That Don’t Fit

In this episode we continue our occasional conversations with folks from a variety of backgrounds on their thoughts and experiences around ethnic harmony. We interview Nathan and Catherine Gin, whose Chinese/Swiss/American backgrounds have given them a distinct view on how to think about ethnicity and culture. As a bonus we get stories about Nelson Mandela and bowling at the White House.

In this episode we talk about a topic that is a passion for JT and a chore for Andy.  That’s working out.  If you want to see generational differences at work, check out this episode.

In this episode we try to get a handle on how we get our news and how we make sense of what we get. This isn’t a ‘hot takes’ debate. It is two guys who want to stay up to date with what’s going on, but who don’t want to be buried under an avalanche of information and opinions in the process.  

In this episode we interview Jorge Pardo, a man from Puerto Rico of Spanish and Cuban descent. Jorge talks about his cultural heritage and being a Latino in non-Latino spaces, and how he navigates that experience as a follower of Christ. 

JT and Andy talk about crying - why we do it and what it does for us.  This isn’t a conversation about sorrow or grief - it’s a conversation about the crazy ways our bodies work that produces the experience of crying. Paradoxically, we laugh a lot in this episode.

JT and Andy catch up after a break in recording episodes to talk about what they've been doing, what they are currently listening to and reading, and they drop into a conversation about the value of friendship for those who are in ministry.

Andy and JT discuss the practice, challenges and glories of prayer and how they have been inspired to pray by the experience and words of others.     Quotes: C. S. Lewis:  "Well, let’s now at any rate come clean.  Prayer is irksome.  An excuse to omit it is never unwelcome.  When it is over, this casts a feeling of relief and holiday over the rest of the day.  We are reluctant to begin.  We are delighted to finish.  While we are at prayer, but not while we are reading a novel or solving a cross-word puzzle, any trifle is enough to distract us."   Tim Kerr:  “To pray in the Spirit is to pray when the Spirit moves in our hearts and helps us to desire and seek God’s will. It is the Spirit imparting the heart of God to us in the moment. When we pray in the Spirit, as John Owen says so compellingly, ‘we see a sight of God as on a throne of grace’ and we know He welcomes our prayers to Him.”    Corrie Ten Boom: ”Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden."   E.M. Bounds:  "Prayer….is simply making known our requests to God for things agreeable to His will in the name of Christ….Prayer is infinite ignorance trusting to the wisdom of God."   Timothy Chester:  "Here is the test of whether you have grasped the radical simplicity of the gospel.  Do you think your prayers are more likely to be answered if you are living a more godly life or if you are also fasting or if you bind demons in your prayer or if you pray for two hours rather than one hour?  If we are inclined to answer yes to any of these questions then we have not grasped the sufficiency of Christ’s mediatorial role."   Timothy Chester: "It is sometimes said that good private prayer is the foundation of good corporate prayer, but it may be more biblical to say that that corporate prayer is the foundation of private prayer.  Our experience of God in Christ is corporate.  Western individualism has made the individual alone with God the centre of spirituality.  For the people of the Bible it is the relationship between God and his people that is central.  Personal prayer revolves around this common experience-not the other way around."   Charles Spurgeon:  “The throne to which we are called is the throne of grace.  It is a throne set up on purpose for the dispensation of grace and from which every utterance is an utterance of grace.  The scepter that is stretched out from it is the silver scepter of grace.  The decrees proclaimed from it are purposes of grace.  The gifts that are scattered down its golden steps are gifts of grace, and he who sits upon the throne is grace Himself”.     "I find it wise to sprinkle a few words of prayer between everything I do" - Charles Spurgeon   "I find this a tremendous truth and a rather uncomfortable challenge ,my prayers, whether I pray, how much I pray, about what I pray—reveal my priorities, and they reveal how much I really think I need God, or whether I am—deep down, in fact self-assured and self-righteous. If Paul, an Apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God knew that he needed to bow my knees before the Father, what of us? If Jesus Christ, the greatest teacher in the world followed up his instruction by prayer what of us, if Jesus Christ who was sent on a mission that changed not just world history but all of eternity, knew that he needed to pray—what of us?" - Alistair Begg   "Then came the reading of the scripture, that was time enough no hurry, how those English people did love the word of God. The second prayer followed. that was my prayer because it was everybody’s cry. His prayer was greater to me than his sermon. In his sermon, he talked with men, in his prayer, he communed with God. When he described the coming of Christ to the soul it seemed to me I saw for the first time I saw the King in his beauty—the suppliant was forgiven, with his face streaming with tears and his tone so full and rich that it swept through every heart —as a breath of perfumed air flows through the halls of a palace. This divine air possessed our hearts when he cried, we love Thee, Thou knowest it. Not because Thou art great but because of the inestimable gift of the only begotten Son.  Lift us up, O God. Take us out of the dust. Let us by faith come to the fountain and be washed. We come. We feel Thou hath washed us. We are clean. Yes,  we are clean. Blessed be the Lord our God. Make us young again. Wake us up. Let us not sleep. We thank Thee for our troubles…for all that makes us conscious of our alienation from Thee, bless our orphanage, our college, our retreat…and so on he went enumerating every claim and presenting the request so naturally, that every heart joined in the upgoing petition. We close our prayer. As to the words we have been with Thee. We know it that thou hast heard us and blessed us. We feel it. We retire from the mercy seat, and we thank Thes for audience, and pray for a blessing on us all" —Spurgeon the Pastor by Geoffrey Chang   Books: Pray Big: Learn to Pray Like an Apostle (Inspiration from the Apostle Paul on how to pray and what to pray)   Spurgeon the Pastor: Recovering a Biblical and Theological Vision for Ministry

