Abortion, Racism, and the Love of the Local Church : Albert Tate

Jason Daye | , , , , ,

Abortion, Racism, and the Love of the Local Church - Albert Tate - 11 FrontStage BackStage with Jason Daye

How can the local church lead around challenging issues like abortion and racial reconciliation? In this week’s conversation on FrontStage BackStage, host Jason Daye is joined by pastor and bestselling author Albert Tate as they look at what it’s going to take for the church to live out Jesus’ prayer for his followers.

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Additional Resource Links

How We Love Matters by Albert Tate – In this book, Albert provides an exposition of relevant Biblical truth, a clarion call for all believers to examine how they see and understand each other, and a way forward toward justice, reconciliation, and healing.

Fellowship Center for Racial Reconciliation – A ministry at Albert’s local church, Fellowship, that is creating a Gospel-centered environment that leads to active engagement in the conversation and practice of racial reconciliation

Fellowship – The church in Monrovia, California, where Albert serves as lead pastor. “We are a Gospel centered, multi-ethnic, intergenerational church. We don’t all think alike, live alike, look alike, or even vote alike. But as followers of Jesus, we are woven together by God’s love despite our distinctions and differences.”

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Key Insights and Concepts

  • Jesus said that people would know his disciples by their love
  • God is interested in what we do for people that don’t look like us, don’t live like us, don’t vote like us, don’t think like us
  • The Bible does not fit neatly nestled under either the Republican or the Democratic platform
  • The Church needs a new posture, and it should be marked first and foremost by how we love one another
  • Jesus cares about everybody on every side of every issue
  • As Christ-followers we are obligated to share compassion with people even if they do not share our convictions
  • God calls us to radically love people that everybody else is ignoring, trying to cancel, disregarding, or dismissing
  • The way we talk about our views on important social issues, like abortion, should be marked with a compassion and an empathy, knowing that there are those that sit in shame for the choices that they have made
  • The Fruit of the Spirit should be evident in our life and should saturate our conversations and our actions
  • Many in the Church in America are being discipled more by the news outlets than by the bible
  • Compassion means we are willing to engage and navigate injustices like abortion, racism, etc, rather than dismiss them or deny them
  • We often have high convictions and anemic compassion, and the world notices. The Church is more known for being judgmental and self-righteousness, rather than known for our love.
  • With our diversity, we have different experiences, different journeys, different burdens, and different challenges. Racial reconciliation is an invitation to talk about the differences, to understand and to sit in the seat of the other.
  • If unity was Jesus’s greatest prayer, our division is Satan’s greatest ploy
  • Satan would love nothing more than for us to avoid racial reconciliation, because that avoidance will keep us from experiencing the fullness of the fruit of Jesus’ prayer for us
  • One of the most dangerous things we can do is to dismiss the reality and potential of racism, bias, and prejudice in our own lives
  • Both racism and the dismissal of racism are major threats to the kingdom of God
  • We are often willing to admit to struggles with a wide variety of sins but then refuse to admit we struggle with racism
  • If we refuse to admit that we have proclivities toward racism and prejudice then we never make a space of grace where we can process, listen, learn, and grow to appreciate another’s culture, experience, and perspective. We deny ourselves the possibility of empathy.
  • Love is the revelation and racial reconciliation is the application
  • God is going to hold us accountable to how well we loved him and how well we love one another. These are the principles we need to practice in our church.
  • We must return to what God says love is and then begin to practice that intentionally, in spaces and in places with people that are different from us
  • Our local church should reflect the diversity that exists in our local community
  • As pastors and ministry leaders, we must work on relational diversity in our personal lives before we can expect it to occur in our churches
  • We must strive to build relationships with people that are different, and practice living out a biblical love for those people
  • How we love others truly matters

