Power…How Can I Take Control & Find Freedom From Pain? – Courageous Conversations 2024

Panelist: Well, welcome to, conversation six. My name is David Bailey. I am the founder and CEO of Airbon, and I’m here with this lovely, group of people. And we’re gonna talk about power. How can I take control and find freedom from pain? And I was just thinking, it would be good to one, define what do you mean by power? When you talk about power, what how do you define power and how was, how have you wrestled with power even in your own life? Like, and and and and what that’s meant for you. So introduce yourself, define power, and how have you wrestled with power in your own life? Let’s start with you, Tasha. I knew you were gonna do that. My name is Latasha Morrison and I am the founder and CEO of an organization called Be the Bridge. We do work of racial healing, racial equity, and racial reconciliation. I’m also the author of a book called Be the Bridge and a new book called Brown Faces, White Spaces. Power. Yes. Well, one of the ways, you know, that I define power, is power belongs to God, if you know that song. You know? Power is not a, power can be a good or a bad thing. It’s how you wield your power, if it’s your power submitted to God. So power brings about opportunity, when the when it’s led with compassion and humility and empathy. So that’s when how I view power. But power can also destroy and cause catastrophic things around the country, just like we’re seeing now. So yeah. And and how have you wrestled with power in your own life? Yeah. Because when you’re in leadership, if you are not surrendered to God or if you’re not wielding your power, to the Lord of lords, in my human frailty, I can think that I’m in control. But ultimate control when you’re dealing with power is it being surrendered to God. And so with that, for me, in leadership, I try to lead with that of empathy, and humility and compassion. But sometimes we’re gonna miss it. And we see that throughout, you know, leadership structures, in government, within the church, and all of that where we’ve been given the opportunity, to lead but how do we remain good stewards over that leadership and the power that we’ve been given. So I think that’s really critical, and I think one of the the key aspects of that is our surrender. That’s great. How about you, sis? Hello. My name is Rahel Tesfamariam. I’m an author. My new book is called Imagine Freedom Transforming Pain into Political and Spiritual Power. So I’m rightly fit for this, conversation. So, I mean, power is something that could be defined differently based on who you’re asking. Because when you think about African Americans in particular or people of African descent all over the world, we have had longed for as we watched it in the hands of others. But it’s a power that is dehumanizing. It’s a power that is self centered in many ways. It’s a power that is rooted in capitalism. And it’s a power that is a result of not being able to see the humanity in others. And so one of the things that black folks have to do is to unlearn everything they have ever learned about power. Right? We have been taught lessons about power for centuries that we have to unlearn in order for us to obtain a power that is good for us and anyone around us. So the knowledge that we have of power is unhealthy and toxic. And the only way that we can truly overcome that unhealthy and toxic understanding is to reimagine power in the hands of black people. What does black power really mean? And so part of that calls for imagination that black people have to be able to imagine a power they have never seen before, To imagine power looking differently in our homes, in our intimate relationships, in the world, in our workplaces so that we don’t perpetuate and recreate the power that has harmed us for centuries. It’s great. Thank you. How about you? I’m glad to, be here. We thank, God for the visionary, Alisa Fields. I’m bishop bishop Charlie Haines, Jr, the presiding bishop of the Ninth Episcopal District Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, which encompasses seven states on the West Coast, 95 churches and five regions. I want to, deal with power from, a mundane definition. Power is the ability or the capacity, to control, influence events, persons, situations, or circumstances. I want to, just piggyback off of Rael, definition of unlearn. The best, topography or the best, idea that I could come up with is, on the anniversary of Chad, Bosewick’s birthday is Wakanda. What you see in that whole imagery is these individuals who have enormous power, but they wield it for good and harmony and synergy in the context of this fictional, nation called Wakanda. What it really means to have power is simply this, to master others may look be looked upon as strength, but to master yourself is the real true essence of power. To, ladle this with a biblical narrative, Psalms 24 tells us best. It says, the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. If we understand the capacity of power, then we’re simply just wielding it for the good of others outside of ourselves. Good. How about yourself, brother? My name is Mike Kelsey and, it’s a joy, to be here. I admire all of you who are on the panel, and I’m more used to sitting out there. But, I’m a lead pastor at McLean Bible Church here in the Washington DC area, but I’m a son of the New Samaritan Baptist Church here in Northeast DC. And, it’s, power is a is a topic we need to be thinking more about and talk about. I think when I think about power, I don’t wanna initially think about it, in in the context of oppression. I think more fundamentally, as I think about power, it’s just the the ability to to turn your will into reality. And I think, all of us have power to a certain extent that is inherent and God given because we’ve been made in the image of God. And so that brings me comfort and I know we’ll probably get into, some different dynamics and implications of that power. But that does bring me comfort because even when I look at the history of our own people, there is a power that we have demonstrated that was not, given to us. We didn’t need permission to be able to experience and reflect that power. That was a power that was given to us by our creator. And so, I think all of us in a sense and within a certain scope have the ability, the capacity to turn our will into reality. I think where oppression comes in is we don’t all have the same capacity to turn our will into reality. There are things, there are people, there are factors, systems at work that hinder us from that kind of agency. And I think that’s a problem, not first and foremost for us, but first and foremost, for God himself. So that’s how I think about power. And in my own life, man, I think I’ve been wrestling with that that personal power. Sometimes we can feel stuck, in a victim of certain circumstances. And so I think sometimes in my own life and I’m talking about basic stuff, just having a desire, a god given dream to pursue something, but feeling like, I can’t I can’t do that. But but realizing my father-in-law actually has been a huge inspiration in this to just be reminded I have a bit more power and agency ability to pursue that than I than I may have thought. So that’s one of the ways I’m working out in my own life. It’s great, man. You know, Lisa really, in her book as a the last chapter is really about power. And