Blog Posts
Off-Script Christian Parenting: On tattoos and red wagons
Christian parenting is tough. On one hand, I desperately want my two daughters to have faith in God. I want them to experience the church as a place that models the love of God. I want them to be compelled to act when they see the image of God in their neighbors. On the other, I don’t want the weight of my expectations to become an unbearable burden. And, if I’m honest, my expectations are weighty.
Photo from Nappy.co and Children Nature Network
Three days after my eldest daughter’s 18th birthday she got a tattoo. She’s always had an independent streak, and as soon as she had the legal right to get inked, she exercised it. This was no snap decision. The whole thing had been carefully orchestrated: she’d thought through what she wanted, drawn up a design, scheduled a consultation with a reputable artist, and set the appointment well in advance.
Christian parenting is tough. On one hand, I desperately want my two daughters to have faith in God. I want them to experience the church as a place that models the love of God. I want them to be compelled to act when they see the image of God in their neighbors.
On the other, I don’t want the weight of my expectations to become an unbearable burden. And, if I’m honest, my expectations are weighty.
More than anything, I want my daughters to be themselves—to live into the promise of belovedness they were given in their baptisms.
As Christian parents, my spouse and I have not followed the script when it comes to childhood faith formation. We’ve challenged the voices that prescribe a right way. And I’m confident we’ve missed the mark as much as we’ve hit it in nurturing the faith of our two daughters.
My daughters never regularly attended Sunday School or really any form of age-appropriate Christian Education. I served as a Campus Pastor at a University for nearly their entire childhood and they worshiped primarily with 18-22 year-olds. When other kids were doing Godly Play or reading stories out of children’s Bibles, ours had philosophy majors telling them about Hegel and religion majors informing them that Moses didn’t write the Torah.
Their confirmation was unorthodox, too. When a handful of seminary Interns I supervised asked how they might get experience teaching confirmation, I willingly offered my daughters as tributes for several consecutive years.
When the girls were 5 and 7, respectively, they were invited by the brothers of Taizé to sit with Brother Alois, the prior of the Taizé, for their meeting in Chicago. This meant they’d be seated on a platform with the brothers in front of hundreds of people with the expectation that they’d have the capacity to manage a 15-minute silent meditation well.
After a lengthy discussion with our daughters, we accepted the invitation. But what I remember most about the experience was the conversations my spouse and I had as we walked up to the venue where the meeting was to be held:
“Is this something that they’re okay doing? Have they really given consent to this?
They’re saying they want to do this, but how can they know what they’re getting themselves into?
Is this the kind of experience that makes someone hate the church? That makes you ask, ‘Why did my parents make me do this?’
Is this too much to expect?”
Looking back, I’m not sure I know the answer to these questions even now.
When I reflect on the job I’ve done nurturing the faith of my children, I still have more questions than answers. There are times I ponder if we should have done it all differently. I wonder if throwing out the script was the right choice.
If I reflect on this too much, I can work myself into an anxious knot. I can feel the tension in my body between the parenting suppose-to-dos I inherited and the way my spouse and I practice parenting. And I know, as far as Christian parenting goes, I’m not alone in this.
On the day my daughter got her tattoo, she unceremoniously posted a picture of it in the family group chat. I was eating Korean Barbeque with a friend when the picture appeared on my phone, and it stopped me midsentence. I was speechless.
My friend asked, “Are you okay?” as I began to tear up.
The tattoo pictured a group of three rabbits, two of whom were seated in a red wagon being pulled by a third. The rabbit farthest to the right, the one pulling the wagon, was significantly larger than the other two and was clearly wearing a clerical collar.
I am the big rabbit.
Years ago, during my first call, Mondays were my day off. Our family called them daddy days. And on daddy days the girls would get in the wagon and I’d pull them down Burlington Avenue to a playground, and then we’d go to McDonalds for a Happy Meal.
Of all the infinite possibilities, my daughter’s 18th birthday tattoo memorialized daddy day.
If the tattoo is any indication, sharing my day off with my daughters for a few years stuck. Script or not, somewhere amidst the chaos of her upbringing, she’d caught sight of the belovedness I want her to know in something ordinary: a day set apart, a parent present, a place for play and imagination, a gathering around a table, a little red wagon.