Questions for Reflection

  • How am I loving others like Jesus? Am I loving those who don’t look like me, act like me, vote like me, or think like me?
  • How is our church loving others like Jesus? Are we loving those who don’t look like us, act like us, vote like us, or think like us? Specifically, what does this look like?
  • How are we extending compassion to people who do not share our same convictions? Why is this important?
  • Am I trying to squeeze the fullness of biblical principles and the teachings of Jesus into a particular party platform? Why won’t this work? Why are we so tempted to attempt this?
  • Why is our posture, including the words we use, so important when addressing important social issues? How can I be more loving and empathetic to those who disagree with me?
  • Why does the enemy use shame against people? How can I help defuse the shame that the enemy uses so others can experience the grace and hope of Jesus? What would that look like?
  • How is our church caring for everybody on every side of every issue? How can we do this better?
  • Is our church more known for being judgmental or being compassionate? Are there changes we need to make?
  • How are we addressing racial reconciliation? How does racial reconciliation relate to Jesus’ prayer for his followers?
  • Have I been quick to dismiss racism, bias, and prejudice? If so, why do I think I have?
  • How am I being intentional about processing, listening, learning and growing in appreciation of other cultures, races, and ethnicities? What are examples of this in my life?
  • How is our church being intentional about processing, listening, learning and growing in appreciation of other cultures, races, and ethnicities? What are examples of this in our ministries?
  • What are the next steps for our church when it comes to racial reconciliation? Where does the first step begin?
  • How committed am I to pursuing racial reconciliation? When will I start?

Full-Text Transcript

How can the local church lead around challenging issues like abortion and racial reconciliation?

Jason Daye 
In this conversation, I’m joined by pastor and bestselling author Albert Tate as we look at what it’s going to take for the church, to live out Jesus’ prayer for his followers. Are you ready? Let’s go

Jason Daye 
Hello, friends, and welcome to another insightful episode of FrontStage BackStage. I’m your host, Jason Daye and every single week we bring a conversation designed to help encourage and equip pastors just like you to embrace healthy, well-balanced leadership in both life and ministry. And you have the opportunity to dig into today’s topic, today’s conversation more deeply by visiting PastorServe.org/network. There you’ll find key insights from this conversation, questions to reflect upon, just opportunities for you to dig more deeply into the topic. Now for those of you joining us on YouTube, give us a thumbs up. We’d love for you to comment below, where you’re joining us from, the name of your church, we love to pray for your churches, and get to know the audience better. And whether you’re on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, be sure to subscribe and follow so you do not miss out on awesome conversations like the one we have today. I am super excited to be joined by pastor, author, podcast host and just all around great guy, Albert Tate. So Albert, welcome to the show, brother,

Albert Tate 
Yo, so glad to be on. Thank you so much for having me and what up to all the pastors out there in the trenches, on the front lines. So glad to be here to be an encouragement to you guys today.

Jason Daye 
Amen. And I know that this conversation is going to be, indeed, encouraging to all the pastors, ministry leaders who are working week in and week out and Albert, what I want to do is, we’re going to dive right in, right into the deep end, because our time is limited. And I appreciate how you have been talking, sharing, speaking how you’ve been writing about your experiences around racial reconciliation. And for those who haven’t had the opportunity to pick up your latest book, How We Love Matters. It’s a heartfelt book, brother, I mean, it’s, you know, it’s we sense you in those letters, because you’ve written it as letters, and what I would love to understand more, you know, you are experiencing this racial reconciliation, you have experiences on kind of a micro level, you know, on a personal level, you, your family, right, you have your experiences from being a pastor of a local church. But then you also have your experiences and your observations on a more macro level, right, you look at and you address in the book, America, our country here, you address the capital C Church. So Albert, some of the concerns that you share are related to the landscape of our faith. And you specifically talk about how the culture of politics here in America is impacting our faith.  And, as we look at it, in many ways, politics has followed along the same path that many other areas of our culture have  walked, right, it’s becoming acceptable to be harsh, abusive, abrasive, toxic. Name-calling of politicians is kind of the norm. Everywhere you look, everywhere you see, and regardless of what your opinions are about President Biden or any other politician, as Christ-followers, you know, we are called to something much different, right? And so, Albert, you have shared, and you wrote about this in the book, that you observed that, you know, we as Christians seem to be taking more of our cues from culture, rather than from our Father. And you talk about this idea of, we bring more fight than fruit, which I love that phrase. And so could you kind of unpack that a little bit for us?

