Working Toward Racial Reconciliation, Part 1: A Journey That Takes Time

Y ou know how the images on big screen televisions are beautiful, and the color is crisp? God was showing me that the reason why those pictures are so clear and crisp and beautiful is because of the pixels in it. God told me that is the way the body of Christ should be: many pixels make a body with different colors, and that’s how God’s image is expressed more clearly and more defined and more beautiful. This is the way that I see racial reconciliation. When we come together, and you do what you do, you be who you are, don’t change who you are because God wired you and created you a certain way. When we become one and do what the Father has told us to do, then Jesus Christ is put on full display when we do that. But that takes time.

Related: Discerning how to be the family of God

This material was originally recorded as part of the Renovations Project. It has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Racial reconciliation takes time: our church’s origin story

This is the story of how Trenches Community Church began. It actually started some 30 years ago. I was a youth pastor at a local church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I went to a conference, a children’s conference actually, to be equipped. I went to go learn from Willy George, the children’s ministry guru back then, and for some odd reason he started talking about the qualities of a pastor. I’m listening to this guy, but what he said hit me like a ton of bricks, to the point that after it was all over, I went to my hotel room and laid before God crying like a baby. I called my pastor and asked, “Do you consider me a pastor?” And he was like, “Yeah, you’re a pastor over the children.” I was content with that, but I think that was the beginning of God starting to reveal to me that he was calling me to be a senior pastor.

I put that on the shelf because I was content working with the young people at our church. Over the years, God just constantly dropped something here, he would drop something there, and then I would put it on the shelf. Then, I was at another church in Kalamazoo, and six times God was speaking to me profoundly. “It’s time for you to start a church.” But the six times that he spoke to me, I went to my pastor and was like, “I think God is telling me that it’s time for me to shift.” But my pastor would always tell me, “Just keep working with the kids. Just keep working with the kids.” And, again, I was content.

We were in a worship service, my wife and I, and my pastor was talking about Abraham leaving his home and how Abraham had an international type of ministry, and that hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m crying because I know it’s time to go. At the same time that I was crying, my wife was crying. And we looked at each other—I’m not making this up—and both of us said, “It’s time to go.” We went to our pastor, for the seventh time, and he said, “Yep. It’s time to go.”

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During that whole process, we went through what we needed to go through to be released by our pastor, and in 2011, he released us. He provided support for us financially, and another amazing thing happened: he stood up in front of the congregation and said, “If anyone wants to go with James, they can.” About seven families said that they wanted to go with us to plant Trenches Community Church.

We had all of our launching meetings, invited people in, shared the vision, and so forth, and we didn’t know where we were going to meet. We thought about starting our ministry in a hotel, but that didn’t work. I had a friend in Kalamazoo who told me to talk to Pastor Dave Armstrong over at Bethel Reformed Church. I didn’t even know that this church existed on the east side of Kalamazoo, and we were looking.

We talked with Dave, and he said we could share their building with them. We talked to the consistory (ruling body of a church) and shared our vision with them. The consistory decided that we could worship at 11:00 a.m., and they would worship at 9:00 a.m. For several years, that’s what happened.

We had a heart for the community. Their congregation was dwindling; it was an older congregation. Our congregation was growing, but we were doing the same thing that they were doing when they were younger. So, they saw themselves in us.

Racial reconciliation involves God’s grace and favor 

Later, Dave Armstrong told me that they might sell us the church building. When he said it again, I thought that maybe something might be happening here. When he said it a third time, I told my wife that they might be selling us the building! But when he said, “I think we’re going to sell it to you guys for $1.00,” it blew me away. We went through the whole process of talking to the classis (ruling body of a group of churches) in the Kalamazoo area. There was some resistance there, but there was also some favor there. And the favor of the Lord was upon us, and they decided to sell us the building for $1.00. We continued to do community outreach, but like I said, there was some resistance. I can understand it, because you have this heart for a ministry that you have been a part of for a long time, and now you’re about to shut it down. 

Pastor Dave Armstrong came to me and gave me all the paperwork, the drawings, the deeds, and everything. I’m not sure why he did this, but this blew me away, too. He showed me the deed to the building and the property, and then he had me look at line item number three. And line item number three said, “Never sell this property to people of color.” That was from 1935, but I think what Pastor Dave was revealing to me was how God was moving in the midst of this whole transaction, this whole movement.

It was just so amazing how we saw God do what he was doing. So again, there was grace and favor, and racial barriers were being torn down right before me. That’s one of the highlights of us starting Trenches: in that whole process, we just experienced the grace of God in our midst.

Racial reconciliation is not about retaliation but embrace

What would I tell a pastor concerning racial reconciliation? Your journey is actually a journey. Growing up in the community that I grew up in, in the Detroit area, at that time, there was segregation. You had, of course, African Americans in a community and being around that community were people who were not African Americans. I remember that for us to get to our middle school, we had to walk through an all-white community, so we never walked alone. It was always either two of us, or four or five of us, walking to school. 

But the beauty of sports is that it caused us to be desegregated at our school because you always played with a diverse group of individuals. Our team consisted of Hispanics, African Americans, Europeans; it was a beautiful thing, and our hearts were knitted together. I remember one time we were playing one of our arch rivals. Our team was diverse, but our arch rivals consisted of all white people. I went to shake their captain’s hand after the game because we had just beat them. Only, he didn’t shake my hand; he hit me in the stomach. The next time we played that team, they had to come to our home field to play. Everybody was thinking there was going to be this retaliation, but it wasn’t in my heart to retaliate. 

The point is, despite things happening to me when I was younger, I never personalized them, and I never internalized them. Now with the work that we’re doing, God showed me that the reason why I didn’t internalize racism or discrimination is because his grace was upon me, and he was preparing me for this day so that I can walk on both sides of the fence. I’m not biased towards a certain group of people.

Related: What an Old Testament prophet teaches us about God’s vision for diversity and inclusion

Fast forward to the work of racial reconciliation that I’m involved in now. My journey allows me to be who God has wired me to be. I just have a heart to see people get along. I have a heart to see our brothers and sisters just love, walk with one another, and do ministry together with one another. I kind of call myself a chameleon, so one day I can be hanging out with the Baptists, and the next day, I can hang out with the Reformed people, and the next day, I can hang out with Presbyterians; it doesn’t matter to me.

This is one reason why God told me to name the church Trenches Community Church. God told me not to label a denomination, just be a group of believers that worship God. I think sometimes when you label yourself in a certain denomination, it limits you from fellowshipping with other believers. And I want to be able to fellowship with other believers.

I love developing relationships with people who don’t look like me. It’s challenging to develop those relationships, but I just love doing that. We’re involved in work with Jesus Loves Kalamazoo, which is a work that brings churches together within our community. I’m also involved in a group called Northside Ministerial Alliance, and that group is very diverse as it relates to race, and the different sectors that are involved in business, education, law enforcement, and government. I’ve been in several churches where the minister and I have relationships with other pastors who are not of the same ethnic identity that I am. And it’s just a beautiful thing.