Episode 82: Biblical Justice: Bridging the Gap Between Scripture and the Streets

Episode 82 • 20th June 2024 • Pivot Podcast • Faith+Lead

Inés Velasquez McBryde: That God decides to not be removed from us, but wants to be in our flesh, wants to understand what makes us cry, what makes us hungry, what makes us, um, uh, worried. Fears just the vulnerability of a God who migrates into the flesh to live in our neighborhood, right? To live like us. It is a very vulnerable. A very vulnerable thing. Born to a teenage mom, right? Uh, the embodiment of Christ is the love of God in the face of Christ. That's the first thing I want to say that I see. I see the love of God in the face of Christ, and I see the justice of God in the face of Christ. And so in Jesus we see the actual embodiment of a God who says, I am near, I come close, I weep, I am with you.

:: 00:55

Terri Elton: On today's episode, we explore the rich biblical foundations of pursuing justice from the prophetic voices of the Old Testament to the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, and what it means for leaders of churches today.

:: 01:11

Alicia Granholm: Hello everyone. I'm Alicia Granholm and I'm joined by Terri Elton. Welcome to the Pivot podcast, where we explore how to follow God into a faithful future by equipping all God's people to love and lead in the way of Jesus. Our guest today is Inés Velasquez McBryde, a pastor, scholar, and advocate for justice and reconciliation. She's an alumna of our Seeds Fellowship for Ministry Innovators and the instructor for our new on demand Faith Lead Academy course, justice in the Bible. Welcome, Inés. We are so happy to have you.

:: 01:46

Inés Velasquez McBryde: Thank you so much. And thank you for having me here. Terri and Alicia.

:: 01:49

Alicia Granholm: Yes. It's great. So, Inés, can you start by telling us a little bit more about yourself? Um, maybe you can start with how you got interested in questions of faith and justice and how you approached these questions in your own life and ministry.

:: 02:05

Inés Velasquez McBryde: Absolutely. Um, I would like to begin by saying that Justice or Justicia, which is what we called it in Spanish growing up, was simply my life. It didn't start with a question, but it was my life. Growing up in Nicaragua in the 80s and 90s. I grew up there up until the age of 18, when I moved to the US to go to college, and it was the soil that informed, uh, my life and it informed my faith. My father was a pastor and also did community development in the country. My mother was a diplomat. She worked at the Spanish embassy, also doing humanitarian work. Both my parents founded an NGO in Nicaragua, and so both of them were doing the work of bringing humanitarian aid and post-Civil War Nicaragua. So it wasn't something I was interested in. It was my very life. It was my survival. It was the life that we lived just to just to be alive. And so, uh, the life of justice that I have was formed from that faith. And it's rooted in the Nicaraguan church and how how the church viewed, viewed justice as well. Um, so both my parents, I would say, discipled me into justice. The Nicaraguan church discipled me into justice. Um, the poor were with us. Uh, we, uh, were imposed civil war in Nicaragua. I experienced, uh, civil war, I experienced famine, I experienced food rationing. So it was my life. I think it's what it was. I'm trying to say it wasn't a question that came up one day, and I thought, well, I wonder what I think about justice. It was just my very own survival. And so today I would say that that soil, the Nicaraguan church, my very life informs how I read Scripture, informs how I embody Justicia, how embodied justice informs my life as a pastor who speaks about justice and reconciliation. It's not something ethereal, absent, separate. It is the reason that I'm here. Um, people who fought for justice kept me alive. My parents who fought for justice, kept me alive in the middle of of of a war torn country and oppression. So it is my very life in the air that I breathe. Growing up.

:: 04:18

Terri Elton: What a rich story, Inés and I. I'd love for you to share. What are some examples of how you've integrate that into your current ministry context?