As I shared the image with my friend, I couldn’t help but catch sight of the grace in all of it. Somehow through all the moments where we miss the mark as Christian parents, it’s possible to do this well.
[NOTE: This isn’t a story I can tell without the permission of my family, especially my eldest daughter whose body is referenced in the story. My daughters and spouse read, commented on, and endorsed this blog prior to its publication.]
Rev. Adam White
Adam White is the Senior Pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in Waconia, Minnesota. He previously served as the Campus Pastor at The Lutheran Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
The Importance of Saying “Yes”
Photo by Naomi August on Unsplash
Louis was a UCLA graduate student, working towards his PhD in engineering, when he realized that college student homelessness was a massive under-the-radar problem. It bothered him. A lot. Louis felt compelled to do something about this problem and set his mind on opening a shelter to house homeless college students. He figured there might be a church, synagogue or mosque near campus that might be interested, so he set out to meet with congregation leaders.
Each time Louis presented his idea, he was met with sympathetic ears … but the answer was always a disappointing "no."
Louis pushed on. After meeting Louis, the Executive Director of the Westside (Los Angeles) Coalition for Housing, Hunger and Health, approached me shortly after I began serving as Senior Pastor at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Santa Monica, California. She said to me, “Pastor, there is a young man with a dream and I would like you to meet him”
By the time I met with Louis he had already spoken with some 50 other west Los Angeles and Santa Monica congregations. I was the 51st.
And I was the one who said “yes.”
Now I knew nothing about homelessness among college students but quickly discovered that some 10% of college students in California were homeless (and 20% hungry). While those numbers are higher in California than other parts of the USA, because of the high cost of housing in our state, I also found that this is a national problem, affecting students across the USA.
Louis’ dream was to open the “Bruin” shelter (“Bruin” is the nickname for UCLA athletes and students), staffed by volunteer students. It was to be the first shelter for homeless college students in the USA and only the second shelter for homeless people run by college students in the USA (the other shelter run by college students was at University Lutheran Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a shelter for the general homeless population). Student volunteers would serve as resident assistants and provide dinner and breakfast for our residents. They would also raise the funds for the ongoing expenses. Residents would be pre-screened by the student leaders and stay in the shelter for the entire semester, or until they could find more permanent housing.
Mt. Olive Church had been around since 1942. It is a small (225 members) but very active congregation. A large (100+ students) preschool. Home of the Westside Coalition for Housing, Hunger and Health. Host to fifteen 12 step groups and monthly jazz concerts as well as many other musical and community groups.
And, in 2015, a congregation with unused space in our facilities.
We allowed the shelter to turn two unused classrooms into a large dorm room for ten residents and let them use the Parish Hall balcony area for storage. Since the residents came in each evening around 7pm and left each morning at 7am, they were able to use other shared facilities like the kitchen and other spaces for study.
So, it was easy for our Congregation Council and for me to say “yes.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, this new venture was not without challenges and setbacks. We needed to get a zoning change to allow us to be a “hotel” in our neighborhood. We needed renovations to our facilities, adding a shower to one of our bathrooms and a sprinkler system to the new dorm room where 10 students would sleep. We opened and then had to shut down for a time because of these zoning and renovations needs.
But we also had amazing support from our congregation and community. Before approving the zoning change, the City of Santa Monica solicited comments from the community and received 62 responses, 60 of them positive! We had financial support from the Santa Monica City Council, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and the ELCA’s Southwest California Synod, among many others. A local architect did all the architectural drawings for the needed building changes and even found a local contractor to donate the renovations. A Los Angeles Times newspaper columnist became our champion. People would literally stop me on the street and ask how they could help!
The night we opened it rained. We had gotten homeless students out of their cars and off the streets into a safe, dry place to sleep, eat and study.
In addition to financial support, the shelter received amazing media coverage with articles on The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times newspapers among many others plus stories on PBS and NPR and a 2019 feature story on CBS Sunday Morning (which was followed by a Sunday Doonesbury comic about college student homelessness – I wonder where Garry Trudeau got that idea?)