Recently we had a chance to sit down with pastor, author and urban entrepreneur John Onwuchekwa for a conversation about building healthy church communities in urban areas and a bunch of other things that came up.

This is the second part of our interview with Eric McAllister, Director of Music and Liturgy at High Point Baptist Church in Austin Texas. In this episode, Eric walks us through his vision for creativity and theological depth as we gather to worship as the church. 

In the next two episodes we interview Eric McAllister, Director of Music and Liturgy at High Point Baptist Church in Austin Texas. Through his ministry Sunday Morning Songs, Eric is also creating modern hymnody to help churches experience richly theological and culturally diverse congregational singing as the gathered church.

We’re going to be jumping into a little bit of a mini-series in our next few episodes on celebrating ethnic diversity in worship in the church. We’ve got a special guest joining us in the series but want to kick off with a message Andy did on appreciating the cultural and musical styles that come to us as a worshipping church.

We had another conversation ready to drop this week but we felt this January 15 message on Ethnic harmony from Acts 1 was so helpful, so we’re going with it.  We’ve also included some elements from the service in celebration of Ethnic Harmony in the church.  Enjoy and be inspired!

Foundations message by JT on the beauty of ethnic diversity in the church.

In this episode, JT interviews Andy on his new book "Ordinary Greatness: A Life of Elias Boudinot". They talk about Elias, his character, his faith and what we can learn from a man who stood strong amid hard times. The book is available now!   You can buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Greatness-Life-Elias-Boudinot/dp/1585163902 

In this episode, JT and Andy discuss the topic of self awareness and how it's both a positive and negative thing in society.