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Inés Velasquez McBryde: Examples of how we integrate that. Currently, I speak in in one of the modules on the power of place. For example, uh, place wherever you, Terri, are standing, wherever you, Alicia, are standing, wherever I am standing. Place has power. And place also has layers. And there's historical layers and spiritual layers that are interwoven back hundreds of years that need to be excavated. Uh, doctor Willie Jennings is a theologian and professor and an author. And in his book, The Christian Imagination, he challenged me when I was reading that book in seminary to ask about land, languages and people. Land languages and people. When you excavate place, you ask yourself, what languages were here before us. Uh, whose land was this before we arrived? What people were here? What people were displaced in the land that you're standing on. And so as a church planter and as a way that I have embodied that in my community, is it is my responsibility, my faithful, uh, theological reflection to excavate the land that I'm standing on, to know that I'm standing on Tongva land, to know that I'm standing on Chumash land. I recently participated in a tour, a civil rights tour of Pasadena. So our church is located here in Pasadena in California, and it was called Race and Place. And so we studied the layers of history, the different people that arrived, that were here first and then that were here next, and that came later. We studied and we listened to public historians tell us how historical markers, um, impacted specific ethnic communities, how people were displaced. How did the Chinese Exclusion Act affect people in LA? Uh, how Tongva people were displaced, how the Spanish missions, um, was a form of genocide to indigenous people. And we get to hear from actual indigenous people how African Americans were redlined out of Pasadena. And so as a pastor, that's one way that I study about injustice that is excavated. We have to do some homework in the same way that we exegete Scripture. We have to execute our city. We have to, uh, unpack the layers of history beneath our feet in order to do faithful theological work, faithful church planting work, work that is not colonizing. Realizing that a lot has happened here. For example, in my context, before a church planter arrives. Our church is four years old, but there's hundreds of years of, um, uh, history here in LA. There's 90 languages in the, in the LA, US, USC, for example, you know, the school district. And so that is one place that we study, we learn the history of the land. And then we realize, well, what did the church do during those years? What was the prophetic voice of the church? Was the church silent? Um, how did the church welcome the immigrant? How did the church welcome, uh, the foreigner? What did the church do in those years of civil rights movement? What did the church do with redlining? And so that's how we embody and it informs our our shalom and justice team. It informs how we spend our money, who we give our money to. Um, so our Shalom and Justice Fund is like our missions fund. We send it to places to repair those injustices. So we have housing justice initiatives because of redlining. We do. We have, um, donated money to to the um, Tongva, uh, tribe of Indians. I think that's the correct name. I may may be saying it wrong because they're doing work of reclaiming and keeping their traditions and trying to survive in a land that belonged to them. We do, um, work with, uh, housing justice initiatives to help rent control in Pasadena. You know, we support a community, uh, organization that's called Making Housing and Communities happening because here in LA, uh, homelessness houselessness is a big issue. It's an injustice issue more than any place in the country. And so you have to land and ground yourself in the history of where we're standing, learn those injustices and ask, what does the gospel have anything to do with this? As, uh, as a community, as a faith community? How does how do we join God's work of repair in the world? Does the gospel have anything to say? Does Jesus have anything to say? So that's one way that I see race and place as a church planter, as a local pastor, to be faithful to, um, the history that has happened here way before we arrived as a church.

:: 09:18

Terri Elton: I love that perspective, and thanks for taking us into your context, because I think to see to imagine the layers that you talked about, I think many of us in the modern era have shrunk our sense of time, and we forget about the expansiveness and what has taken place. So I want to now connect that to the other part of your faith. Lead Academy course, the Bible. Uh, Justice in the Bible. As you think about the themes of justice that are woven throughout Scripture, from the Old Testament to the New Testament, what are some key themes that you see that you maybe even talk about in your course, or that are important for our listeners?