I’ve been there’s two frequencies I hear about this conversation of power. There’s one in the kind of systemic level, and then there’s another at the, like, personal slash interpersonal level of power. And, you know, one of the things she says in her book is that, you know, when we feel powerless, we find tools that will give us control and help us curate the life we want to live. And, so my question for you is, in the in the what ways have you found that gaining control has or has not alleviate pain in your life? I guess I’ll go first. Okay. So let me give you some context. So for, prior to two years ago, I was a pastor in the Bay Area. Grew a church from about 81 members to a little bit over 3,400. I’ve done social justice work. Oscar Grant, I was on the front lines in the Bay Area, when he died and fought as much as we could, to get some semblance of justice even though we never really received it, because, that officer, only received a sentence of two and a half weeks, after he had already served. And they gave him time served, then he went off to, Montana, lived another life. And what that did at that time, it created, an unsettling pain, in me. It gave me, a whole context around what it really mean to suffer. And I wanna get too, theological, but, Soreen Kierkegaard says suffering is redemptive. Alright. And I had to wrestle with that because I said, why do we, as people of color, have to always be the ones suffering without any sense of relief. Then this adage, bless me, it says the cure for pain is in the pain. And what that literally means is that once you release the ability or the idea that you can control your pain and begin to face your pain and live in your pain, that’s when the healing starts to happen. It was not until that moment, that, I saw later on, ten, fifteen years later, there was a group of, individuals, in Oakland at the time wanted to target churches and take out people because they were angry because another sister, was knifed on BART, which is Bay Area Rapid Transit, and they could not deal with that pain. And a colleague of mine reminded some of them, he says, the people that you’re targeting is the people that’s been on the front lines helping you while you were in class learning about geometry. In that context, we had to help them face their own pain to deal with the idea of letting go control and understanding that healing is actually living with your pain. It’s good. It’s good. Since you’re looking now here, David, one of the things I think about, when I think about pain, is the example in, I’ve spent, been to Rwanda, a couple times. It’s a, a country in Africa. And, you know, they’ve had a lot of tribalism, you know, between the the Hutus and the, the Tutsis. And the story that they kinda tell is when one group would get power, the pain, one group would just oppress the other back and forth, and it’s from the effects of colonization and, colonialism. And so when one group was in power, they would oppress the other group. And then another group would get power, and then they would oppress the other group. So all of them taking the pain, of this divide and conquer that really none of them owned anything because the French owned everything. And they would take that pain and just take it out on each other until in, the early nineties, it turned into a genocide that killed over, 800,000 people. And it was the, the genocide of the of the Tutsi. But new leadership coming in, if you’re gonna heal, kind of like what, the bishop was saying, when you’re gonna heal, you have to kind of submit that pain and not take vengeance. So we can take our power and our pain and we can turn it into vengeance or we can turn it into reconciliation. And what they’ve done, in Rwanda is this attempt to take the history of their pain and turn it into truth and reconciliation. And I think that’s important, in anything that we think about is that where you can have power and you can use that. And just even a biblical example of that is, in Genesis. And so Genesis, you see, the pharaoh and how he misuses his power against the people, in in in Exodus. But before that, you know, kinda like the the preemptive thing before all of that is you have Joseph who was in charge in Genesis. He was placed in charge. And Joseph chose, he make a he made a decision to use the new power that he had been given, the responsibility, and to help not just his people, but also the people of Egypt with how he led. But then there was this part I missed where Joseph was impacted by that leadership. And that goes back to the unlearning, what my friend Yael just mentioned, where the unlearning, there was, in that environment of the misuse of power, there were some things that he ingested. And so although there was a part of him that used his power for good, there was also a part of him that used his power in a negative sense because when the people when the as the famine increased, Joseph also had the people enslaved. And, I kinda miss that in the story, because I’ve always focused on, look, he helped his people, and then they forgot about him. And, you know, he assimilated, did all the things, and then they forgot about him. But then just that part I miss where he also enslaved the people. I think could you imagine the vengeance, the generational vengeance that that created, that this man that they knew that was a Hebrew, also that was the ruler, enslaved. So it kinda shines a light on how they forgot Joseph in the book of Exodus, you know. So that’s when I those are the things I think about is how do we how are we gonna take our power but use it for good and make sure that we are excavating everything that we’ve ingested? Because we’ve been queued a certain way Just by living here in The States, we’ve been racialized. We’ve been queued a certain way. So, that’s one of the ways I was just looking at. So, I must first apologize for my voice. My allergies are really acting up this week and I could not cancel, of course, because this is such an honor. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be invited here by Lisa. So just work working through my voice throughout this. You know, please be patient with me. But the first thing I thought about to make it relatable is how do everyday people like us relate to power? I mean, we’re talking about power every day with the election, right? But there’s a way in which power looks different for us in our everyday lives than it does for someone running for president, right? And it looks a lot like pursuit of the American dream. When you think about our pursuit of power, it’s intertwined with our pursuit of what we understand as the American dream or what black folks now call black excellence. It’s reaching a point where you surpass your peers. So right now, black excellence has really come down to millionaire status, multimillionaire status. So we are understanding power today as intimately tied to obtaining an unimaginable amount of wealth, right? And when I think back to when I was coming out of college, my pursuit of power was just let me have the job that allows me to do what I wanna do. It was very simple, it was very innocent, but I didn’t know I was on a pathway to the American dream. And so why that is so unhealthy for us is because there’s a thin line between pursuing your dreams and then being pushed into this labor force day in and day out to fulfill the dreams of the American empire. And we