Since we opened the Bruin Shelter, our college student homeless shelter ministry, now called “Students 4 Students Shelters,” has expanded to include the Trojan Shelter (staffed by volunteer students from the University of Southern California) in Los Angeles and the Aggie House in Davis, California (staffed by student volunteers at the University of California at Davis). Students are ready to open the Slug Shelter in Santa Cruz, California (staffed by student volunteers from the University of California at Santa Cruz) as soon as they can find a site. We are in conversation with student leaders at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, among other campuses. All sponsored by Mt. Olive Lutheran Church.
All because the leaders of Mt. Olive said “yes.
Lots of congregations have unused space, often nearly empty for six days each week. And the housing crisis affects every community. No one left Mt. Olive because we opened the shelter. On the contrary, Mt. Olive membership grew because of our shelter ministry. People joined our congregation because they wanted to be part of a church that served the community in this way. Our Congregation Council was unanimous in support for this effort. We did not feel we needed to go the congregation for an approval vote. The shelter paid/pays its own way. There was/is no financial burden for Mt. Olive because of the shelter ministry.
Maybe it is time for your congregation to say “yes?”
More information on Students 4 Students Shelters can be found at www.s4sla.org .
Rev. Eric Shafer
The Rev. Eric C. Shafer was Senior Pastor at Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Santa Monica from April, 2014 until his retirement in July, 2022. He is currently the “Pastor in Residence” for Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.
All you need to lead your community through a meaningful Lenten journey.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
PKs are people too!
Photo by Samantha Sophia on Unsplash
One of the things I vowed to myself when I got ordained was that my kid would not hate the church just because I was a pastor.
My daughter was so proud of me on my ordination day, it was so sweet. She knew something important was happening, but at age 5 she didn’t really understand that the path ahead of her had just gotten a lot more complicated because her mom became a pastor.
Pastors kids - or PKs, as they are sometimes called, have a reputation.
They are either so good and careful under the weight of all those expectations, or they shed them completely by acting outside of each one.
Like I said - PKs have a reputation.
But I’m not sure it’s fair. Even if it’s true in many or even most cases, it’s not fair.
After all, the pastor is called to live a life worthy of the calling, to live above reproach, but our families are not.
They do not make the same vows as we do, do not sign up for the pedestal we are placed on. They most certainly are not called to the church as we are.
And yet, if we’re honest, there is a kind of secondary pedestal we put these clergy kids on.
One they certainly didn't ask for, and one that is easier to fall from because they are just kids. Regular kids.
Learning, growing, making mistakes, all under the watchful eye of an entire community or congregation because they happen to be related to a public figure.
So then how do we care for these kids?
From both sides of the equation too - clergy and congregation.
As clergy, how do we let them just be themselves - and as congregation members, how can we make sure we’re not applying our expectations of the pastor onto their children?
(This would be a good time to reflect on the unreasonable expectations congregations have set on their pastors but that’s a blog post for another day.)
I recently asked my daughter, now 12 (going on 20) what she liked about being a pastor’s kid. She had only one answer, and that was “I like the privilege of going into the pastor office area.” It made me laugh but also broke my heart a little bit.
That’s it? I thought. That can’t be it.
When I asked her what things she didn’t like, the list was a lot longer.
She said that people assume a lot of things about her, like that she knows a lot about the Bible, or that her faith is really solid, or that people think they know her just because they know me. “People talk to me like I’m supposed to know them and I don't,” she said. “They don’t know me either, they talk to me like I’m you but I’m not you.”
I’m not you mom.
Oooof.
Tweens are the reason they call it the “brutal truth” I am certain.
But she’s not wrong
I wonder if we can hold spaces for PKs in ways that we haven’t thought of before. I wonder if we can honor them for who they are, how they are unique and wonderful, and let them be those things outside of the public eye.
I hold the promise I made to myself when I was ordained close these days. I don’t want my daughter to hate the church. I want to pass my faith down to her just as much as any other parent does. And I also know she is at the age where creating space from her parents is natural, where wanting to have her own faith and her own values is normal and a part of what she is trying to navigate.
Covid had the unintended consequence of giving my child space from being the pastor’s kid in front of everyone. She doesn’t come to church in person anymore. She attends at home, in her pajamas, on the couch. “No strangers talk to me at home mom” she says. And who can blame her?