:: 10:04

Inés Velasquez McBryde: The beginning, uh, the beginning of justice, uh, originates with God. And so the first thing that I would say about a justice theme is that our God is a just God, and our God in the Old Testament. And I and I do delve into it in the in the course and in the modules of God and the prophets and God in the Old Testament, our God being a just God. God is a author, architect, and arbiter of justice, which means that as I've studied, um, the laws and traditions and regulations of of how God speaks to the prophets and the prophetesses, what I found is that there's an ethic to this God, that the ethics of the entire Old Testament hang on, a God who called out and cried out through God's own prophets and prophetesses for. To care for the five ultra vulnerable groups in the Old Testament. And that's the orphan, the widow, the poor, the sick and the immigrant. That alone, if we look at all the ways that God speaks, uh, to the prophets and prophetesses to care for the orphan, the widow, the poor, the sick and the immigrant, uh, God has always been for the most marginalized. God has a preferential treatment for the poor, for the sick, for the immigrant, for the widow and the orphan. And many of the laws to the people of Israel were to not forget the widow, to not forget the poor, to not forget the immigrant, to welcome them into the promises of of God's people and the people of Israel, so that they too would flourish. And we see that over and over in, in the Old Testament. And so that that book, those books that justice, uh, of that God informs our theology now, our present theology now, because Jesus was present in the Trinity back then. So I to say that Jesus is the author, the architect, and the arbiter of justice, but it originates with God. It's not an idea that somebody made up. It's not a justice advocate, a contemporary justice advocate. The idea of justice comes from our God. And justice begins with repair. Repair of the ways that the fall of of humanity in Genesis three has broken our relationship with God, with one another, with creation. And that injustice just continued throughout the Old Testament to get worse and worse and worse. And so God is having to repair, uh, through Jesus. The work and of of injustice. So it originates with God. It starts with God. It is fueled by God, and it's embodied in the life of Jesus Christ in the New Testament as well. But it originates in the old. It's not a new idea.

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Alicia Granholm: It says. Can you share some examples of how the prophets like Micah and Isaiah embodied, uh, this prophetic voice? Yes.

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Inés Velasquez McBryde: I love I love the prophet Micah, my father, who is also a pastor. He is one of my dad's favorite prophets. And I've learned a lot about Micah through my dad. So it's been a generational wisdom that's been passed down. Micah was one of those minor prophets, and minor doesn't mean that he is less important, just that the size of the book is shorter and it's the length of a book. Not the importance of that prophetic text. But what distinguishes Micah from Isaiah, for example, is that Micah is a prophet of the poor. He is in close proximity to the pain he is. He comes from a place of suffering. He speaks from a place of pain. He is not removed from the pain, and he is not removed from the injustice. And Micah is a prophetic text because he he speaks that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem, and it's there in chapter five that the Messiah will come from Bethlehem. Uh, Micah is from Moresheth, and he prophesies that a nearby town, Bethlehem, is going to birth the Messiah. He has hopes, even in the midst of pain. And so that prophetic voice for me, for Micah, is an embodied voice. It is a real voice. It is a voice of someone who is close to the poor. He was poor himself. He suffered, uh, very much. And we have modern Micah's in our midst today, that you don't have to go find some prophet to speak to the rich or the unjust or the oppressor, like there's there's prophets in the midst of the pain and suffering and and so that's why I think I, I, I'm drawn to Micah. Uh, in for another example is Micah two nine. The prophet condemns the fact in chapter two, verse nine, that women are being evicted from their houses and that their children are being killed. Is that not like a real, a real prophecy happening in our very own lives right now? We just have to turn on the news search on, on our Instagram or or something some news source and see that people are being killed. Women are being evicted from their houses. Children are being starved to death. Micah would be speaking from that place. Micah would be speaking from Palestine today. And that's a scary thought. So it's not a prophet removed from the pain he comes from, from the place of pain. Today we would call that housing justice. Today we would call that, uh, the the genocide that is happening right now, uh, in Palestine. That was one of the many injustices of the time. And and today it impacts us. Today. He indicts the very leaders of the House of Israel. Micah three nine, it says, for building Zion with bloodshed in Jerusalem with violent injustice. So Micah is the kind of prophet that he will offend all of us. He pulls no punches, and he is crying out that Yahweh has a case against God's own people. Nobody wants to listen to Micah right in the modern world. I wouldn't want to listen to Micah because I would have to self implicate in the violence of what am I doing? What am I not doing? How am I being silent in light of of injustice? And Micah also reminds the people what Yahweh has already said. And Micah six four it says, indeed, I brought you up from the land of Egypt. I ransomed you from the house of slavery. Micah says that Yahweh says, I sent you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. So Micah is reminding the people, don't you forget that you too were oppressed at one time. Don't you forget where I brought you out from. I brought you out and I rescued you from the house of slavery. So Micah gets really particular. He gets very protest-y, he gets very historical, and he reminds the people that God has been saying the same message over and over and over again. So Micah is a prophet of the poor, and I am drawn to that because he is proximal to the pain, and he is with the people who don't have power. And it's very particular to the people, particular to the problems and connected to the land.

