An Interview with Lecrae and Trip Lee

“A couple of months ago (November 8, 2010) I had the privilege of sitting down with Lecrae and Trip Lee of Reach Records to talk about their stories, their music, their theology, and their future.”

Bill Hybels Interviews Matt Soerens on Immigration

“Bill Hybels and Heather Larson of Willow Creek Community Church interview author Matthew Soerens about the issue of immigration and how the Church should respond.”

Empowering Communities – Interview with John Perkins

“We have developed a program called the Voorhees Ave. Leadership House. This is a joint program with Seattle Pacific University. At the house we are taking young black men and adding young white men, primarily from Seattle, who come down and go to school at Jackson State. Jackson State is an all-black school and so the white students become a minority. What we have at the Voorhees Ave. House is a sort of a reconciling community. We are supporting those young blacks and also helping them to overcome their own inferiority, and of course we are helping the whites to overcome their superiority. That’s what that house is for. It is an experiment; it takes time.”

How Charity Can Be Toxic – Interview with Bob Lupton

“The point is, let’s examine the outcome of care. When I talk about the progression of one-way giving, first you elicit appreciation. You do it twice, you elicit anticipation. What’s more, you do it three times and it becomes expectation that he’s going to do it again. Four times and it’s an entitlement. By the fifth time it’s dependency. They’ve done it every year and we count on it. If anybody has been doing this kind of work, they begin to see that pattern. There is a chronic poverty issue and it calls for a chronic intervention, which is enabling people.”

Improving Race Relations: Interview with John Perkins

An interview with Dr. John Perkins, one of the great champions of racial unity in the Christian church. Dr. Perkins shares about his life and race relations in the U.S. Great video!

Interview with Brenda Salter-McNeil on Catalyst

“Brenda Salter-McNeil talks about her background, books, and vision.”

Interview with Charles Marsh

This resource is located at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/februaryweb-only/32.0c.html

Interview with Chris Rice

This resource is located at:   http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/novemberweb-only/11-11-23.0.html

Interview with Dave Gibbons

“Well, I did notice just how ethnocentric congregations were. I had grown up in a pretty homogeneous white church and went to megachurches that were all white. That always bothered me. Why was this going on?

Then I went to a Korean Church and quickly realized they had the same issues. If the truth were known, they’d hate it if their children married an African America guy—or, for many of them, even a white guy.”

Interview with Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

ReNew staff members Michaela Gregory and Chad Brennan interview Dr. Soong-Chan Rah regarding his book The Next Evangelicalism which was released in April 2009.

Interview with Efrem Smith

“I’ve also realized that reconciliation has to take on not just issues of race and ethnicity; it’s got to take on issues in your marriage, in your family, in your job. It’s got to be intergenerational. It’s got to be across class. It’s got to—and this comes from Scripture—start with being reconciled to God, and then it has to have relevance in your life in terms of relationships.”

Interview with George Yancey on his book Neither Jew Nor Gentile

“George Yancey has been an important voice on diversity within American Christianity. In addition to authoring several books, the University of North Texas sociologist is cofounder of the Mosaix Network, a relational association that promotes multiethnic churches and interactions between ethnically diverse churches. Yancey’s most recent book, Neither Jew Nor Gentile, is an academic exploration of racial and ethnic diversity on Protestant campuses. Urban Faith contributor Joshua Canada talked to Yancey about his work. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
“

Interview with InterVarsity’s Director of Multiethnic Ministries

Excerpt: "We want to join hands with students and faculty and create an environment where people from every ethnic group can come and experience the love of God and meet people who are followers of Jesus. How do we help make that happen? Recently, I attended a diversity training workshop and learned that any time [...]

Interview with John Perkins

This resource is located at:   http://www.theotherjournal.com/article.php?id=65

Interview with John Piper on Racial Reconciliation in the Church

“There is a beautiful movement today of the “soul-dynamic” in the black church (see Carl Ellis’ book Free At Last?). This dynamic is what characterized the black church over the years when they knew God and saw God, and the God that they knew and saw (not systematically, but experientially and with some articulation of biblical truth) was sovereign, solid, and real. He sustained the black church through slavery and injustice and through crisis after crisis. We now have songs and music that were born out of that suffering, and that vision of God is amazingly coherent with the reformed vision of God as expressed by John Calvin, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, and John Owen.”

Interview with Rick Richardson and Brenda Salter-McNeil

Excerpt: In what ways does God prod Christians today to "get out of Jerusalem"? Brenda: The dominant culture of the United States is experiencing some major wake-up calls. I don’t think you have to be one political party or another to say that right now we’re having some very difficult times economically, politically, socially, militarily. [...]

Interview with Rick Richardson and Brenda Salter-McNeil

“When we stay isolated like the disciples initially did, in our Jerusalem, wherever that might be—our Presbyterianism, my Pentecostalism, my suburb or my city, my Black church or your Latino church or your Chinese Christian church—when we stay too long in Jerusalem, we start to think that reconciliation begins and ends there.”

Interview with the staff of River City Community Church

“Most of our new people are white. But there’s a revolving door with the white community here. They have a romantic notion of being part of a multi-ethnic church, so many of them get frustrated and leave when they realize how difficult it is to release their assumptions about the way church is supposed to be.”

Jim Wallis and Mark Dever don’t see eye to eye, but they do agree on justice

So, for me, overcoming racism isn’t social action. It’s integral to the gospel. In Galatians Paul says in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, bond or free, male or female. These are the fundamental human divisions of race, class, and gender that are overcome by the reconciliation we find with God and each other. There is no reconciliation with God apart from being reconciled, as Paul says, to one another. So racial reconciliation and justice are integral to the gospel; they’re not optional.

Part 2 of 5 – Interview with Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

Dr. Rah shares…
- how racism is often thought of as exclusively a “personal issue” — but, the corporate aspect of racism must be recognized and addressed as well
- an example of how the corporate shame of racism was handled in a biblical way

Part 3 of 5 – Interview with Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

Dr. Rah shares…
- how the growing ethnic minority population in America will have a powerful impact on the values of American society and the church
- how the American church must break free from “white cultural captivity” and work toward a more multi-ethnic church
- suggestions for leaders seeking to build multi-ethnic ministries

Part 4 of 5 – Interview with Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

Dr. Rah shares…
- books that can help Christian leaders to learn about other cultural perspectives
- suggestions for how we can reach out to other ethnic groups with a “I’ll go to you” mindset rather than a “Come to me” mindset.

Part 5 of 5 – Interview with Dr. Soong-Chan Rah

Dr. Rah shares…
- there are two different ways we have looked at multi-ethnicity in America… melting pot and salad bowl
- how the dominance of Western, white culture hinders the church’s ability to experience and appreciate ethnic diversity
- suggestions for white Christians who do not understand the reality of white privilege

Preemptive Peace: An Interview with Ken Sande

“Our view of God is truly revealed when we are in a conflict. If we view God as sovereign, all good, all powerful, then even our conflict is something he is planning to use for our good. It means seeing conflicts as opportunities. I may be mad. I’m hurt. I’m threatened. But God is going to do something good. He’s going to reveal his glory. He’s going to refine me through it.”

The Culture Clasher

“If you only create a safe place, you can become too comfortable and feel no need to change and grow. If you only have the presence of discomfort, you generate too much stress to allow for growth. Both a safe place and discomfort must exist to move towards growth. My book is an attempt to introduce a bit of discomfort to the overly comfortable culture of American evangelicalism.”