pursue these dreams not knowing that we’re becoming mules, that we’re just simply called on to be productive. And we obtain this obsession with productivity where we wake up every day toiling and grinding just like our ancestors did. And there’s a way in which our ancestors’ wildest dream was not for us to labor ourselves to death. It was not. That was and that is the part of the unlearning that I’m trying to help this generation do. That they have misused and misappropriated our ancestors wildest dreams. It was not about mass wealth. It was not about luxury. It was not about fame and fortune. And it was not about working ourselves to death until it’s time to retire and have no time to enjoy the latter days of our lives. Right? So we have to reclaim those ancestral dreams. And that’s part of our healing. The more we can be in tune with what did our ancestors want, simplicity, joy, love, intimacy, the basics of life. The more we get in tune with those ancestral dreams and work walk ourselves further and further away from the American dream, the more we will heal. Yeah. You know, I think this there’s a theme that we really have to, you know, I grew up Pentecostal, so, you know, we would constantly hear, I’d be I therefore beseech you brothers by the mercy of God, present your body holy. Y’all remember the verse. Right? And it says, and and, two is, do not be conformed to this world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. And, I was just like really studying that text, and I was just realizing that, this is to the church of Rome, which is at the, like, center of the greatest empire of its time. And so in many ways, another, translation could be do not be conformed to the, ways of the empire, but be transformed with a kingdom mentality. Right? And you just see the way the rest of the text, unfolds. And I I do think that, you know, since 1950, as US, as we become a superpower, we, you know, what there’s a lot of luxury. There’s a lot of things that we just assume is is normal, is good, and we can kind of baptize empire thinking and as as, Christian ministry. Right? Or or, a Christian ethos. And so, as we think about power, I mean, and this might not always necessarily Empire doesn’t always include it it it does it definitely includes oppression, but all applications of power isn’t necessarily always about oppression. And so, as we think about the church and how does the church teach and model healthy expressions of power and authority, like, what what are ways that we’ve seen, light, you know. We’ve seen good ways of modeling of healthy church and, engaging with authority and power. Well, I I think, one of the things that you have to do as a leader is to see yourself as a agent for the community and not for yourself. Most leaders, have, in a Greco Roman sense, a ego, a selfish identity, to which they promote, whether that be good or bad. I think the call for us is to center our power or our leadership around our purpose. Why am I here? What legacy can I leave? And how can I move people to the place of freedom? One of the things that, we’ve often heard, freedom ain’t free. But the context is is that the price that you pay is the ultimate freedom. So who you sacrifice for sets up the next generation to unlearn behavior, to walk in a simplicity of life, and to move to a place of freedom. One of the things if we look at Jesus from a sociopolitical hermeneutic, in the text, I was sharing this with someone earlier. Out of all of his issues, he lived in a hostile environment. He was never welcomed except for his disciples, yet it never changed his demeanor or his effort in welcoming people into the kingdom. So one of the things that you must understand is that there’s only two things that you can control, is your intention and your posture. Everything else is not up to you. If you understand how to control your effort and control your attitude towards your context, then that’s the greatest freedom that you can have. It’s not the accumulation of wealth. It’s not the accumulation of things. It’s not the accumulation of contacts, but it’s the understanding of how I can live free without the constraints of those things that cause us to move in a modern day oppression. Yeah. A a couple of things related to the church. I think one, I think we have to give the church a good theology of power and not just a the a theology of power from beneath. Meaning growing up in the African American church, a lot of what I heard about power was from the standpoint of not having it, which was good and encouraging and comforting and liberating and empowering to be reminded I have inherent value and dignity as an image bearer of God even though we’re in a society where as black people, we don’t have the power that we desire. I think the problem with only preaching about power from beneath is that we don’t equip people for what happens to you when you have power from above. When you actually have power and you have wealth and you have access and you have those things that can easily become distortions of not just the American dream or our ancestors’ dreams, but of our faith, how do you actually steward power? Because I think all the time about how did so many white Christians sit under preaching and in church week in and week out and still and this is not pain with a broad brush, but generally speaking, not only benefit from, but advocate for, cosign, personally participate in that kind of oppression. There there was a lot that was lacking in a theology, and here’s where I’m going with that. That same lack, not to the same degree, but, and we see it even here in the DC area when we come up. Right? Started from the bottom. Now I’m here. What do I do now that I’m here? What is my responsibility before God now as somebody who has been given a stewardship of power and, authority and responsibility and that kind of thing. So I think we have to give, our people a a well rounded theology of power, not just of of being the oppressed, but a theology of power that equips people to know. And it takes some wisdom too, to know how to steward that power in in God honoring ways. The other thing I say in church is, I do I think we have to and I don’t know. We’ll we’ll see if we have time to talk about this. I I think, I come from an a high honor environment. We’re in a a high honor culture. I transitioned into a predominantly white evangelical environment where, that’s just not kind of a part of the culture. I I I walked into an environment. I’m like, who is Lon? That was our our senior pastor was was pastor Lon Solomon. I’m like, who is that? I’m not calling no grown man by his first name. Like, that’s pastor Solomon. What do you mean? Right? And so I came from a a a culture of honor into a culture that didn’t really know much about honor. But in that, I’ve had to look back and and look at some different examples, and I do think we have to there’s a fine line between honor and hero worship. Yes. And so in high honor environments, which is beautiful and appropriate and biblical, if we’re gonna talk about power, I think we also need to talk about what does appropriate honor look like in ways that don’t lead to the manipulation of power or the abuse of power. Look. Thank you, sir. Y’all can clap up for him. It’s alright. I I think it comes back to how you’re wired and what who mentored you. Right? When you have unhealthy mentorship, it could constantly perpetuate what