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Terri Elton: So I'm going to jump to Jesus. Many of the things that you said connect could be similar with Jesus, of who he hung out with and and whatever. But what's the significance for you as you see Jesus embodying, literally taking on flesh and embodying God's justice and love in the world? Speak a little bit about how that continues this theme and how it's unique and different, and what it might mean for church leaders today.

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Inés Velasquez McBryde: How it is unique and also different. It's unique because God decides to be a migrant God. God migrates from heaven to earth, puts on flesh, as you say, and is not separated from the people. So in in a very prophetic way, like a Micah who is proximal to the pain. Uh, God, in a very prophetic way, since God's own son to embody the flesh. And so me as an immigrant, as a brown Latina, so sees that migration from heaven to earth, that 100% human, 100% divine in Jesus, that embodiment is migrant justice, that God decides to not be removed from us, but wants to be in our flesh, wants to understand what makes us cry, what makes us hungry, what makes us, um, uh, worried. Fears just the vulnerability of a God who migrates into the flesh to live in our neighborhood, right? To live like us. It is a very vulnerable. A very vulnerable thing. Born to a teenage mom. Right? Uh, the embodiment of Christ is the love of God in the face of Christ. That's the first thing I want to say that I see. I see the love of God in the face of Christ, and I see the justice of God in the face of Christ. And so in Jesus we see the actual embodiment of a God who says, I am near, I come close, I weep, I am with you. Jesus is vulnerable. Jesus grows up for about 30 years in. We don't know much about those years, those silent years of Jesus. But we know that a father and a mother raises him, a community raises him. Uh, God especially is probably telling God's own stories through Mary, through Joseph, to say, this is your call in life. They are discipling this child into justice. Though he is 100% divine, he's also being discipled as a human. So by the time we we hear about Jesus hanging out with with beggars and prostitutes and tax collectors. He is embodying the love of God, the radical and scandalous and inclusive love of God. And he turns the world upside down. He confuses the Roman leaders. He confuses the Jewish religious leaders. I always say that Jesus is an equal opportunity offender. Like when he speaks, he asks, okay, who did I not offend today? Just just to be clear, I'm here to offend everybody because his love can be so offensive to the rigidity of rules and the rigidity of, uh, social orders or uh, uh, orders that keep people out and others in, you know, he comes in and speaks to Samaritan women. He comes in and welcomes Matthew, a tax collector. He comes in and allows women to touch his feet. A rabbi shouldn't do that. A rabbi wouldn't do that. He breaks a lot of laws because he is operating under a higher law and his very own body becomes the site of repair, the site of inclusion, the site of welcoming those who have been most marginalized. And anytime he performs miracles, for example, he is always placing people back into community because whatever kept them out. Now he says, you're in, you're in, you're in, you're also in. You're not too dirty. You're not too sinful, you're not too barren, you're not too whatever. And so that radical love in Jesus is the cornerstone of justice. And I always tell my church, uh, can't nobody tell me about my Jesus, what he has done for me, what he has done for all of us, all of us have a story to tell about Jesus. And so when we study his ethics, when we study his verbs, I think I speak about this in one of the modules. I don't just like to talk about the words of Jesus. I like to talk about the verbs of Jesus. Uh, here's a gift from the brown church to you all English speakers. Here's a gift to the to the from the Brown church. John one one. We know that the word in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God in Spanish, that translation is not. In the beginning was the word, but in the beginning was a verb. So I love the way that our Spanish translators did not translate logos to word, but to verb. What does that tell us about a God that moves into the neighborhood? A God that moves into our body, a God that moves among us. And so that's the type of theology that the brown church shaped in me. The verbs are Jesus are as important, if not more than the words of Jesus, because they tell us how this God moves and lives and breathes and has God's own being among us. And so a theology of God, of Jesus being a verb is a theology that has shaped my upbringing. We study not just what Jesus says, but how he moves around marginalized bodies. And who does he say is in? And who does he say is out? He welcomes a co-ed posse of female and male disciples, but you have to study the verbs to find that out, to excavate that out. There are 12 male disciples and ten named female disciples. We should ask the question, why have the ten female disciples been overlooked and remain unnamed for generations? That's the kind of work that I do. As a brown, female, Latina mujerista theologian. I look at the verbs of Jesus and it disrupts everything in my life. Or at least it disrupts the theology that has been handed down and inherited from patriarchal interpretations of Scripture.

