What’s Your Story?

Hi, this is Bernie Dake.

Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Welcome back to Words of Life, and hello to you, Cheryl. Good morning, Bernie. How are you?

I'm doing great, and I trust you are too. I am. So last week we started a three-week series on unity, and for some of our longtime listeners, you may have heard a familiar voice.

We talked about this last week. Commissioner Howell used to be an announcer. I actually took his job.

Wow. Not because he was doing bad, but he went on to the New Zealand and Fiji territory. They had taken on additional assignments or overseas assignments, and they loved it while they were there. But now that they're back, it's exciting because here in the USA South for the Salvation Army, we think of Willis and Barbara as friends. They're our leaders.

They are the CEOs or presidents of the Salvation Army's organization, but there's no separation, really. They're very personable, and the way that they train their officers and the expectations they put on relationship is refreshing to me. Absolutely. And you know, in this episode, the beauty of this conversation is that it's just two officers simply sharing their stories and their hearts and their experiences together.

And you know, it's our prayer that we can have more of these type of conversations. I think relationship is one of the strongest weapons we have against racism. An author named Meg Wheatley once said, you can't hate someone whose story you know. Absolutely. Now, that doesn't mean we have to agree with something that someone's telling us. I think we have to measure what's being said against what we know as truth in the Word of God, as Christian people, people who subscribe to the scriptures of the Old and New Testament. But that ability to come alongside them and be relational, I think will help build a lot of bridges.

I do too. And I think it's about really listening more and not being so quick to judge and to speak into something and really coming on common ground in regards to our own stories and it doesn't mean our stories look alike, but being able to listen and to hear and to allow some of that to penetrate our own hearts will solve a lot of things. We hope that as you listen to Commissioner and Lieutenant talk about their own stories, that you'll be encouraged to do similar things with people in your neighborhood. We're here today again speaking about unity, but what it looks like in our story, how the lack of unity has impacted us in a negative way and how we've learned how to bring unity through Jesus in our lives. I'd be interested in starting with your story. Well, first off, let me start off by saying I am Lakota Sioux indigenous and I am African American. So these two cultures that I live in is absolutely beautiful.

I think that they are amazing and I've gotten to see the impact of both cultures and how it looks like in our American experience. Most of my ideas about what racism is through experience. At 15, I was placed in handcuffs going to the mailbox. I was devastated and the police officer said it was a brown man around your height. I was being racially profiled and they didn't ask me questions. They just put me in a car and I remember my father coming outside of the house and saying, I've just told him to get the mail. What's going on?

What are you doing? And that brought me to tears because I had to deal with, is my skin color a curse? Is it something that I want to pass on to my children or should I even have children? And those were questions that went on in my mind from around 15 to 17 was, have I been cursed with melanin? Is this a bad thing?

Has my culture cursed me in my existence? And I had to have deep conversations with my dad about it now. And he had told me about his experience because him growing up, he grew up in a bit of the late 40s and the 50s and he had conversations with me about how going to school, walking two and a half miles, white kids would throw rocks at him and call him the N word. And that right there said made him not want to go to school and not go and get his education. So every time I see him struggle with the word on a page, I'm reminded that racism caused that it really caused him to not even pursue his education even further.

It has deeply impacted me in ways that maybe I don't even know, but I'm so compelled to actually bring unity because that needs to stop. To say that we are in an era of civil unrest or a time of civil unrest is not it is just simply we are placing a camera at the problem now. Like people have their cell phones on them.

They can literally record it everywhere. And now we're being able to see what is happening. But it's been there on the surface. And it's it still goes back to what my dad said. He said racism is not in the past.

It is here and now. And how do we tackle it? As long as there are people who have differences, the door is wide open for one or the other to say my differences in some way, shape, manner or form make me better than superior to a cut above you. And so that's the nature of pride, which as we talked about last time is at the core of sin. One of the main jobs of the church is to model the unity that Christ came to help deliver to us. And I want to reference us just for a moment in our discussion to Ephesians chapter four, where Paul stresses under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he's leaning into this, telling believers, listen, folks, be completely humble. Well, that's the antithesis of pride, isn't it? Be completely humble, be gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love.