people see. People do what they see. So I’m, you know, fortunate and unfortunate some of my days. I’m in a position of power. I have the capacity to take one pastor and move him or her from one location of the country to another part in my system. And one of the things that I wrestle with, when I first moved my first pastor, it felt like I had shot somebody because I was not used to handling someone who was underperforming, killing a congregation, and yet moving them to a place where they can live again and yet deal with the insults and the unsettling moments of taking that person from one place to the next. And what I had to do was realize that while I have this power, my best thing to do is, one, surrender to God. Number two, don’t forget my identity. Number three, understand that it’s not the personality that I’m in control of, but I’m trying to steward the best opportunity that’s presented to me. And most people who who, let’s say it this way. Some people who have power should never have power. And those who understand how to use power never try to hold on to it. And that’s the best way to kind of steward that moment. I just had to insert that in there. You know, as as we are in this conversation, I wanna to continue on this flow. But I think that like Howard Thurman is a great example of some insight about how do we think about power. There’s a book that should be mandatory reading for every American and it’s called Jesus and Disinherited. And he’s really asking the question, what does Jesus mean for those who backspin against the wall, the disinherited? He even talks about Jesus as a hermeneutic. And how do we see like as an interpretation, Jesus’ interpretation. That’s the phrase he uses. And so, I think this is something that’s really important because I think the answers that we’re we’re we’re providing are questions as people who are leaders. But like what about folks who are not necessarily like leaders that don’t have the, who might be on the receiving end of the decisions that we make or decisions that, you know, a public official makes or just and and the question that when you read the rest of the book, what Howard Thurman is really trying to do is is trying to help those who have been to this inherited to not be corrupted by fear, by deceit, by hatred, by seeing what kind of person do you become and you see Jesus as a model because Jesus was one of the spies as a Jewish man in the Roman Empire. And so, he was not a Roman citizen engaging in the privileges of that. So, how would you all talk about folks that are, on the receiving end of decisions that might not so would be great on the on on the receiving end of power. When we think about what Jesus did in the time that he did it, he would not have been considered a leader. He would have been considered a gang member if you think about it because he was organizing something that was organic from the ground up. He was working with, mingling with the most outcast of society. No one knew the ultimate goal and purpose of what he was doing. Violence often erupted wherever he went or disturbances often erupted. He didn’t look kept. He didn’t look clean. He was considered and he hung out with those because I think John the Baptist was a thug. Right? So in all these ways, if Jesus was any type of leader, he was a gang leader. Right? And the reason I say that is because I grew up around women who were housekeepers, women who were hotdog stand owners, who were cab drivers. And my whole life was, was shaped by the presence of women who were leaders in our communities and in our homes. Many of the men were absent. That’s only my background. I’m not speaking to everyone, but in my background, a lot of the men were missing and it was the women who trained us up. It was the women who I saw as entrepreneurs. So I say all of this to say that sometimes we just have a distorted understanding of leadership. We have a very distorted understanding of leadership. Brenda, Eleanor, all the My sister Amaz, my mother Ababa, they were leaders. They were women who were negotiating whether their children would stay and fight wars in Eritrea where I was born or seek political asylum in Europe or The United States. I mean, these were tough decisions that they were making. And so when I come from a field of community organizing where you understand that everybody in a circle is a leader, everybody has gifts, everybody’s bringing something to the table and you’re not going into the circle looking for the leader, the charismatic leader. Right? Yeah. Trying to find the you don’t find the leader. The leader has already been born. Yeah. But what we’re working through are the conditions that prohibit people from taking up their leadership roles. I mean, some of us don’t even have the mental capacity because we’re drained by so many stresses in life. Some of us don’t have the financial resources. Some of us don’t have a loving environment around us that nurtures us into leadership. But we do have to get, I mean, if Donald Trump could be a self proclaimed leader, then everybody in the world is a leader. My God, I mean, he saw something in himself and we’re still talking about, I’m baffled. I mean, I’m I’m truly baffled and we’re still trying to figure out who’s qualified for leadership. If we could appoint that man as president of These United States, then why can’t we look into our communities, our urban communities and see those dope dealers on the corners and say, they are leaders in those corners. There are leaders there. The young girl who got pregnant early and wasn’t able to focus on education, Natural born leader probably, right? So there’s all these ways in which we have to just take that understanding of leadership and think back to the leadership of Jesus’ day. That organic gang like, nobody understands it. It doesn’t look like what it’s supposed to look like, but you have no idea what it will do in this world. Amen. Amen. Amen. Alright. I see some people are populating with some questions. I want you to definitely get on pigeonhole and make sure that you ask questions and even kind of vote up your questions. We’re gonna transition a little bit in in about a few minutes to some of the questions from the audience. Anything you wanna share with us? Yeah. Well, I was just gonna say, I was just thinking about, as she was talking, I was thinking about Fannie Lou, Hammer. I was Amen. You know, I was thinking about, you know, her being, from Mississippi and, you know, wasn’t the model, that the the Democratic party wanted to to kind of platform because of her lack of education. But I also think about my, my aunt, my aunt Lynn. I think about my my grandmothers. None of my grandmothers, graduated high school. You know? My aunt, 90 just passed 94, never graduated high school. But there was this power that they still contained because because they were I am. And that same power, I I I was just thinking about the scripture in in second Timothy, for God has not given us the spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind. And I think that’s the key thing when we’re when we talk about power, we cannot miss the essence of love because my grandmother had power because she had love. And I think that’s important. Martin Luther King has this quote where he says that, I hope I don’t butcher it, but, power at its best is, power at its, power without love is reckless and abusive, but love without power