As Chuck Mingo settles into our dialog about race, he’s assured that God has referred to as him to the universe for extra than simply that. He's additionally assured that he wasn't referred to as to do it alone, which can clarify why when he talks about race, he sees it as a mission for the physique of Christ to affix him alongside along with his author and associate Troy Jackson in What God Has. he challenged them to guide their ministry, Non-Division. Undivided exists to convey racial therapeutic to a divided world. In Chuck's new ebook Dwell Undividedco-written with Troy, Chuck lays out the framework for how the body of Christ can join God and bring heaven to earth by loving people of all hues and colors.
Chuck: I was at a point where I stopped fighting the challenge of writing a book. I didn't want to write a book. And I've actually told people on the other side of the writing process now that I know exactly why I didn't want to write a book: it's a really difficult process. I think the saving grace was that I didn't write it myself. I got to write this with my brother and collaborator on this work, Troy Jackson. The book was in many ways a microcosm of the Undivided journey, which is, you know, God gives you a vision and in an effort to be obedient, you begin to make that vision a reality. But every great vision has pitfalls and challenges.
CH: What were some of the challenges of writing the book?
Chuck: Inside is the enemy, all self-doubt: “Am I worthy to write this book? Why am I doing this?” There are so many books written on the subject, but then there are also just the external challenges of how to write a book about race in 2020 in a way that is clear, compelling, but knowing that it's going to challenge people and not everybody. you will like what you read. I am so grateful for the long and arduous journey to publish this book because I think it helps to sharpen and refine the thinking and vision for the work God has called us to do. And I believe that what we have written is something that can encourage people who want to stay involved in this work.
CH: How did you meet Troy?
Chuck: We met in 2014. Troy ran a religious community organization called the Amos Project. They were doing racial and economic justice in the Cincinnati region. Troy was team building and organizing around a large preschool development project coming up in Cincinnati. My pastor who introduced me to Troy said, “If you want to get things going at Crossroads, you have to have two people on board.” Troy was one of those people. So Troy and I met at our church and I think it was probably around December 2014. He had just come back from Ferguson, Missouri where he had marched with many others about what happened with Michael Brown.
CH: You and Troy run a ministry called Undivided. Can you please tell our audience more about it?
Chuck: Undivided's mission is to unite and galvanize people for racial justice. And we would say order [of those words] matters. So the first thing we do, and kind of the core of Undivided, is a seven-week experience, two hours a week. Now we mostly do them virtually. But of course, when we started, we did it in person, where people got into a diverse group and had a facilitated experience where there is an anchoring of faith. Each week we root it in the truth of Scripture. What does God have to say about this? How does this relate to what it means to be a follower of Jesus? And then we also give people the opportunity to have experiences that help them share and listen to stories of difference with people in their group. We do it in the context of history and give people some history to respond to, but we also train skills like empathy and good listening across differences.
CH: What happens during those seven weeks?
Chuck: During these seven weeks, people build rhythms together and practice understanding each other's stories and being able to share their own. Gaining a sanctified imagination of how a follower of Jesus can live out a mission Micah 6:8 To do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God. And then we want to create vehicles where we help people do that.
CH: Why is this work of racial unity so important and how does it relate to the work you do at Undivided?
Chuck: We found that nearly 50 percent of people who go through the seven-week journeys have never had a person of a different race at the dinner table. These are people who have worshiped together, people who have gone on mission trips together, but the intimate act of breaking bread with another person of another race, almost half of them have never done that. And so, you know, I would say that the Bible has a compelling vision of living undivided, but structurally, much of our lives in this country have been lived divided. And so Undivided is meant to be a tool that helps people come together and go through life together.
CH: How do you define “fairness”?
Chuck: When we talk about justice, we talk about just systems where all people flourish, and we believe that justice must be active. And so, you know, when people talk about the word justice, unfortunately, it's been co-opted, I admit, by a lot of people, and yet, biblically speaking, the word “righteousness,” which is the word mishpat, appears 419 times in the Old Testament. It is a place where we defend the orphan, we protect the widow. it clearly speaks of “social justice,” even though it's a phrase we often feel is co-opted as well. it is also part of how God defines himself. I think of places like Psalm 89 where it says that righteousness and justice flow from the throne of God. So I believe that as followers of Jesus, when we talk about justice and undividedness, we are talking about biblical justice. We are talking about the kind of righteousness that we see from Genesis to Revelation in the Scriptures and that is reflected in God's character to be lived out in the public square.
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