In this episode, Andy gives a helpful sermon on what critical race theory is and what it means for us as Christians attempting to walk in harmony.    Sermon quotes used:   Voices on Critical Race Theory Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic: What do critical race theorists believe? Probably not every member would subscribe to every tenet set out in this book, but many would agree on the following propositions. First, that racism is ordinary, not aberrational...—“normal science,” the usual way society does business, the common, everyday experience of most people of color in this country. Second, most would agree that our system of white-over-color ascendancy serves important purposes, both psychic and material... Because racism advances the interests of both white elites (materially) and working-class people (psychically), large segments of society have little incentive to eradicate it... A third theme of critical race theory, the “social construction” thesis, holds that race and races are products of social thought and relations. Not objective, inherent, or fixed, they correspond to no biological or genetic reality; rather, races are categories that society invents, manipulates, or retires when convenient... A final element concerns the notion of a unique voice of color. Coexisting in somewhat uneasy tension with anti-essentialism, the voice-of-color thesis holds that because of their different histories and experiences with oppression, black, Indian, Asian, and Latino/a writers and thinkers may be able to communicate to their white counterparts matters that the whites are unlikely to know. Minority status, in other words, brings with it a presumed competence to speak about race and racism. (Critical Race Theory - An Introduction. 6-9 Janel George: CRT is not a diversity and inclusion “training” but a practice of interrogating the role of race and racism in society that emerged in the legal academy and spread to other fields of scholarship. (Kimberlé) Crenshaw—who coined the term “CRT”—notes that CRT is not a noun, but a verb. It cannot be confined to a static and narrow definition but is considered to be an evolving and malleable practice. It critiques how the social construction of race and institutionalized racism perpetuate a racial caste system that relegates people of color to the bottom tiers. CRT also recognizes that race intersects with other identities, including sexuality, gender identity, and others. CRT recognizes that racism is not a bygone relic of the past. Instead, it acknowledges that the legacy of slavery, segregation, and the imposition of second- class citizenship on Black Americans and other people of color continue to permeate the social fabric of this nation. (https:// www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race- theory/) Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer on essential elements of Critical Theory: 1. Our identity as individuals is inseparable from our group identity and, in particular, whether we are members of a dominant, ‘oppressor’ group or a subordinate, ‘oppressed’ group. 2. Oppressor groups subjugate oppressed groups by dictating and maintaining society’s norms, traditions, expectations, and ideologies. 3. Our fundamental moral duty as human beings is to work for the liberation of oppressed groups. 4. To these core commitments, critical theorists often add several corollaries: • Subjective, ‘lived experience’ is more important than objective evidence and reason in understanding oppression. • Privileged groups promote their own agenda under the guise of objectivity. • Individuals who are part of more than one oppressed group experience ‘intersectionality;’ their oppression is qualitatively distinct from the oppression of the separate groups to which they belong. https://freethinkingministries.com/critical-theory-christianity/ Samuel Kronen and Nate Hochman: (CRT’s) core claims are that racism, whether overt or systemic, lies at the root of all racial disparities; that race and racism shape our political and personal lives; and that the dominant group in society – in this case whites – have a hidden psychological, political, and economic investment in maintaining their privilege at the expense of minorities. Some other principles include intersectionality, the idea that human beings are composed of a multitude of intersecting group identities, some of which are Andy Farmer 3 of 4 2022.05 Critical Race Theory and Covenant Fellowship Church considered victims and others oppressors; standpoint epistemology, the notion that our racial identity informs our worldview in ways that are less accessible to those of other backgrounds; and differential racialization, the attempt to grapple with the different ways that a group has been “racialized” at different times in history to the benefit of the majority culture. In essence, critical race theorists look at two indisputable facts – that the United States of America was historically racist and that racial gaps between whites and blacks persist – and then seek to unearth the connection between these two realities by deconstructing the complex interplay between privilege, identity, and structural oppression. The question is not whether these facts are related, but how they are related. (https://www.acton.org/religion-liberty/volume-33- number-1/critical-race-theory-un-american) Susan Stryker: “Because members of minority groups are, by definition, less common than members of majority groups, minorities often experience misunderstanding, prejudice, and discrimination. Society tends to be organized in ways that either deliberately or unintentionally favor the majority, and ignorance or misinformation about a less common way of being in the world can perpetuate harmful stereotypes and mischaracterizations. On top of that, society can actually privilege some kinds of people over other kinds of people, with the former benefiting from the exploitation of the latter: settlers benefited from the appropriation of indigenous lands, slaveholders benefited from the labor of the enslaved, men have benefited from the inequality of women. Violence, law, and custom hold these social hierarchies in place.” Transgender History: The Roots of Today’s Revolution, 7-8. Susan Stryker. As quoted by Josh Blount, 11/21 Abby Ferber: Intersectional theories argue that race and gender are intertwined, and neither can be fully comprehended on its own. An intersectional approach sees race and gender as interacting and inseparable, and intertwined with other identity categories such as age, sexual identity, class, disability, etc.. Everyone plays a role in the dynamics of privilege and oppression and can work toward creating change in the ways that systems and institutions are organized to perpetuate inequality. It is only by adopting an intersectional approach, which examines the ways in which race, gender, and other systems of inequality interact and intersect, as part of what Patricia Hill Collins calls a matrix of privilege and oppression, that we can fully comprehend and work to develop successful strategies for combating any and all forms of oppression. (Whiteness Studies and the Erasure of Gender, 2007. P. 268, 280) Carl Trueman: Critical theory is today a diverse phenomenon that draws deeply and variously on strands of Marxist thought, psychoanalysis, feminist theory, postcolonialism, poststructuralism, queer theory, and deconstruction. It embraces a variety of such approaches and continues to develop its conceptual vocabulary and its range of political concerns. Yet at the core of the various approaches of critical theorists lies a relatively simple set of convictions: the world is to be divided up between those who have power and those who do not; the dominant Western narrative of truth is really an ideological construct designed to preserve the power structure of the status quo; and the goal of critical theory is therefore to destabilize this power structure by destabilizing the dominant narratives that are used to justify— to “naturalize”—it. (The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (pp. 225-226)

In this episode, JT and Andy discuss the value of having relationships with people who think differently than you.

In this episode, Andy and JT discuss how difficult it is to find balance in the things we are passionate in. Christopher Ash's book "Zeal Without Burnout" is referenced as a helpful resource in this category.

In this episode, Andy and JT dissect the book "The Heart of Anger: How The Bible Transforms Anger In Our Understanding And Experience" by Christopher Ash and Steve Midgley. They also thank you for the kind comments and reviews! 

In this episode, JT and Andy take on a list of trigger words that are easily misunderstood and they work to define them and categorize them. Hopefully, this can be a resource for you as you hear these commonly used words/phrases.  Please send us trigger words that you'd like us to talk about on facebook/instagram/twitter @ThatDontFit