Albert Tate 
Yeah. Thank you so much, Jason. That’s a great question. Yeah, I think, you know, it’s pretty, it’s pretty simple. And I fear that the simple gets lost in the, in the, you know, forgive the language and I think the simple gets lost in the stupid. I think there’s a simple clear vision for who we’re supposed to be in the earth. Jesus actually said it himself. He says, You will know my disciples, by their theology? by their doctrine? by their, by their positions on abortion? By how they contextualize guns? No. He says you will know my disciples by their love. When you stop and think about that, that’s the thing that we’re going to be most known for. That’s our grading scale as matter of fact. And Matthew 25, before we even get on the other side of the gate, before we get in there, first things he’s going to ask us, he’s not going to say, sermon notes from your pastor, he’s not going to say, How many hours did you log in devotional quiet time, he’s just not going to ask those questions. Those things are important and significant. But what he’s going to ask, Jason, the first question is, Hey, what did you do for people that didn’t look like, you didn’t live like you, didn’t vote like you, didn’t think like you? The poor, the prisoner, the naked? And don’t think these are boxes to check? No, he’s just saying these are all the people, what did you do with the people who the world will look at and say, we’re most likely to think that they are the least, the least important, the most marginalized, the most likely to be oppressed, the most likely to be forgotten about. And if you’re if you’re being guided by your political party, the political party has built in who the least are in their disregard for, They’re writing policies for a certain demographic of America, whether it’s Republican, whether it’s Democrat, they are writing policies and got a vision for a certain demographic. And we all know what that is, we all know who they are. And that’s cool. The problem is the Bible does not fit neatly nestled under the Republican platform. The Bible does not fit neatly nestled under the Democratic platform. So if the Bible doesn’t fit neatly nestled under the Republican or Democratic platform, how is it possible that I can fit so neatly nestled under those platforms? At some point, I have to step outside of God’s progressive agenda to sit under this conservative side or at some point, I will have to step outside of God’s conservative agenda to sit on this progressive side. This is what I learned about the left and the right, a long time ago, the left ain’t trying to… the Left is running from the throne of God and the Right is trying to sit on the throne of God. Either way, we are called as a people of God to surrender in worship at the throne of God. And we need a new posture, the Church needs a new posture, and it should be marked first and foremost by how we love one another. And when we show up in conflict, when we show up in challenges, when we show up in these spaces, we bring in more fight than fruit. Galatians 5.22 says, Hey, this is what the fruit of the Spirit is, this is it. This is what just happens to you. That orange, you ain’t never seen an orange struggling to come out the tree. You don’t know like, oh, man, I’m just a kumquat. I missed it. I didn’t make the orange. No, orange just happens to a tree that’s just planted with the seed that is oranges… oranges just happened. What he’s saying about us, Jason, is that as the people of God, as Christian leaders, as pastors, kindness ought to just happen to us. Forbearance, ought to just happen to us. Watch this one, gentleness, ought to just happen out of us. Self control ought to just happen out of us. And I don’t know what y’all seeing in these Facebook comments, and on Twitter and in these segments, I’m not seeing the Fruit of the Spirit, I’m seeing the fights of the flesh. And I feel like the people of God, we have an opportunity to be a better witness, to be a better witness in the earth so that the world can see, this is how people come together, that ain’t got no business being together. This is how people converse and work through challenges when they have vastly different perspectives. This is how they love. And this is how they, here it is now, they have convictions but in every space, we won’t share our convictions. But as followers of Jesus Christ, we’re still obligated to share our compassion. So when we engage brothers and sisters that don’t have our convictions, no, we don’t believe the same thing. We look at abortion different. We look at vaccinations, we look at, we look at things a little differently. And there are different perspectives. And here’s the thing about these issues. Jesus cares about everybody that’s on every side of the issue. So Jesus has compassion for each individual and how they’re impacted, not just the unborn, but the mother who’s even having to wrestle with that kind of question. The father and his engagement, the medical system that… so Jesus cares about all all of it. What does it mean for us to love in a way that creates space for nuance, for differences, and for people that don’t share our convictions…  flat out, they just don’t believe what we believe? Oftentimes, bro, we use that as an opportunity to then withhold compassion. You don’t get no love because you don’t believe what I believe. And I think God is saying that is the absolute opposite of what I’ve called my children to do. The thing that’s gonna make my kids so weird to where they stand out in culture? They’re gonna be the ones out there loving people that everybody else is ignoring, blasting, trying to cancel, trying to disregard. They’re going to be the ones out there loving them. You will know my Christians by their love.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that’s so good. You mentioned compassion there multiple times which you know, just falls right in line with this idea of the love that Christ has. And Albert, you know, Christ demonstrated compassion, embodies the way of compassion, so deeply, I mean, so much so he gave his his life up. And he didn’t just give his life up for those who, like you said, agree with him or bought into what he was sharing, you know, he literally gave his life up for everyone, right, for those who are mocking him or spitting on Him, those who nailed Him to the cross. Albert, as you kind of reflect on your your time in ministry, over the years, do you have a sense that the church in America is drawing more closely to the compassion of Christ? Or are we kind of  distancing ourselves from that compassion? What’s your take?