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Terri Elton: And as you were talking, I'm I'm thinking about our understanding of leadership in the church, right. It disrupts a sense of the leader as the resident theologian or the primary teacher. Those are verbs, right? Teacher or teaching. But I hear really a call for leaders to get into the neighborhood, to walk among, to be present with, to listen to and empower or lift up others. Right. I think of a different set of verbs and actions that that come from the kind of leadership, right, that if we take this seriously, leading in the way of Jesus, then, uh, those actions, those verbs aren't when this is all done, we'll do that. But they are kind of at the center, the preferential ones, if you will. Yes. Am I am I reading you right there?

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Inés Velasquez McBryde: You are reading me, right? Terri, I love that there are preferential verbs. I love that we just we just co-created a sermon together, Terri, and this is how it ought to be. Theology ought to be done in community, because we learn from each other, and we put together things that otherwise alone we would not see it. There are preferential verbs in the way that Jesus lives and moves and breathes and has Jesus's own being. Yeah.

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Alicia Granholm: In as, um, speaking of verbs, you know, when we think about and read about the early church, uh, really living out and following in the way, uh, following the verbs, if you will, of Jesus, um, especially, uh, his actions, um, around justice and inclusion, uh, they face some significant challenges. And I'm curious what you would say about what we can learn from their struggles, uh, as well as their successes in forming a community that embraced diversity and fought against, uh, systemic injustices.