As a pastor, and a parent, I’ve had to ask myself, what is more important to me? Is my child’s in person attendance at my church more important to me than her faith, her boundaries?
As a clergy parent, here are other questions I have been asking lately:
Do I have the space for this? Can I let her be herself?
Can I be only a parent and not a pastor for my kid? Can I separate the two?
Do I trust her to seek out faith in safe spaces?
Do I believe that she knows herself well enough to know what is safe and what is not?
Can I stay with her in this messy space as she figures it out, just as I did?
Can I handle the judgment that is sure to arise when my tween does not attend worship with me?
Here are some questions to consider if you are a congregation member:
Do you know the pastor’s child/ren’s name?
Do you know the name of any of the other children in your congregation?
Do you talk to the pastor's kid more than you talk to any other young person in your midst?
What do you think you know about the pastor’s child?
Have you placed any expectations on the pastor’s child that you haven’t placed on other kids in the congregation?
Can you let your pastor be a parent outside of your purview?
None of these questions are easy for any of us.
But asking them matters a lot.
It matters to pastors, yes, but it really, really, matters to those PKs.
Rev. Natalia Terfa
Natalia is a Lutheran pastor and author who lives in Minneapolis with her hubby, kiddo, and kitty babies. She loves to bake, to read, practice yoga, and find nature adventures. She is passionate about the church of the future, one with no boundaries and filled to the brim with love and grace and laughter and snark and a lot of fellow “not that kind of Christians.”
Natalia co-hosts Cafeteria Christian, a podcast for people who love Jesus but aren’t so sure about his followers.
All you need to lead your community through a meaningful Lenten journey.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Prayers for May 22
Photo by Joshua Eckstein on Unsplash
I am finding that writing prayers of intercession on behalf of the whole community can be more challenging than preaching sermons these days. People are listening for specific headlines while others are hoping the petitions stay general and broad. Martin Luther famously said that a theology of the cross calls a thing what it is, but so often calling a thing what it is means using language already claimed by one partisan group or another.
How do we pray on behalf of the whole assembly after a mass tragedy and while collective traumas still compound? How do we pray when everyone in the space has a different expectation of what we should speak aloud, how we word it and why? How do we pray when it feels more like keeping score and ticking boxes?
I don’t have certain answers to these questions, but I am clear about a few things. Like preaching, public prayer is not meant to be performative. It is not meant to leave us right where it found us. It is not meant to center the individual or the faction. And it does not have to be perfect for God to hear and know us, and love that we are trying.
My prayer for you, worship leaders, is that we keep trying. And my prayer for you, assemblies of people, is that we hold generous space for practicing together. And when we hear something that doesn’t land the way we thought it would, we stay in a posture of prayer. We trust God to do more than we can imagine with what we have to offer.
Prayers for Sunday, May 22
Creative God, we give thanks for the signs of spring and new life all around us. Birds sing and trees bloom, gentle reminders that we do not have the market cornered on right worship and praise, that you delight in our being more than our doing, that resurrection cannot be measured or contained.
Merciful God, this Easter season we remember the authority you grant to disciples of every generation: your Holy Spirit gives us the power to forgive and retain sins. You call us to participate in the work of liberation of people, communities, and all of creation. And yet, we struggle to repent with our whole hearts and trust your grace. We still get nervous and hide behind locked doors. Keep coming to look for us and renew our call to embody life beyond death.
Saving God, we seek your presence among all who bear the weight of oppression, all who experience harm and hatred, and all who suffer the sins of systems built to serve some and not others. We lament with (places). We pray for all who listen a little longer, for all who seek to understand, for all who struggle to hold the tension when the culture prefers to paper over pain and call it peace. Make a way where we cannot.
Loving God, you know our whole hearts and inmost thoughts, the deep wells of our beings. You know what has become dry and brittle, jaded and mutinous. And you know the gifts we have in plenty, nourishment for the world you love. Mend us with mercy. Quench the thirst of your people. Make us generous with the good things you have entrusted to our care.