Albert Tate 
Yeah, I think we are absolutely going the wrong way and we’re speeding, we’re going the wrong way. And speeding. I feel like the church, especially the white evangelical church, has been discipled more by the Fox News’ the Tucker Carlson’s, the CNNs, the Don Lemons, the MSNBCs, the Rachel Maddows. I just think we are being discipled by news outlets, by conservative or liberal agendas, and yo, they just… I think they have more, I think I think CNN MSNBC Fox got more influence than the B I B L E. I feel like we’ve got to get back to the B I B L E, and come back to love. So let’s think about it. Look at look at our reaction to to racism in brothers and sisters in Christ, who are navigating and experiencing injustice and racism. The visceral reaction has been “ah, that’s critical race theory, and that’s not, so let’s let the.” My white siblings are highly incentivized to not engage in race, to not engage, to minimize it as if it’s not even a real thing, or it’s something designed to make white kids feel bad, and we reject it. So just just not engaging on on that. And that’s going away from compassion, I believe. Look at look at our reaction with abortion. You know, I mean, Jason is a, it’s a fun show, we might as well talk about a couple of politically hot issues, why why not, but abortion, look at our visceral reaction. This is what I told my church the other day, if the stat is true, bro, one in four women have not only wrestled with the decision, but made the decision to end their pregnancy. And as followers of Jesus Christ, we believe that that baby in the womb is an actual life, so to take the life of that child. That means every time we talk about it publicly, there are many, many women in the room that have experienced that. And I don’t know about you, man, but I’ve had to pastor and sit and shepherd women and men who’ve made that decision. I haven’t met one person that was exceptionally excited about the choice that they felt like they had to make, right. And I’ve seen Satan try to mark them with a guilt and a shame that allows them not even to live into the redemption and forgiveness of Jesus Christ, and the grace of Jesus Christ that we all receive for all of our sins. So even the way we talk about our views on abortion should be marked with a compassion and an empathy, knowing that there are those that sit in shame for the choices that they made of it. So even the way we talk about it when the issue comes up, should be marked with love, although I would give my life works my life’s work and mission to work against the activities of abortion, but those that have experienced it, I would also give my life’s work and mission to love those well, who have made decisions outside of God’s will, so as I have. So that self-righteousness, the arrogance… so there’s an opportunity for us to love a lot better, especially on things that we’ve got high convictions on, bro. I think we’ve got high convictions and anemic compassion, and the world sees it and we’re more known for our judgmentalness, our self-righteousness, we’re more known for what we believe or what we don’t believe or what our rights are, than we are known for our love.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s beautiful. And well said, and, you know, Albert, it seems, in kind of the course of my life, you know, as I look at conversations I’ve had, specifically around racism, let’s say, yeah, it seems that people’s response to racism today is much different than it was even a decade ago. It seems there’s this greater tendency today for people both inside and outside the church to get defensive about racism, rather than entering into, like an open dialogue about, you know, concerns around the how the the history of racism impacts our society today, and what that looks like. Albert, why do you think it’s seeming to become more challenging to discuss issues like racism, issues like these?

