Brenda Salter McNeil

I recently returned from the Christian Community Development Association's National Conference hosted in Los Angeles at the end of August.  I've been reviewing notes and will try to summarize some of what was shared over my next few weeks of blog posts.  

Dr. Rev. Brenda Salter McNeil

I have always loved listening to Brenda Salter McNeil, but her opening plenary message was, for me, the most powerful and Holy Spirit inspired charge to Christ's Church that I've heard in the times we're living.  

An attempt to summarize some of the message:

*Dr. Rev. Brenda has been about speaking on racial reconciliation for some time, but something changed after she and other pastors went to Ferguson, MO, to listen to activists in Dec. 2014.  She speaks now with more of a conviction and a charge to the Church.

*Young activists were feeling called, feeling that a moment was upon them to join in a movement which birthed as the Black Lives Matter movement.  Pastors asked the group why they weren't basing the movement from the Church-center, like the Civil Rights Movement of the 60's.  Activists proceeded to "take the pastors to school" by letting them know that they didn't like the Church's mysogyny, hypocisy, complacency, and exclusion of people groups. They felt that the Church was working harder to keep people out than to let them in.  The Church no longer had credibility, and they shared that they were needing something else from the Church. Though the Church might be wrestling with diversity and reconciliation, the young people were basically asking, "Diversity for what?  Reconciliation for what?"  

*God has been stirring Brenda with Mark 2:21-22 for some time, and the time in Ferguson only confirmed that it is time for "new wine in new wineskins."  Different models are needed in these times.  Old models have served their purposes and brought us to a place now where new models will be required.  

*New models will require:

-Collaboration.  The "day of the single superstar is over.  We are not looking for the next Martin Luther King Jr. or Billy Graham."  Partnership and collaboration with women/men, church/city, different racial and ethnic groups, multi-generations will be needed.  This will create a disorientation and fear, but Salter McNeil reminded us that "faith is fear that has said its prayers.  It is going to scare us to death to try new models."  

-Reparations.  We will need to leave comfort zones and practice proximity. And not only that, we will need to work together to repair broken systems.  Brenda spoke about how the activists were asking the Church, "Are you addressing anything, repairing anything, fixing anything?"  The group of young people were speaking to justice.  Churches might be addressing faith and our family systems, which are both needed, but is the Church also seeing outside of these and addressing other real time justice issues in our society?  

And a final word here.  Salter McNeil described this new wine as a wine that will need to go beyond personal, individual efforts. Tutoring, mentoring, individual relationships are all critical, as we have to deconstruct racist systems through relationships and through one-on-one, daily encounters of offering self in presence. (I've heard from two people who listened to Salter McNeil's talk and experienced a sense of invalidation of the work that they've done toward reconciliation and to right the wrongs in our communities.)  I don't believe Salter McNeil was intending to dismiss the critical need for individual efforts to know people, to feed, clothe, house, mentor people, etc.. I do believe she was challenging to the Church, especially the white community of faith, to gain a systemic lens.  So often individual efforts stay embedded in a social and racial hierarchy that is unhealthy.  She challenged the Church to not stay silent.  To be a prophetic voice and to bring Biblical story and vision.  To speak about painful history and what is broken.  To speak about God's vision of Shalom and His Kingdom.  To learn, to listen, to lament, to confess, to repent, to educate.  To show up and "not feel the need to run everything."  To join with.  To mobilize. To be involved corporately and collaboratively in Christ's work of new creation, a creation that is redemptive and just, in our communities and world.

So, it's not either/or.  It's both/and.  Christ's restorative mission is personal, but it's more than personal.  It's also corporate, collective, structural in nature.  And it will require new wine in new wineskins as Jesus leads us forward to deconstruct systems that were built on white supremacy and to construct new systems built with Imagio Dei  and "one new humanity" in mind.   

You can hear McNeil's talk if you go to www.facebook.com/iamccda.  You will have to scroll down to August 31 and look for the caption "A sneak peek at opening plenary."  You won't be able to see the stage very clearly, but you can clearly hear Dr. Brenda's whole message!