director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at Hope College in Holland, Mi. Both Stacia and Jevon are social workers and Anti-Racism Workshop Facilitators for Madison Church, as well as friends outside of their professional circles.

RESOURCES on RACIAL IDENTY DEVELOPMENT

http://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Compilation_of_Racial_Identity_Models_7_15_11.pdf

http://cdn.antiochpodcast.org/043.mp3

Every leader who is serious about addressing racism in the church must start with understanding his/her own racial identity. This goes deeper than just knowing what racial categories they identify with, it is about knowing how those racial labels have affected our people groups and ourselves. The power of racism affects us all, whether we … Continue reading Episode 42:Stacia Hoeksema & Jevon Willis – “Racial Identity Development Part 1.”

Every leader who is serious about addressing racism in the church must start with understanding his/her own racial identity. This goes deeper than just knowing what racial categories they identify with, it is about knowing how those racial labels have affected our people groups and ourselves. The power of racism affects us all, whether we are aware of these effects or not. America’s system of racism was developed to advantage some people, at the expense of other people, in terms of resource extraction, labor, wealth accumulation and legal power. Echoes of this system have reverberated through the decades, often taking the form of new laws and policies which continue to have the effect of segregating and disempowering communities of color. The outcome of this system is that for many people in the dominant culture, their way of life is unquestioned, generally more comfortable, and assumed to be superior, standard or “normal.” Individuals who awaken to the knowledge that other ethnic communities don’t share in their privileges often experience this realization like a death, vacillating between the various emotions of the grief cycle (denial, anger, guilt, and depression) before having periods of acceptance that look forward to dismantling racism in the future.

But for People of Color, the effects of racism are not limited to intellectual abstractions. Their reality is quite the opposite, because the effects of racism are experienced often, if not continuously. For many, life starts from conception being affected by racism, being born into a racialized society where black and brown people too often still live in communities where the compounded effects of generations of systemic racism are everywhere. But even if you get some advantages, it is impossible to avoid all the effects of racism in society. After all, a person never gets to take off his/her skin to take a break from a racialized society.

But the subtler experiences of racism are perhaps the most poisonous because they don’t come from outside, they come from within in the form of self-doubt in ones opinions, intellectual capacity, or potential for achievement. This internalized racism is often experienced as a perpetual sense of being inferior or being “non-standard” and learning how to navigate people and systems serving the majority culture whose objectives may deviate or even denigrate their own. While it is sometimes possible to retreat from the racism of outside society for brief times, resisting the sense of oppression and doubt that plays over and over in one’s mind is quite another matter.

Today’s guests to the Antioch Podcast are generously sharing their individual stories with us today, to use their lived experiences as examples of how different people develop their own racial identities. Stacia Hoeksema is a Professor of Social Work at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mi. Jevon Willis is the Assistant Director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at Hope College in Holland, Mi. Both Stacia and Jevon are social workers and Anti-Racism Workshop Facilitators for Madison Church, as well as friends outside of their professional circles.

Let’s go now and hear the first part of this two-part interview:

http://cdn.antiochpodcast.org/042.mp3

I’m getting ready to leave to go on vacation. Probably some of you will also be planning some kind of trip over the summer where you won’t be at your home church. If you are fortunate enough, you might want to visit another church to see how they worship as a part of your trip. … Continue reading Episode 41: Eric Nykamp – “Vacation, Community and the Church.”

I’m getting ready to leave to go on vacation. Probably some of you will also be planning some kind of trip over the summer where you won’t be at your home church. If you are fortunate enough, you might want to visit another church to see how they worship as a part of your trip. For my family, we try to visit other multiethnic churches when we are on the road . . . or in our case this year, overseas to visit my wife’s family in Hong Kong.

So . . . whenever you visit another church, it is inevitable that we humans compare what we think is normal about our home church to whatever church we are visiting.

So here are questions I ask about my own congregation at home, as well as the congregations I visit while traveling anywhere.

1.) What ethnic groups make up the community around the church building?

2.) What ethnic groups make up the congregation?

3.) What ethnic groups make up the leadership in this church?

4.) Whose ethnic songs are used in worship? (You could also examine cultural rules for timeliness, emotional expression etc.)

5.) What can you learn from noticing the similarities and differences between these three groups of people?

So let me start with my own home church. We are one church in three campuses, with each Madison Church campus in a different neighborhood.

The original campus of Madison is in the Madison Square Neighborhood of Grand Rapids, a neighborhood with a predominantly African-American population and a sizeable Latinx population which is gradually becoming more and more of a presence here. There are very few white folks in the neighborhood, and nearly no Asian or Native Americans. The housing stock is from the early 20th century, built over what had previously been a shanty-town on the outskirts of Grand Rapids. Many of the homes show signs of neglect, though there are some noteworthy examples of restoration taking place as the area is seeing some recent re-investment.

A couple of miles north on Madison Avenue is Madison’s Ford Campus, which meets in a Public Middle-School gym in a neighborhood that is nearly entirely African-American falling solidly within the former red-lined area of Grand Rapids. The housing stock is smaller homes from around the turn of the twentieth century, some in good repair, and some in a state of disrepair. However, it borders a neighborhood of historic homes which have been recognized for their historical value and saved from dereliction by a historic preservation committee. This neighborhood is home to many middle and upper-middle class white people who want to live near the revitalized downtown area. The difference in housing stock is striking in this neighborhood, and the two populations of the two neighborhoods rarely mingle.

Miles away on the northern side of Grand Rapids is Madison’s 4-year-old North campus. Like the Ford campus, Madison North meets in a school gym. Unlike its two sibling congregations, Madison North lies far outside the former red-lined areas of Grand Rapids. It is not far from where a group of history-making African American families bought their own land and built their own houses during the Civil Rights era, as a way to escape the housing discrimination rampant in Grand Rapids at the time. The neighborhood Madison North calls home is a mix of post World War Two housing through the early 1970’s, with a number of low-income and apartment housing complexes throughout the neighborhoods. The area is predominantly white, but there are pockets within the neighborhood with higher-concentrations of African American people.

This is what our neighborhoods are like, but it isn’t what the makeup of our congregations are like. None of our congregations represent the ethnic mixes of the neighborhoods where our church buildings are located. The closest may be Madison North, but that is mainly due to the larger white population in that area.

However, at each campus, there is an intentional mix of ethnic leadership, with the Ford and Sq