Albert Tate 
Well, I think I think it’s, I think it’s a core Kingdom issue. So Jesus’ greatest prayer for us, before he goes to the cross, was that we will be one. And there’s no way that we walk in the fruit of Jesus’ prayer for us of oneness, if we don’t deal with the diversity that makes up our oneness. So in Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 12, he just talks about, you got a thumb, you got an ear, you got an eye. So you are designed for diversity. But you are not designed for division. And so, but with our diversity, we’ve got different experiences. We’ve got different journeys, we’ve got different burdens, we’ve had different challenges. And racial reconciliation is an invitation to talk about that, to understand that to sit in the seat of the other. So I think this is why it’s so hard. Because if, if, if unity was Jesus’s greatest prayer, our division is Satan’s greatest ploy. So Satan would love nothing more than for us to refuse to engage in a conversation about racial reconciliation, because if we do, we will never walk in the fullness of the fruit of Jesus’ prayer for us. I think the defense is that defensiveness is a tool, is a demonic satanic tool. And I use those extreme words on purpose, because I feel like we should call it out and identify it as the major threat to the kingdom of God that it is. I think it’s a tool that allows us to obfuscate or keep ourselves, exempt ourselves from even the conversation. So for example, if I had some brothers in the room and I say brothers, how y’all doing with biblical adultery? How y’all doing? Those brothers would be like, “Oh, pastor, pray for me. I’m struggling, my eyes. And everybody says I don’t mean to be, I don’t mean to be, but as a sister pass by, my eyes. Because you know, biblical adultery says if you thought it in your mind, you did it. Right. So how you doing? They would all sit, nobody would be defensive. Everybody would be like, pray for me, but for the grace of God, but for the grace of God. Y’all how y’all doing with honesty? You’re telling the truth. Are you showing up truthfully, in all your relationships? Are you showing up authentically? “Well pray for me, I’m working on it.” Yeah, you right, because your uncle asked you to borrow money last week and you told him you didn’t have it. That wasn’t the truth. The truth was, he is terrible with money, he owes you money now, and he’s a bad investment. But you didn’t tell him that did you? You just said you didn’t have it. You’re not operating in truth. “Ah, but for the grace of God, pray for me. I struggle, I struggle.” So we would confess to adultery, we confess to dishonesty. What about racism brothers? “Ah, never! I’ve never been a racist. I’ve never. never. How dare. I’ve never, it’s never.” It’s like whoa, whoa, whoa, how was it that you can confess these other sins so easily? And Satan just gets a pass when it comes to racism? Does Satan just give us a break? Why do we give Satan so much credit when it comes to the sin of racism? Every other area, we assume that it’s there and we want to try to combat it? The area of racism? We just assume Satan just said “nah, we gave them, we tempted them with sexual impurity, let’s not tempt them with racism.” Of course we’re racist. Of course, we’re biased, of course we’re prejudiced. Of course, we’re marked with homophobic. Of course, we’re sexist. Of course, we’re able to, of course, because we, we, we have proclivities and comfort by what we’re familiar with. So whatever I was unfamiliar with in my house, I was biased against it. I was prejudiced against it. It was baked in, it’s cooked in, it is natural. So for Satan not to use that? To have us making decisions and choices based exclusively off of our bias and not considering the perspective and