is anemic and sentimental. And I think that’s just a powerful, saying is that we possess power, you know, from the youngest, even if we’re not in a place of power, we have power. We have dignity. We have love and I think that is the root of what true power is. It’s the essence of love when it’s wielded the right way. And I think that’s what Jesus demonstrated in the condition that he was, born in as a Nazarene, the lowest, you know, as born into an empire, you know, oppressed, but he possessed the essence of love, you know, that actually took him to the cross, you know. And I think how he wielded his power is just key and that we can all learn from the the person with the most power, from the person that we don’t deem as powerful if it’s not submitted to love is abusive and reckless. And I think it’s just how we we kinda view that. Can I jump in on that real quick? You mentioned Fannie Lou Hamer, and it it reminded me of that moment where she looked at, one of the officers who had just brutally abused her. And she looked him in his face and she said she said, do you people not think about the day when you’ll meet God? Mhmm. Yeah. And what that reminds me of, that that’s a that’s practical theology. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s practical theology that she believed in what the gospel reveals that there is a God who is He is good and and he is our creator and he is love, but he is holy and he is just. He does not just look at sin and evil and oppression, and he’s not just passive toward it. And I think about Jesus. To me, she models Jesus in first Peter five. Jesus entrusted himself to him who judges justly. And the reason I mentioned that is because, especially as we talk about, black theology, we talk about the black experience in relation to Christian faith, there’s been a distortion of gospel theology. And when we think about, it was mentioned on panel, yesterday as catalogical hope, that there is a day, right, where, all things will be made right, where where where where God will judge sin and will judge evil, that the revelation of that reality was never designed to make us complacent in this life. It was never just a wait for that to all work out. But what it did do is it enables us to do what is ours to do, but not try to take control of what is only God’s. In other words, Fannie Lou Hamer still spent the rest of her life advocating on behalf of the oppressed and, I mean, stepping into rooms and situations that were just I mean, to a lot of us would just seem overwhelming. And so she fought and she worked hard, but she was able to do so in a way that was still Christ like and honor God because she trusted vengeance wasn’t hers, it was God’s. And so I think our theology has to motivate us to action, to, to speak up and to work on behalf of the oppressed. But the reality of the gospel and the reality of ultimate justice and judgment keeps us from, using power and reflecting the same type of oppressive power that we’ve seen, if that makes sense. Because we look at Jesus who, who used his power in ways that were liberating, in ways that were compassionate, in ways that brought honor to God. Yeah. You know, I hear a theme that’s happening here. It reminds me of, when I was in college, I I’m a product of the black church. And and, Deacon Wilson would say, hey, son, come here and sit down. And Deacon Wilson would come and have you sit down and talk to me. He said, son, you know, you get all the education that you can get. You know, I had to drop out of school when I was in the eighth grade to help my family and be a sharecropper and work the farm. And you get all the education you can get. But make sure you’re not an educated fool. And he says, the fool says there is no God. And the scriptures that Deacon Wilson and my grandmother and all of those folks in my church, whatever they knew, they believed. They had faith. And I think so often, we can get so upset when conservative white supremacy takes on a version of Christianity, and they would swap that out for progressive white supremacy. And neither one of those things helped grandma and grandpa out and good weekend Wilson. It was a true believing of faith in Jesus And the scriptures, whatever it was that they believe, they believe. And so I think I hear this theme that no matter all the education, the privilege, and we are standing on the shoulders of ancestors and people that have gone before us, but let’s not forget our roots, which is, you know, if you have not memorized all of our lift every voice and sing, remember all three verses because that is that’s what they’re trying to remind us of. They’re trying to remind us to remember the God who brought us here and is going to continue to help us get to the eschatological hope. So let me ask a question that I hear from the audience. What are some ways we have mishandled transitions of power and succession in the black church that have led to toxic and counterproductive cultures slash traditions that have harmed our communities? Oh. Come on, Bishop. Made that question, but you sound like you are walking in my world. I will say historically, well, here’s the problem. The problem is is that we try to adopt Eurocentric models in African context that always end in disaster. That’s the problem. It does not say that we don’t have to have the modalities or the methods or the tools for succession, but secession does not always look like the same in every context. And while, many, especially in the church, in the black church, many leaders almost die in the pulpit, because they have not prepared adequately, to retire. And many of them, if I can just be granular about it, they have to pastor, even with dementia because they can’t afford their medication because they spent all of their monies on custom suits and alligator shoes. Mhmm. When we have this whole idea of accumulation that leave us without, that sets us up for failure. So I think the conversation has to be more, Afrocentric. How do I prepare this leader to pass the torch or pass the baton to the next leader. Afrocentrism says that I don’t make myself great, but I become great by taking others along with me. One of the reasons I believe today that I am a, I was a preacher pastor. I accepted my call to preach at 17 was because I saw my pastor, how he, operated in his community. A brother get out of jail, he would take $200 out of his pocket and buy that person a suit, give them a job as a, as a janitor or domestic in in that context, and then set them up to go to school or set them up to get a trade. And he did this not just for one person, but for multiple people. So when you have that kind of leadership, you also know that person is also stewarding for their own lives. So I think it’s critical, that we look at various models while we prepare leaders along the way. When you get to, middle age, you start preparing to, mentor some other young person, to take the torch and continue to do the work. When we do not do that, we don’t have healthy modalities for succession and leadership. I hope I answered your question, whoever you may be. Everybody else want to jump in on that one? Oh, one thing that I see is problematic about power is that there’s an assumption that power and luxury must live together. There’s this assumption that once you come into power, your life must change and it must be reflected in some form of honor, deep honor and luxury and