Living God, we grieve with the families of Ruth Whitfield, Roberta Drury, Aaron Salter, Heyward Patterson, Pearl Young, Geraldine Talley, Celestine Chaney, Katherine Massey, Margus Morrison, and Andre Mackneil, killed last week at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Fathers, grandmothers, retired police officers, activists, substitute teachers, food shelf founders, church deacons - reveal yourself in their stories and the tears of all who mourn. May their memory be a blessing and their life in your good care last forever.
Tender God, we say so many things in worship and still others by way of omission. Today we acknowledge how many mass shooters are young white men who were raised in the church. We acknowledge that, in trying to avoid politics at church, we allow false prophets and racist ideologies to convolute the gospel of Jesus. Help your church to be courageous and clear about power, authority, value, and life for the sake of young white men wrestling with their place in this world.
Holy God, we pray for this congregation and every community that prays together. It’s hard to find words on behalf of the assembly when so much of our common language has been corrupted by partisan factions. It feels both radical and impossible to pray aloud in community these days, but we keep trying. Meet us in every petition with grace that pulls us out of our own agendas and earthly allegiances. Help us practice being frustrated and freed by the call to pray together. And may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Healing God, this season we recognize the risen Jesus’ wounds - and remember how much you care for ours. Show us how to offer words that cool and protect like a buttery salve; simple deeds that tend to what hurts; patient presence that is balm for bodies, minds and spirits. We pray for those who feel loneliness or despair, that you would send another alongside them for company and strength. Keep giving us back to one another and refueling our hope in you.
Meta Herrick Carlson
Meta Herrick Carlson (she/her/hers) is a pastor and writer living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She serves a two campus congregation all learning how to let go and lean in for the sake of a shared future. Meta’s first book Ordinary Blessings: Prayers, Poems, and Meditations for Everyday Life proves a worthy gift in these uncertain times. Her second book Speak It Plain: Words for Worship and Life Together with more ordinary blessings and resources for church nerds and liturgical communities was released in December 2020.
Website | Instagram
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Being Church Today: Leadership and Resiliency
As we face crises of public health, racial inequality, and economic turmoil, Church Anew sought to help pastors, church leaders, and congregation members harness resiliency to respond to the immediacy of these issues.
We asked ourselves, “How can we set the table for mutual learning in this moment?”
We found an answer in our first virtual event, Being Church Today, presented online on Monday, August 17 and now available through on-demand access. The event gathered a diverse set of nationally-recognized thought leaders that gave personal, action-inspiring seven-minute presentations from their own homes on the most pressing issues of our time. Over 1,500 clergy, church staff, and volunteers registered for this event, looking for guidance, dialogue, and community in a digital environment.
Award-winning author and speaker Diana Butler Bass opened her presentation with a question:
Diana Butler Bass
“What do we do? How do we lead? What is that authentic place of leadership? I've wondered about this in my own life. And I've thought a lot about different verses that have framed my understanding of who I am as a Christian, and they have served as powerful guides when I have felt lost or needed something to lean into as a leader.”
Dr. Butler Bass cites Galatians 3:28 as her verse of guidance: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
This creed and statement of faith was about the struggle of the church against bigotry, slavery, and sexism. It affirmed the identity of the Christian community as people who stood against barriers of class division, ethnicity, and gender.
Dr. Joy Moore
Likewise, Dr. Joy Moore, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Academic Dean of Luther Seminary, referenced this passage in her talk as well:
“Paul begins to dismantle the very systems of the ancient culture, the caste system, the class system, slave and free, ... the only thing that matters is this lasting mandate that humanity is created to bear the image of God.”
Being Church Today also featured speakers such as Rev. Emmy Kegler of Grace Lutheran Church in Northeast Minneapolis who spoke about complacency in the church, particularly in leadership:
Rev. Emmy Kegler
When we are unwilling to be uncomfortable, we perpetuate violence against those on the margins. We teach girls to be quiet about their abuse. We refuse to be the one person who can make a 29 percent difference in trans youth suicidal ideation. We raise and confirm Dylann Roof.
And with that recognition came a challenge:
“So for a moment, I want you to reflect: how are you willing to be uncomfortable? Then I want you to hear, don't do that. Because we have been following our wills and where we are willing to be uncomfortable for far too long. Instead, the question I want to commission you with is: where does God's world need you to be uncomfortable?”