the journey of our brothers and sisters. Does does that not sound satanic? Why would we give him such a pass? So I encourage my brothers and sisters, instead of spending so much time being defensive about declaring you’re not a racist. One of the worst things that can happen is not that you be a racist is one of the worst things that you actually be one but never take the time to acknowledge it and identify the potential of it in your own heart, mind and soul. It’s it’s of course we are of course, we’re biased. Of course I am. I’m My name is Albert Tate, and I’m a recovering racist. I’m recovering by on prejudice against I didn’t have any homosexuals that were out growing up in my household. So there’s a lot about their journey, their culture, their experience that I am just flat out ignorant about so put me in a conversation in that community. My ignorance will show I’ve done work, I have relationships now. But when I first started this journey, bro, I would be so offensive to my gay brothers and sisters to my queer brothers and sisters. Because I’m just clueless. My Asian community. All I knew Asian was Mr. Miyagi, from Karate Kid. That’s it. That’s it. So you put me around my brothers and sisters who are Asian for 15 minutes. I’m gonna say some dumb, I’m gonna say some ignorant I’m gonna say something racist, I’m gonna expose my ignorance. So, but what I’ve learned is, so let me come in just saying, hey, brothers and sisters. I didn’t grow up with this. I’ve got biases. I’ve got prejudice. Some of them I know about, honestly, brothers and sisters, most of them I don’t, right. So can we have a space of grace where I can process, where I can listen, where I can learn, and learn to appreciate your culture, your experience, your perspective, I sit in the seat of empathy. And I’ve come to listen. That posture is so much better than saying I’m not a racist. And that’s not racist. Well, that’s critical race theory. And we don’t need to do that. And say, You know what, there’s a lot I don’t know, about a people that I’ve never had this had the benefit of sitting and being a part of that community. So let me just sit and hear them. And when our brothers and sisters tell us about the hard experiences, believe them. One of the hardest things as a black man working in navigating white evangelical spaces, is me having to defend my tears to my white brothers and sisters. For me to be devastated, and not be met in that moment with empathy, but met with inquisition. “Albert, we don’t have all the facts. So you could, you shouldn’t be sad, because we don’t know if that was racist or not.” Yeah, nah, as a black man, I’ve seen this many, many times before. And I’m sad, I feel like I’m at a funeral. And I’ve had so many times where I have my tears, but I’ve got to defend them to my white brothers and sisters. So instead of, instead of seeing my burden, in those moments, they literally became my burden. And now I’ve got to try to teach, educate, and steward their emotions when I’m experiencing a deep devastatingly level, devastating level of brokenness myself, and that’s where the love comes in. That’s where that’s why we got to draw back to compassion, we got to draw back to love, we got to be… The devil, and then and then I’ll shut up the devil knows that the Holy Spirit will never convict you about something that you don’t believe is real. So if he can get us to believe that this racist stuff is not even real at all, the Holy Spirit won’t be able to convict you on something that you don’t even think is this, that you don’t even think is real. So look at the propaganda around you and how incentivized our white brothers and sisters are to think it’s not even real, because that’s the perfect setup for the Holy Spirit to be mute in their life.