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Inés Velasquez McBryde: I love the way that you frame that. How can we learn from the struggles and successes of the early church? I tell you, the more I study the book of acts, the more, um, I see the humanity of the apostles and and, um, as I identify with them, more and more, I realize, oh, I still have so much to learn. I still have so much to learn. Um, one of the things that I would say how to welcome that struggle as we study the human, the humanity of the apostles, we have to welcome the discomfort, discomfort of being human. We have to welcome the discomfort of vulnerability. We have to welcome the process of a spiritual reformation the early church has experienced. Uh, the presence of Jesus has died on the cross, was raised and ascended. Right. And we find ourselves in acts one and acts two, and I think they're getting together saying, what do we do now? How are we to live? How do we belong to each other? What traditions do we do? We struggle to keep, to toss, to modify, to change. And when we look at the the person of Peter, for example, Peter was weird, Peter was weird, and he was awkward in those early church years. This is the same Peter that had seen Jesus raise the dead and perform miracles and welcome Mary Magdalene. Peter is weird and awkward, and he invites me to be weird and awkward and say, oh my gosh, I don't have it all together. I have to welcome the struggle of being of still being spiritually reformed. I think the spirit is writing a new story in acts one and two, and they just don't know how to belong together. And we have a border crossing God and a boundary breaking spirit that is just jacking them up. Like, what do we do now? What we can eat with Samaritans, what we can eat pork tacos. And Peter is a prime example. You know why Peter is weird when he speaks to Cornelius? It's kind of embarrassing. He goes, you know, we all know the story. And acts 11, he has a vision. He goes into Cornelius, his home. Cornelius also has a vision about Peter coming, and it is the spirit that's moving them towards one another. It's not one or the other. It is the spirit and what's the first thing that Peter says when he walks through that door? It's not what you and I would say if I were to come visit you, Alicia or Terri. Peter says, now, you know it's unlawful for me to be hanging out around your house. He's just so weird. He's just like, thanks, Peter, for making this awkward. That's not the first thing that you say when you come into someone's home, but it's because he doesn't know how to exist with this border crossing. God. Right. And and but then he says, but then I realize that God has done something new and he doesn't play favorites anymore. So now I can be in your house and now we can eat together, but they just don't know how to belong to each other. And they just, you know, it affects what they eat, who they eat, with, whose home they're in. Those are very real and tangible spiritual practices for the early church, and it's a struggle. And so I think I said it in the module as well. This reminds me of times when in the South, I lived in Arkansas for 15 years, and I church planted there 20 years ago. This reminds me of times where in the south we ate in separate diners, right? If we study the history of the South. We ate in separate diners. Is this not what Peter is struggling with? There was, you know, diners for whites and then people of color and water fountains for whites and for people of color. If you go to Central High, which is now a national historic site in little Rock, Arkansas, where the first nine black students in 1957 integrated. Central High is the same question that Peter is saying what? We can belong to one another, what? We can go to school together. Now. It's not a new concept. Injustice, separation, segregation. The church, the early church was segregated, to use modern terms. Jesus comes, the spirit comes and moves us towards desegregation and integration. It is the earliest case study of that for the early church. If we look at it through our modern language and modern lens, Peter is undergoing another conversion. Not just of a spiritual conversion, but a social conversion, and it is vulnerable. It is human. It is uncomfortable. And so if we welcome that struggle with our modern lens, our modern issues, our modern problems, the current church, we don't need an early church. We need a church for now. We need a 21st century church, right? With our current problems. Now, what is the spirit doing? Doctor Willie Jennings says in his commentary in the Book of Acts says, what is the spirit doing? Whose lives is the spirit is is inviting us into what kind of love is the type of love of this Pentecost spirit? The Pentecost spirit is doing a new thing in acts one and two. We have a border crossing God, a boundary breaking spirit, and in acts there's a lot of border crossing. And if we just look at Peter alone, but we pay attention. Peter is experiencing this in, in his very real life, with his very real flesh and, and um, if we welcome that process in us today, we would be surprised at the work of the spirit today.

:: 31:40

Alicia Granholm: In maybe continuing on that thread. I'm curious what you would say to Christian leaders today about, you know, some practical steps we might take so that we can become leaders of Christian communities that embody that biblical justice in our contexts, wherever they might be.