opulence. Right? And then so to the point in which you now put luxury over liberation because you have to have the look of power and then people will often go out of their way to keep up with the Joneses, right? You know, do whatever they have to do to look like power, to embody power externally. But the problem with that is power is not about what your position does for you, it’s about what your position does for others. And that’s what people forget. The assumption that when you come into power, your life changes, your family’s life changes versus that power is about my community changing, my world changing, that everything that I touch should not look the same once I walk away. And so it’s an unhealthy conception of power. Partly again, as I said in the beginning, we have adopted the ways of the oppressor even in our understanding of power. So what have we seen? I mean, the enslaved Africans had an understanding of power that when power is in your hands, it corrupts you. It makes you evil. It makes you not recognize the humanity of others. And so this is the generational passing on of power that we have had. And then power has often been in the hands of empire. And then if it’s in the hands of empire, then it’s about stealing resources from others. It’s about doing whatever you have to do to maintain the power at all costs. We hoard power. We hoard it and hoard it and we’ll do anything to keep it. And so it’s not just America, it’s also in Africa. I mean, why do we have the dictators? And why do we have this understanding that once they obtain power, you visibly know they have it from how their family and their community, immediate community looks. So we have to reimagine power as communal and not individual. Power has to be understood as And we assume that just because someone is in a, in a role in political office that they’re there for the community and it’s just not true. A lot of times they’re there for self advancement. And so passing on power to others is often the most powerful thing that we can do. Yeah. That’s that’s really good. You know, I just as as I set up the next question, I think something that might be helpful for us to just really understand, even to have empathy for the generation that came before us, particularly as a race to the black church, if a black man was to be a man to be respected, it was the position of the pastor that was the only one. They usually, if they wouldn’t respect the humanity of the of the of the man, they would at least respect the cloth. And so that became a place where one could just get respect and dignity. And, you know, the one that was also the leader and pillar in society, they didn’t have the ability to go to college or to get education or to do a lot of different things. Or if they were, they were, like, the only one that got a chance to do that. And so just that position of that that generation, it’s very scary when you become vulnerable in 7080, both physically and with your own vocation and what does all these things look like. And so for us, you know, I think I’ve I’ve had to kind of even have that reckoning with my own life, where I just am sitting in a very privileged space, and I’ve had different type of opportunity. I see the world in a very different way that it’s even kinda hard for even the generation of ministers before me to even see. And so some of that some of the pain that they’ve inflicted on me, is really coming out of their own vulnerabilities that it’s just in reaction to what’s going on. I think that and how they’ve been formed and their lives are malformed. And so I just think that we can exercise some empathy in our communities around around us to try to understand, like, we’re all trying to wrestle with something very difficult. I was gonna say that’s why I mentioned though, we have to have a theology of power, not just from below, but from above. Yeah. Because when you get that, even if you don’t have it ultimately, right, whoever you do have some degree of power over, then you’ll just reflect what you’ve experienced. And so Jesus has to become the paradigm Yeah. For what power actually looks like. And very simply, power looks like love. Yeah. So when I think about Jesus’ use of power all throughout scripture, if I think about him casting out demons, it wasn’t a flex. Yeah. He’s casting out demons on behalf of Yeah. Those who are being oppressed by demons. Yeah. When I think about Jesus show up in the temple, and he just goes in, he’s flipping over tables and all of that, that doesn’t look like, oh, that doesn’t look I mean, it is because literally he is Christ like because Jesus did it. Right? But why did he do it? Because they’re setting up a market in the court of the Gentiles. Yeah. Which is where they have access, right, to the the temple. So, so I think making sure our people that we don’t assume that this is all it’s gonna be. You just always gonna be broke. You always gonna be a no. Let’s assume, right, that our people, by God’s grace, are going to be experiencing different levels of responsibility and access and wealth and begin discipling and equipping them Yeah. For how to think about, that, those privileges, so that they’re they’re equipped when they get there. When you become middle class, when you become wealthy, what do you do? Are you still communal? Right? Are are you still if you’re a Christian, are you still actually committed to to embodying the values that we see in Jesus and the gospel that we see in Jesus? So that’s why I mentioned that, because I do think we have to have that equipment and and that thinking, as we step into those those roles. That’s good. So what we see is that oppression can happen in every people group. It can be embodied in all of society in various spaces. And so here’s a question related to this. How do you navigate feeling a lack of power in predominantly white work slash church spaces? I know somebody just happened to write a book about this. Okay. Navigating that feeling of, the lack of power in predominantly white work church spaces, that’s hard. There’s so many, layers to that to that question. I think it’s it’s it’s important to understand in those environments, you have to understand who you are and whose you are. And that’s gonna be key to navigation and and survival, in those spaces. Because those spaces are, a lot of times, lack the nuance and the understanding of, systemic racism, of the stereotypes, of the biases. And if you don’t have power, you may have a seat at the table, but if you don’t have a voice at the table. You know? And so many of us, we have a seat at the table, but we don’t have a voice at the table. And if we use our voice at the table, we no longer have a seat at the table. And I I think it’s, you know, in that I’ll just tell you what I did. Okay? You see? It’s easy. Where, you know, you have a a I had a seat at the table, but really no voice at the table. And so I was gonna do the little power that I did had is have as far as being a director or a leader within that church. I was gonna utilize that for a certain amount of time. And and to to change culture, it takes about three years in a in a work environment to change culture. I said, if I’m having the same conversations in three years that I had year one, I’m out of here because I don’t have time to waste. And I think sometimes to navigate and to execute your power, it looks like leaving. You know? If if if if people are not