Jason Daye 
Hmm. That’s good brother. That’s really good. A lot to think through and the posture that you’re presenting, you know, as obviously, a posture that’s going to be healthy, it’s going to help us process, be more open, be more engaged  in the conversations that need to happen rather than being dismissive. Yeah. The subtitle of your book is a call to practice relentless racial reconciliation. Yeah. And so Albert, I was wondering, as a local church pastor yourself speaking to other pastors that are watching and listening in today. What can we do in our local churches? What can we do as pastors to help lead the way on practicing racial reconciliation?

Albert Tate 
Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, we’ve got to understand that this is not a sociological issue. This is a theological issue. This is a discipleship issue. You mean to tell me all of these generations of disciples have come forth and we still have raging racism in the church at the level that we have it? Something’s off about our discipleship. So I feel like we got to reimagine discipleship for the next generation. And we’ve got to literally disciple out racism. So racial reconciliation has to be seen as spiritual formation. It’s like God in the Garden, one of the first two questions we see in the book of Genesis one, where are you, Adam and Eve? Where are you? And then number two, where’s your brother? Where’s your brother? Those are fundamental spiritual formation questions. And we can’t speak on where our brother is, if we haven’t spent time understanding, sitting in empathy and coming alongside our brother. Jesus says two really big ones. If you want me to boil it down to the top two commandments, I’ll give it to you. There’s a bunch of them. The Pharisees was like, we didn’t memorize all these laws and all this stuff. And he says, Here’s Here you go, here’s the top two. You know, if you flunk everything else, get these two right, we’re good. Love the Lord your God… love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, body, soul, right. And then he says, the second is likened to the first: love your neighbor as yourself. It’s fundamental to the Gospel, racial reconciliation, for us to walk in oneness and to see one another and love one another. Well, it’s fundamental to what it is that God has called us to do. So if you get to heaven, and you’ve loved God well, but you haven’t loved people that don’t look like you, think like you, vote like you well, then you’ve missed the fullness of the gospel. It is a horizontal it is, it is a cross shaped gospel. It’s both vertical, and it is horizontal. And God is going to hold us accountable to how well we loved him, and how well we love one another. This is the Gospel we need to preach in our churches. These are the principles we need to practice in our church. These are the conversations that we need to have, we need to set up disciples to love well, those that don’t live like them, look like them, think like them. We have to unleash a generation of disciples, with those that have taken the time to disciple out racism, disciple out bias and prejudice, that will cause us not to do the second command well, that will cause us not to love our neighbor as ourselves well, because racism and those biases will hinder our ability to love. So it’s not just that we love, but it’s how we love that really matters. We need churches training, equipping, and empowering disciples how to love one another well.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, that’s good. That’s, that’s helpful. And I’m curious, Albert, do you have some examples, either from your church or from other other local churches that are really addressing racial reconciliation well? You know, what are some practical things that they’re doing?

Albert Tate 
So one of the things that we did at Fellowship, at our church here in Los Angeles, is we started a center for racial reconciliation. So it’s basically a training ground since this is such an area that has been ignored for so long in the church space, we decided we needed some extra help. So we intentionally built a ministry that’s designed to just take everyday disciples of all ethnicities and all cultures, and let’s walk through our understanding of race, of racism. Let’s understand some of these terms and trigger words that show up like privilege, white privilege, white supremacy, injustice. What does the Bible say about justice? What does the Bible say about one another? How do we love one another, and let’s look at the history of the church in America. Let’s let’s look at the history and the society of injustices. Let’s look at Green lining and the impact that that had, no red lining. There’s an organization in our church, that launched out of our church, we call it Greenlining, and it’s to help people purchase homes for the first time who are minorities, because of the impact of redlining which said, if your a person of color, you could not buy in this certain neighborhood, which was usually a higher, nicer quality area, neighborhood. Or if you are a person of color, you got a ridiculously inflated interest rate compared to our white brothers and sisters. So those practices we we look and talk about those practices and say, are, is it possible that they’re still impacting systems today? What does that look like? What does that show up? What would Jesus do? What do we see Jesus doing? What did what did Jesus say about justice? What did Jesus say about righteousness and righting wrongs? So, we created spaces to intentionally not just do a cursory understanding of the dynamics of the racial divide, but we do a deep dive in saying if God, yo if God’s gonna ask us, how we did this, and how we love one another, we we better spend some time learning how to love each other better. So that training and that teaching, so intentionally talking about the things that divide us, intentionally unpacking race, racism, the dynamics of that, so that we can be educated disciples and equipped to love all God’s people. And by God’s grace discipling out the racism that has been discipled into us.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, I love that. I love that. Now, our it is we’re kind of closing down this conversation and I love to kind of hear, hear your heart, for it’s kind of stepping back into just thinking you talking to one one pastor one on one. And and it’s a pastor who says, Listen, you know, I know there’s a need for racial reconciliation. I hear lots of things. And I’m not. I don’t know everything. I know, God’s heart is for unity, that’s that’s Christ’s prayer. But, but I really don’t know what the first step for me, not as a pastor necessarily, but for me personally, you know, kind of behind the scenes.  What would you encourage them to do themselves?

