Conference
Resources

Moving Forward
(Action Steps Beyond the Racial Justice and Reconciliation Conference)

  1. Live Communally rather than Individually.
  2. Pray for a new theology of your city.
  3. Acknowledge White Identity and Privilege.
  4. Recognize this is spiritual warfare.
  5. Become a modern day Abolitionist.
  6. Don’t blame anti-Christian groups for doing what the Church has been called to do.
  7. Educate others through preaching and social relationships.
  8. Reject the idolatry of race and embrace the identity and image afforded by grace.
  9. Submit to a person different than you (minority) rather than self-diagnose and self-treat.
  10. Listen to the stories of ethnic minorities without dismissing their journey or experiences.
  11. Stretch beyond your stamina limits and comfort zone.
  12. Say what needs to be said; stand up and speak up for truth (preach Jesus and justice).
  13. Work to repair broken systems alongside the people suffering under the weight of and affected by those very systems.
  14. Practice the principle of “Nothing about me Without me” (don’t assume you know what the broken systems have done to the people and that you have the answers apart from their involvement). Ask then listen, then learn, then lead from the side or back.
  15. Practice social activism (like Jesus) show up in messy places and display love (be actively participating in local and global systems and issues).
  16. Stop compartmentalizing the gospel as spiritually concerned only. The whole gospel by the whole Church to the whole world.

Suggested Reading

Top Recommendations

*America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege and the Bridge to a New America by Jim Wallis
*Be the Bridge by LaTasha Morrison
*Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
*I May Not Get There With You: The True Martin Luther King Jr. by Michael Eric Dyson
*Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
*The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America by Edward Blum & Paul Harvey
*Healing the Soul of America by Marianne Williamson
*The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement by William Barber II
*White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson

Personal Stories

Insider/Outsider by Brian Lorrits
*Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Brian Stevenson
*Sugar in the Blood: A Family's Story of Slavery and Empire by Andrea Stuart
*The Underground Railroad a novel by Colson Whitehead

Historical Figures/Authors

A Strange Freedom: The Best of Howard Thurman on Religion Experience and Public Life by Walter Fluker and Catherine Tumber
Frantz Fanon: A Biography by David Macey
St. Francis of Assisi: The Legend and the Life by Michael Robinson
The Awful Grace of God: Religious Terrorism and the Unsolved Murder of Martin Luther King Jr. by Stuart Wexler and Larry Hancock
*The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson
*The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Church Members/Leaders

Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church by Mark DeYmaz
Disruption by Mark DeYmaz
Rediscipling the White Church by Dave Swanson
re:MIX: Transitioning Your Church to Living Color by Mark DeYmaz
Right Color Wrong Culture by Brian Lorrits

Psychology/Sociology

*Mansfield's Book of Manly Men: An Utterly Invigorating Guide to Being Your Most Masculine Self by Stephen Mansfield
Power vs Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by David Hawkins
*Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Boilla-Silva
White Race Discourse: Preserving Racial Privilege in a Post-Racial Discourse by John D. Foster
*Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum

*Available at the library

find them on amazon