And then he says this in verse three, make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit, the the the idea behind it. It's it's not going to be Oh, we just agree. So let's just go walking down. No, we've got to work at it. We've got to keep at we've got to protect it. We've got to watch over it.

We've got to guard it. Because it's precious in the church. We don't do a good job about modeling what oneness looks like we will never build unity just around the idea of unity in the church. We will only build unity when we build it around and center on Christ himself. What does division look like in the church? And how has the church been divided by Satan's plot schemes, but also our own flesh? You hit on something there. This is part of Satan's strategy.

I'm convinced. And if I can look at our own group of Christians for a moment, I'm going to offer a bit of an indictment. I think that we have more than our share, certainly more than our quota of lazy Christians who do not recognize that we are engaged in spiritual warfare. And we have an enemy who works to exactly as you're saying to divide to separate us off. Anytime you see the the nature shows on TV with with the predator and the herd of whatever it is, the predators are looking to get one off to to cause division amongst the herd.

But as long as they stay together, another word that you used earlier, as long as they are cohesive, as long as they have in the in the good sense, the herd mentality, not in the mindless sense, but as long as they have the herd mentality where I watch out for you, you watch out for me, I've got your back, you've got my back, we are standing back to back. In fact, ready? Any and all comers because I know that James is going to handle things there.

And James, I'm hoping would know that I'm going to handle any attack this way. We oftentimes think that church is just this nice, sentimental thing that we do just to get our blessing and feel good about ourselves. No, it's meant to help equip us in this battle that is spiritual warfare. And the enemy is doing a very fine job of dividing us in order that we might be conquered.

Yes. How do we feel about the state of race in America right now? And I know we are speaking to a broader audience, but we have to address this failing not only of America, but also in our churches that we've allowed Satan to depredate the hearts and minds of our people and having equipped them to get out of their comfort zones and connect with people. So how do you feel about race in America right now?

I don't know that I can answer the broad question about race in America because people are different and they do have different views. They do have different ideologies. And unless and until they are in a relationship with Christ, they have no reason to look for common ground. Well, I shouldn't say they have no reason. They don't have as much reason as believers do, is my opinion. And so if they are outside of a relationship with Christ, there's nothing in their job description that says we should find common ground. If the church could do a better job of modeling unity, oneness and cohesion to the point that causes the world to sit up and say, this doesn't make sense. I'm seeing these people who are so different, but they get along.

I want to know about that because I'd like some of that. I think the weight is on our shoulders. I would say I would answer the question by saying what happens when the world does a better job at showing diversity than we are in our own steeples? We have to be intentional as the church to set the example, the precedent that we are going to follow Jesus first and foremost and as such make disciples of all nations, every nation, tribe and tongue, not being inhibited by our own ideologies, our own personal views or even people who look like us. It has to be a pursuit that we're taking every single day to share the love of Jesus regardless of somebody's political party, regardless of somebody's melanin content, regardless of somebody's ideologies.

We have to make sure that we exemplify Jesus. We go back to the woman at the well, right? If you see this, this shouldn't have been a conversation that happened, but Jesus' disciples in the divide, right where this lady is, he is.

Right where she's in her midst in the shame and all of these type of things, he is meeting her where she is and saying, you know what? I'm going to give you a drink of water that's everlasting. It will not run out. We have to do that. That's our calling. It is. That's why it is a co-mission.

Yeah. It has to go beyond because I believe Christians, we're so content with just kind interactions rather than deep and intentional discipleship. And when we are just okay with, well, I smiled at a person and I gave them a tip and I just said, hello. You know, these things- It's not relational.

It's not. We have to pause in the pain with individuals. And I believe that's what the church has to do right now is to say to their black brothers and sisters that we pause in the pain. We weep with you, but understand that that's not enough. It's going to require action. It's going to require walking alongside you, being more than just a stat line, but a chance to share each other's hearts and lives.

That's how we create true unity. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support.

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Box 29972, Atlanta, Georgia 30359. Tell us how we can help. Share prayer requests or share your testimony. We would love to use your story on the air. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast store, and be sure to give us a rating. Just search for The Salvation Army's Words of Life. Follow us on social media for the latest episodes, extended interviews, and more. And if you don't have a church home, we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center. They'll be glad to see you. This is Bernie Dake, inviting you to join us next time for The Salvation Army's Words of Life.