Albert Tate 
Well I think the first thing they should do is buy my new book at bookstores available all across. Online. You’ll, you’ll notice, seriously, in the book, I think it is a great starter tool. There’s so many people that have written so extensively on the subject. But I think what I what I’m trying to push us towards, and what I think the great starting spot is, racial reconciliation, is the application. Love is the revelation. And we’ve got to come back to what God says love is and begin to practice that intentionally, in spaces and in places with people that are different from us, we got to start practicing that. So on a very personal practical level, I would say, our hope is that our Sunday morning would look like our Revelation 7.9 combination. And that’s every tribe, every nation, every tongue, every race gathered together around God’s throne. If we’re going to stand that way, for eternity, we ought to be able to sit that way now. As much as our communities allow for that, as much as as much as diversity there is in our community, we should have that reflected in our church. Well, some people start working on trying to get it reflected in their church without at first getting it reflected in their life. So it’s going to be hard to pull it off on Sunday morning, if you haven’t invested in it on a Saturday night. What I mean is, pull out the calendar, the last three dinner engagements you had, did you have them with people that didn’t look like you, think like you, or vote like you? It is out of the abundance of your calendar in your community, where your church will be shaped and formed. So build relationships with people that are different, and practice living out a biblical love for those people. And as you lead organizations, and as you train volunteers, and as you preach God’s word to people, teach that ethic, teach the vision of love, specifically, loving those that are hard to love. If we get that right, I think racism can dry up in the next generation.

Jason Daye 
Yeah, yeah, that’s beautiful, brother. Beautiful, man, I really appreciate you, Albert, taking the time to be with us today. And I really want to encourage everyone listening in, an excellent book, How We Love Matters. Really, I mean, like I said, very heartfelt. How you approach this, and just the conversation we had today is just, you know, a smidgen of what you get out of the book. So I would encourage people to dive into that, Albert, if they want to connect with you more deeply, what’s the best way on social and that sort of thing to connect with you?

Albert Tate 
So my Instagram, my Facebook, all that stuff is Albert Tate. I’m even on Tik Tok. I’m not twerking on there yet. I’m on there preaching and teaching. So Albert Tate on all those platforms. And you can find me.

Jason Daye 
Awesome brother. And we’ll have that in the show notes. And you can find those at PastorServe.org/network along with key insights from this conversation and some reflection questions for you and your ministry team at your local church to kind of go through to dig more deeply into this topic. So once again, brother, I appreciate you. Thank you for making the time to be with us. Thank you for all you’re doing for your local church, your local community, but but then you’re blessing and giving to the greater church as well. Certainly appreciate it.

Albert Tate 
Thank you so much, Jason, what a joy to be here. And thank you to your amazing audience. They’re so kind and so gracious. Thank you.

Jason Daye 
Awesome. God bless you, brother. Now, before you go, I want to remind you of an incredible free resource that our team puts together every single week to help you and your team dig more deeply and maximize the conversation that we just had. This is the weekly toolkit that we provide. And we understand that it’s one thing to listen or watch an episode, but it’s something entirely different to actually take what you’ve heard, what you’ve watched, what you’ve seen, and apply it to your life and to your ministry. You see, FrontStage BackStage is more than just a podcast or YouTube show about ministry leadership, we are a complete resource to help train you and your entire ministry team as you seek to grow and develop in life in ministry. Every single week, we provide a weekly toolkit which has all types of tools in it to help you do just that. Now you can find this at PastorServe.org/network. That’s PastorServe.org/network. And there you will find all of our shows, all of our episodes and all of our weekly toolkits. Now inside the toolkit are several tools including video links and audio links for you to share with your team. There are resource links to different resources and tools that were mentioned in the conversation, and several other tools, but the greatest thing is the Ministry Leaders Growth Guide. Our team pulls key insights and concepts from every conversation with our amazing guests. And then we also create engaging questions for you and your team to consider and process, providing space for you to reflect on how that episode’s topic relates to your unique context, at your local church, in your ministry and in your life. Now you can use these questions in your regular staff meetings to guide your conversation as you invest in the growth of your ministry leaders. You can find the weekly toolkit at PastorServe.org/network We encourage you to check out that free resource. Until next time, I’m Jason Daye encouraging you to love well, live well, and lead well. God bless.

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