Church Anew hopes to help congregations thrive today and in the years to come by investing in sustained involvement in the communities they serve.
By being a voice for justice both in the church and out in the streets, pastors, staff, and volunteers can lead with their actions and actively encourage understanding and inclusion in their congregation members, engaging new people along the way.
Brian McLaren
Nationally-renowned author and friend of Church Anew, Brian McLaren, called on us to be more inclusive, to push boundaries, and care for our earth:
To be church today means to rediscover the revolutionary message of Jesus for people in a catastrophic situation. Not an evacuation plan about leaving earth or heaven when you die. But a transformation plan about loving God, yourself, your neighbor, and this precious Earth.
Referencing the late John Lewis, McLaren encouraged attendees to make “Good Trouble” and included people on the margins.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal Church sought to answer the question: What is the specific contribution of the church in this moment?
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
“What can churches do in such a time as this? Churches can bear witness to the fate they hold in the way of Jesus of Nazareth, his way of love, unselfish, sacrificial love, as the way to the very heart of God, into each other's hearts as the way to life.”
Paraphrasing Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Bishop Curry cautioned us:
“We will either learn to live together as brothers and sisters, or we will perish together as fools. The choice is ours: chaos or community.”
Maybe you are inspired by the words of these speakers, but wonder how to sustain momentum. Tyler Sit, church planter of New City Church in Minneapolis, reminded us there is resilience in nurturing the energy necessary to bring about positive change in your community:
Rev. Tyler Sit
“What we wanted to prevent was this bump of reactive energy that fizzled out and then everyone just went back to normal … Christians are particularly positioned as people of resurrection to have a hope that on the other side of discomfort, there's a new world that God is making for us.”
Another six distinguished speakers as well as local Minneapolis artists and leaders spoke to the challenges we face and the actions we can take in this moment. The event also featured a live chatbox where attendees connected and shared the communities they came from, how the presentations challenged them, and what they will bring back to their own congregations.
Church Anew is drawing upon the wisdom and mutual learning from our communities to forge resiliency and the courage to take action.
By equipping leaders and community members with tangible ways to address grief, division, and uncertainty, we can move closer toward God’s beloved community.
This only scratches the surface of the practical and thought-provoking content offered in this event. On-demand access to the recording is still available for $49. Keep an eye out for upcoming virtual conferences as well as the Church Anew Blog to strengthen our relationships with each other, ourselves, and God.
Church Anew is dedicated to igniting faithful imagination and sustaining inspired innovation by offering transformative learning opportunities for church leaders and faithful people.
As an ecumenical and inclusive ministry of St. Andrew Lutheran Church, the content of each Church Anew blog represents the voice of the individual writer and does not necessarily reflect the position of Church Anew or St. Andrew Lutheran Church on any specific topic.
Policing and the Church: an Interview with Pastor Brian Herron
In part three of Church Anew’s series on policing and the church, we interview Pastor Brian Herron of Zion Baptist Church on policing in Minneapolis, MN. Read part one and part two of our series.
What church and neighborhood do you serve in Minneapolis? How long have you served there?
I am pastor of Zion Baptist Church on the North Side of Minneapolis, what we call the Near North, but Zion serves the city as a whole along with the surrounding suburbs. God also has called me to a broader ministry beyond our city, sometimes to other states, our nation and God’s world. I became a pastor at Zion 14 years ago this year. My father pastored this church for 37 years before me. Honestly I was the most unlikely successor to him when I became pastor. God gave me something very different than the traditional Baptist church we had previously been. Over time there have been shifts and moves as God shapes and brings new purpose to each day. Our church has moved from what I would call a traditional religiosity to a real spiritual place of relationship with God and the transformation that follows.
Describe the relationship between the people of Minneapolis and the police prior to the death of Mr. George Floyd.
There has always been tension particularly in the African American community. These tensions between police and community run deep and they go far back. When I came up here as a teenager, I experienced the Minneapolis police department as one of the most brutal in the state toward African Americans. Things have somewhat improved over time, however immediately prior to the killing of Mr. George Floyd, there were still great tensions. At the same time, there also was great hope because of the new police chief. We had hope we were going to see some real change in policing and would not experience police officers just as an occupational force in the community. Instead they would be there to truly protect and serve the community and work with its residents. We believed that over time, we would dispel the “us against them” mentality the police culture seemed to have. We were looking for a cultural shift. A cultural transformation.