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Inés Velasquez McBryde: In our current context, I would say, and I said it before, but I'll say it again, it's important for us to be, um, contextual to our land. So it can be overwhelming to know that there's injustice happening everywhere. But begin where you're standing. The ground that we're standing on is sacred ground because our stories fill that place. But then there's other stories that may have been hidden, silenced, put away, dismissed. So I would say that theology is contextual and leadership is also contextual, and calling is contextual, and the work of the spirit is contextual. So start with your land. Start with the land that you're standing in. I would say the first thing also is to learn your own story, learn your own ethnic autobiography, because all of us have one. Uh, Doctor Scott Kermode here at Fuller says that leadership begins with listening. And the first thing you need to do is excavate your own story. Right. I, I believe and I say this to our leaders at our church, that, uh, the first responsibility of our leader of a leader is to lead oneself well, to be self-aware of our ethnic autobiographies, to be self-aware of our social location, what privileges we may have or not have in a certain context. We begin there and then we place ourselves on the land because we have been grafted not only into the history of Israel, but we've been grafted into the history of our current context. So know your context well. Who are the teachers that were there before you arrived? You could be a teacher in a school. You could be a nonprofit or a church planter. It doesn't matter who was there before, who are the ancestors that have been doing the work of justice, doing the work of repair? Um, ask where the bus line used to go down your street. Ask when was when was the school district integrated here in Pasadena? Pasadena School District was the last school district to be integrated in the nation, in the nation. And for that reason, we have the most the highest amount of charter schools and private schools in the nation. What does that tell you about how integration affected the amount of private schools that we have here? Does that have anything to do with race? Could it? And so leadership is contextual and it's contextual to the land. Excavate your history and then find the teachers that have been doing this work. Find the public historians find the community, activists find the teachers that were here before. Uh, ask your neighbors. I, I learned a lot about, uh, when the local. I actually live in Monrovia, California, which is east of Pasadena, and I learned a lot about, um, when the YMCA welcomed Mexicans to use their pool and African Americans to use their pool. From my neighbor who has lived here 30 years, I just was chatting and I asked, tell me. I said, tell me so and so I want to say her name. Oh. She said, oh yeah. I remember when Wednesdays were the days that Mexicans were allowed to hike on the Monrovia trails and use the pool. And guess what happened on Thursdays? The pool was dumped so that whites could use the pool the next day with clean water. Ask your neighbors who have been here beforehand. Leadership begins with listening. We have to be ongoing learners and faithful leaders, and be willing to learn from those who have been here in this context before us. And I think all of that builds a theology of not coming into a city. And I speak as a church planter. I don't come into a city with a colonizing mindset of like, I am bringing Jesus into the city. I ask first him, where has God been at work already in the city? And how can I join God in this work before I even start anything new? Could it be that it changes our missional approaches? Could it be that instead of starting something new, we simply join the people who have been here, who are the experts in this land and in this story, and we join the work that they have been doing. And I think that has proven to be, um, a safe and healthy missional approach as a church planter, to join the work of the people who have been here before and to enter into a city with humility. Leadership begins with with listening. Those are just practical ways to embody justice. And it doesn't have to look like me. It has. It does not have to look like our church. But to contextualization. Land is contextual. History is contextual. Leadership is contextual. Church planting must be contextual, and it is very human and is very vulnerable. And we're going to make mistakes. And I would say get used to saying, I am sorry. Can you help me understand? I'm sorry. I must not have known that about the city. Can you help me understand is one of the best leadership questions that we can have in our pockets, especially when we are learning from history and seeing how faith and theology impact a city. For me as a church planter.

:: 37:15

Terri Elton: And as that's really great stuff. And one of the takeaways I'm going to have from this is it's awkward. Get over it. Right? Yes. I think so often our in this work we're like, well, is it just me? I must not know all the right things or have all the right skills. And it's like, nope, it was awkward for Peter. It's going to be awkward for us, right, as we do this work, but also that listening and awareness especially, I think, to that to the people in place of where we're called. But also I, I, I'm taking away these verbs, I think, what does it mean, right, to listen to the verbs and what would repair or unity or look like. Right. What are the obstacles that are in the way for making that happen in a in a great way, yes. Well, I now want to go take your course. Inés.

:: 38:18

S4: I'm so glad, Terri.

:: 38:20

Terri Elton: The faith I know, and I knew you were doing it, but I now am more excited about it. So I just thank you for sharing your wisdom with us here on on the podcast today, but also in the course and a reminder to those listening, you can, uh, find this course justice in the Bible in the Faith Lead Academy Collection. And if you are a member of Faith lead, you can get it for free. So just go and check it out.

:: 38:50

Alicia Granholm: And to our audience, thank you so much for joining us. And on this exploration of biblical justice. To help spread the word about pivot, please like and subscribe. If you're catching us on YouTube or if you're listening to this on podcasts, please go over to Apple Podcasts and leave a review. It really does help.

:: 39:10

Terri Elton: And feel free to share it with a friend and maybe you can listen to it, have them listen to it, and then talk about it. Um, this is Terri Elton and Alicia Granholm signing off from another pivot podcast episode.

:: 39:27

Faith+Lead: The Pivot podcast is a production of Luther Seminary's Faith Lead. Faith Lead is an ecosystem of theological resources and training designed to equip Christian disciples and leaders to follow God into a faithful future. Learn more at Faithlead.org .

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