willing to listen, and it’s their loss, you know? But while I was there, I was gonna you exercise the giftings that god had given me to bring about change. But I can’t control whether someone listens or not. There’s gonna be some that’s gonna listen and they’re gonna do better. But some that are gonna listen, but they’re not gonna change. And that’s a whole another another level of accountability that they’re gonna have to stand before God. And so those are the things that I I I have to remember. And this this whole, one of the concepts I think, you know, what pastor Mike was talking about is this this having this theological understanding of power. But I think some of the also the basis of this theological, understanding of powers that we really have to have. And this is what I feel like this lacking, within a lot of our churches, especially within a lot of our white churches, is this theological concept, of love, of basic love and what it truly means to love your neighbor or love the other. Because if love is presence, if love is present, you have a voice. If love is present, you have power. If love is present, you have empathy. If love is present, there shouldn’t be no misuse of power or abuse of power, you know? And so, I think those are some of the things that we have to really, like, when there is oppression, when there is stereotypes and, and and, disparities that are leading in the kingdom of God, I think we have to understand there is a lack of love. And half of our like, if we even look at some of our statements of faith, you know, they contain a lot of things, but a lot of them don’t say nothing about love. So I think this is important. So, let me approach it from this perspective. I remember when I was in seminary, and, for sake of time, I won’t name that school. I remember the board of trustees at the time that I was in school were predominantly white, male. The only other person that existed in the room was one white female. And the amount of rage that I had because here are people that, from my perspective, is making decisions regarding my education that does not denote my voice. So how I started to change how I navigated things, one, I had to leave my emotions on the table. That if I approach this from an emotional perspective, I’ve already lost. Right? I had to check my emotions. Secondly, I had to look at the long term gain. I say, if I’m ever able to get in position, I’m gonna go back and not only change that board, but create access. Fast forward twenty plus years later, I’m on that board of trustees. Twenty years later, they have their first non white president. I challenged him to say that while I’m on this board, I wanna make sure every year that I’m on this board, several, not one, but several students of color, particular black men, black women, will get scholarships for rides at the school. I’ve been on the board three years. That has been the testimony. You have to look at the long term gain. If you’re looking at short term gains, you’re you’re already defeated. Sec the last piece I would say is that do not have imposter syndrome when you walk in the room. Just because someone has different exposures than you do or different set of tools than you do does not does not mean that you don’t belong in the room. So use what you have to not only garner more access, but to make the table not only equitable, and I didn’t say equal, equitable for those who are needed, but also to garner more access for those who are not even thinking about the room in the first place. That’s what I would suggest. Yeah. You know, Canada’s economy, I think about like, you can, fact check me on this, but I think about 70% of Canada’s economy is, dependent on The US’s economy. And so they’re very dependent. And, I was with a a policy guy last week, and he says, Canada’s relationship with The United States is like a mouse being a bed with an elephant. You gotta pay attention. And I think that’s similar when it comes to doing this type of work in these spaces that, you know, you you need to kind of pay attention and navigate, but you also need to understand that that mice can do things that elephants can’t do. And understand the power and understand what it is that you’re bringing in. And like my brother said, you know, make sure you have that that long term, understanding and and game. And and and the last thing I’ll say on this subject is, these spaces oftentimes have not really done any really theological work on power. And so don’t assume that they know about power. And a lot of times when you have a conversation about power, you get quickly labeled as being Marxist. And a lot of people who call people Marx is actually haven’t read Karl Marx. And so so it’s just I mean, just, you know, again, just do work, do theological work. I highly recommend, Reckoning Power, by David Fitch. And then I think on an interpersonal level, definitely read chapter seven. Yeah. I think it’s chapter seven of, Lisa’s, book on on power. It’s really, really, really great. Alright. How can you respond when you feel you’re being gassed, lighted by a fellow black person or non black person when you’re ex when you express how you feel about a situation in which you feel powerless? Gaslighting. Gaslighting is a word that I have done a lot of research on and paid a lot of attention to because we’re being gaslit by our political leaders right now. There’s a way in which we can see a reality and be told that we don’t see it. There’s a way in which we know what we see. We know how they’re responding to what we see, but they’re telling us that it’s not what you think. And it’s a way in which in many ways is a questioning of our insanity and our intelligence. But I would approach it the same way that I was gonna respond to the previous question. The thought that came to my mind was this generation of millennials has a lot to teach us because their strategies are very different than strategies we’ve seen in the past, but in some ways they’re very similar. So one way is that this generation believes in taking up space. Meaning not allowing you to normalize your perspective, normalize your your reality, but we’re centering ourselves and taking up space. And that can sometimes mean removing people from a certain space, physically removing people so that we have what we call our own safe space. It’s it’s a question of what do you need to feel healthy. Because at the end of the day, gaslighting is a psychological disorder where someone is has adopted it as a survival strategy. So they need you not to believe in your reality so they can accomplish what they want in theirs. That’s at the root of gaslighting. And so this generation believes in centering our reality, taking up space. They might do it by violent confrontation. They might do it by physically taking up space, blocking roads, blocking but it’s the idea that you don’t let somebody else determine your reality for you. In the sixties, during the civil rights movements, the organizers of those movements on college campuses would do what you call take back the mic, Where they would literally step on stage and take the mic from a school administrator or anyone who was not allowing them to have a platform. And it was very successful in establishing student centers all over this country like my own two, schools. Stanford had a take back the mic I believe in 1965 as well as Yale University, which I went to. Both of them