What is the impact of the killing of George Floyd on the city of Minneapolis? Your church community? How has it changed or shaped your ministry?
The impact has been great and it is still being felt. People are in deep trauma and grief. Others have taken to activism. We have begun to see reactive political responses rather than thoughtful policy making that would really help to bring about the kind of transformation we are looking for. On the positive side, some have mobilized and created alliances and conversations that have not taken place before. On the negative side, we have elected officials that are reactionary rather than thoughtful and, in some ways, they have exasperated the problem. The killing of Mr. George Floyd has brought the chief of police out to the community in a very meaningful and real way where he has been sitting with the community members in their pain and in his own pain. While this has been helpful, I believe there is a very deep chasm and wound that needs to be healed.
The interesting thing is we in the African American community are used to being on the outside. We also are used to being engaged, involved, and active. This situation has created conversations within our community to strengthen our faith and shore up our relationship with God to not succumb to the feelings of anger and despair but to channel this anger and allow God to use the anger and do something very positive and meaningful that can be life giving for our community. The killing of George Floyd calls upon us to ask, “Do we really believe what we believe and if we do how do we stand on the Word of God in the midst of all that is going on?”
Finally it has made me seek God more. This tragedy actually has caused me, in some respects, to withdraw from a lot of activity and really seek God to make sure I am where God wants me to be and doing what God wants me to do in the way God wants me to do it. It has impacted me personally because I have lived through much of this many times before in my life. Sometimes when I think things seem to be getting better we seem to take steps backwards. It is more important for me now to spend time with God and reading the Scriptures but mostly just praying and being still. I have learned the importance of being still and being present so I can not only hear instructions and know what to do, but I am strengthened and fortified for the battle I have been called to be engaged in.
Why do you think people are calling for the defunding of the police? Is defunding the most effective way to reform the police? If not, what other options would you suggest?
The defunding movement is not a new movement. It started some years ago. New Jersey was one of the states that tried it. In my opinion, what happened was they never ended up getting rid of their police department. Defunding the police may sound good as a political rallying cry but when you ask people exactly what it means, you don’t get much of an answer because most folks don’t know what that looks like. If you can’t describe it and if you can’t tell people what defunding looks like, it should not be something you expose or say until you understand what it means. Some may say, “Let’s take money away from the police department, put the resources into the community and help it to be better so eventually we won’t need a police department.” In my view, this is a very unrealistic approach because I believe there is a great need for a police department.
At the same time, we do need to transform policing by reevaluating and rethinking how we do policing. Granted there are calls police respond to that they shouldn’t have to address. Someone else could respond. In Minneapolis there has been a mechanism in the past called Community Crime Prevention. These are civilians who work with a police officer to organize block clubs and work on issues on each neighborhood. I myself have been trained as a crime prevention specialist. The Community Crime Prevention program dealt with a lot of the issues patrol officers didn’t need to spend their time on.
Another reason I don’t agree with defunding the police in Minneapolis is I believe we have a police chief who wants the same police reform we are asking for in the African American community. The question now is how we work with him and how we transform and change the culture so all police are an extension of our community for everyone’s safety.
What is at stake for you and your community in discussions of police reform, dismantling, or defunding the police? Our public discourse sometime positions these terms against one another. How might you offer some nuance to the difference between them?
In my opinion, you don’t need to take money from the police department to address the disparities and things that are not moving our community forward. You just have to hold the governmental bodies who are responsible accountable. The county, city, state, and federal electives all need to come together to develop a strategy in addressing the disparities in a systematic and purposeful way.
In Minneapolis, this means sitting with the police chief and truly helping and supporting him in all of the changes he wants to make that would be transformative for policing and good for the officers, recognizing that not all police are bad. There are many officers doing their jobs right every day. Most officers have never fired their weapons. We need to speak the truth and the facts about police activity rather than what we think we know. We can speak about our experience but we also have to talk about what is true and what is not true. Many of the people who are calling for defunding really have no idea what the police do. Truth be told I personally believe everyone in our police department and the folks on the street know who the bad officers are. Now is the time to figure out how we build out and development meaningful relationships between the entire community and police so we are working together and not at odds with each other.