had a take back the mic moment, which led to the establishment of cultural centers, which led to African American departments being established. So my idea is that when someone is telling you that your reality is not your own, what you have to do is take back the mic. Take back the mic. Center your reality. Center your story and make sure that you are the one who is holding the mic. You are the one telling the reality that’s not being told. And I’m not gonna get into current global affairs right now, but this is a moment in which we can see that gas citing can go on for months and months and months and months. And it can be sanctioned by world leaders. And we can feel very, very powerless. That’s a word that we haven’t said in this conversation about power. Powerless. Right? I was gonna say something, but then she said she went to Stanford and Yale. So You know, I think, you know, as we we’re about to wrap up, and I just think, you know, what are some biblical principles that could just guide us as we, pursue the use of power to to try to have some guardrails because the, corrupting sin throws goes off through the work of power. Right? And so, how do we learn how to do this work of power in a ways? I mean, I would imagine it’s it’s kind of similar to like electricity. Right? Like, you can use electricity and you can have the certain kind of conductors where that power can be used in very positive ways or if we just like put our hands on some power, that doesn’t have the right kind of conductors, it can cause a lot of problems. And so, what are some biblical guides and guardrails that we could use, as we wrap up? So, I’ll drop you three. These, three favorite scriptures that I go to around leadership. The first one is James four and six. I’m a give you some addresses and some you have to research on your own. James four and six says, but God opposes the proud, but give grace to the humble. The more humble you are, the greater your chances is around influence for good and not bad. Second scripture, is to whom much is given, much is required. That scripture is a scripture around accountability, that it does not matter what position you’re in. You ought to have an accountability circle to keep you level headed, to keep you humble, and to keep you focused on what your, goals are. So those are the two. And my third one, I’m having a CRS moment. I can’t remember something. Amens. Some of y’all are not saved. I see. I I can’t think of it right now, but those are the two. I’ll come back to it if it comes to me. Who wants to go next? Let Let me say just a couple of things real quick on the white Christian spaces thing. If anybody here is is struggling with that, that’s my reality. And so, I’d love to talk, about what that really looks like. But one question I would ask you is why are you staying there? And I don’t wanna answer that for you, but I think you need to honestly answer that question because that might reveal some things you need to process. It doesn’t mean God’s calling you to leave, but maybe he is. But it certainly might mean that he he wants you to show up in a different way. On the, principles for leadership, I’d echo what you said. I think for me, the the most beautiful and compelling place I can go to in scripture when it comes to that is when Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. Because it’s interesting right before that, it says, knowing that he had come from the father, he took a towel and wrap wrapped it around his waist. So he knew the authority and power that he had. And you would expect the very next thing to be knowing that he had come from the the father. He asked somebody to wash his feet, you know, and he doesn’t. He does something that would have been utterly just humiliating for him to do, and he washed his disciples’ feet. So I think that’s just helpful for me to just think about, and it it captures my imagination as I think about what power can actually look like and how it can produce beauty and, healing and freedom for so many people. So that’s just one place in scripture, as a way to just renew our minds. Now I remembered it. It’s Romans twelve and three. This is one of my favorite scriptures. So if you if we talking and somebody’s acting like this, I say, oh, they’re a victim of Romans. For by grace given me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. If you do not have a high, process of who you are, that’s the best principle for leadership. Because it never becomes about you, but it becomes about the purpose of the work by which you serve. Thanks. A couple of things, for me would be, you know, Paul in second Corinthians describes, like, just his dependence on God and hardships. And I think, you know, even now, as a leader, going through hardships, remembering, that sometimes they can overcome you. Situations can overcome you. Things are you know, when we start talking about systemic racism, it’s bigger than myself. Like, you know what I’m saying? This is like something that is has been around for generations. So I think just this deep, dependence, on, on Jesus and knowing that, I am not the center of that, but God is. And I think the other thing is the one a scripture that we all all love, especially when we’re dealing with trials and tribulations in James one, where it says, consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. And that’s that, that strength that I need to continue, and to not give up because it’s so easy. Let me tell you, it’s a fight every day to say, you know what? This is this this is too big for me. This too much. But it’s the per perseverance and then also the surrendering, all of it, to to God. It helps me show up and do that next right thing. Just the next thing that I know to do. Just taking it off in chunks. Just small chunks. You know, one day at a time. One moment at a time. One second at a time. Helps me to persevere and endure. This is great. Bless. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound mind. And that that means that the opposite of fear is faith. So faith is power, love, and sound mind. I always that’s my favorite scripture arguably. I love it. I hold it true to everything that I’ve ever gone through in my life. So I would call on us to never forget that. And then last thing would be to remember how Christ himself modeled power. And what we forget is, yes, Christ resurrected, but Christ had to first be crucified. So for anyone seeking power, what is your sacrifice? What is your sacrifice that makes you worthy to hold power? Some of us are not worthy of it because we haven’t sacrificed anything. For the greatest among you will be your servant. Have you served anybody? Have you shadowed under anybody? Have you had an elder that you were mentored by? So there’s a lot of ways in which we have not even modeled Christ leadership model. And that and that’s because a lot of us wanna jump to the resurrection and never deal with the crucifixion. So to be truly qualified for power, what is your lowest moment in life teaching you? And what is the darkest hours of your life teaching you? And it’s the dark and lowest parts that we never wanna go to but those are often the the parts of our lives, the seasons of our life that make us valuable with power. Amen. Amen. That sounds like a great place to, close this story of about power. And I just wanna give our panelists a round of applause. Thank you so much. Elden, great. Blessings.