How would you define an honorable police officer? A dishonorable police officer? What path forward would lift up law enforcement’s honorable contributions to society while naming appropriately the dishonorable contributions?
For too long we have not made public the good things honorable officers do every day. We don’t make public how they didn’t tow a car or issue a citation because of an expired registration but gave someone a ride to work and said, “Use your next paycheck to take care of your registration.” We don’t hear stories of police officers who bought groceries for someone they encountered who was hungry. Such stories are more prevalent than people know. How do we lift up these truths about police so there is a balanced view? When all truths are not lifted up about others, there is a skewed view of people. As African Americans, we also have been viewed through a singularly false lens. Some police officers view us a certain way. As the Reverend Traci Blackmon has said, “If the color of my skin is the weapon that you see, how will I ever be unarmed?” In the same way, we in our community cannot do that to another group of people, such as the police, and conclude they all are alike.
How do we hold up the stories of police officers who do their jobs well every day? And then how do we call out and work through the actions of those officers who are misusing and abusing their power and who show a great prejudice toward certain people?
While there is not an easy answer, I believe there is a way we can start talking about the police in a positive way and demand discipline and restraint. Often police are doing what they have been trained to do. If you want them to do something differently, the training has to be different. If they are going to de- escalate a situation rather than respond to escalation with escalation, they need to be trained and the importance of such training must be emphasized.
What is the role of your church and others in North Minneapolis to help build just, equitable, and trusting neighborhoods?
It has been the role of every church and ministry of the Gospel from the beginning of time to create just, equitable and trusting communities. The social implications of the church should be to transform social systems as well as individuals and all people. Evangelism and discipleship go hand and hand. We, in the church, cannot do one without the other. You should begin to see some type of social transformation as people’s lives change. The community ought to be changing. For this change to happen, the church must open its doors and allow the community to come in. The congregation and its members need to go outside of the building and participate in the community, looking for the gaps. When God is leading you to do something that will be beneficial, it almost always will fill a void. The church holds a responsibility to trust God and move forward believing that when God ordains this work. God also will provide the provisions, people and resources to make it happen.
All of this means more than just being a good neighbor. The church needs to be a contributor to the welfare and the good of the community. One of the impacts of Jesus’ ministry was his ability to meet the needs of the people. He led with love, he cared about people and he met needs. Then it was up to each person who met Jesus what they did with the gifts he gave to them. Our job is to introduce people to this Jesus, not just through our words but our actions that demonstrate his love and care for them to inspire them to care for others.
What is the role of the churches and pastors across the entire city of Minneapolis and its many suburbs? What would you have other congregations and church leaders do?
At this time, I see congregations and church leaders attempting to come together and working with one another in a new way. I believe God is starting a new thing that could really turn into something purposeful if we stay faithful to God and to the mission. Honestly right now for me, prayer is where the shared work begins. Recently I started praying with a white pastor on a weekly basis – just the two of us. Soon after, people from our congregations came along side of us and every Monday at noon we just pray. Then a third church has joined us. Our African American church and two white churches all praying together and seeking God. Now the pastors have decided we need to come together and get to know each other. One of the most powerful ways the church can come together and have impact is by churches developing relationships with God and one another.
This is a different approach than some of my past experiences with some suburban white congregations that come in offering their resources without relationships. Their missionarial attitude becomes a power dynamic. Don’t last because of a power dynamic. It is not mutual relationship where both churches offer to one another the gifts we have. I prefer to have a relationship first and see what God is asking us to do together. If we are really serious about congregations coming together and white churches helping black churches, the first thing is building a relationship where we trust each other, where we seek God together and then we wait for God to tell us what God wants us to co-create together.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
We all must be prayerful in this time and really listen for God’s direction. Then we need to ask God for the boldness to be obedient in what God is asking us to do. God always has a way if we listen first and then act together.
Pastor Brian Herron
Brian Herron is Senior Pastor at Zion Baptist Church in Minneapolis, MN.
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