Know Own Change: Journeying Toward God's Heart for Reconciliation

By Josh Clemons, Hazen Stevens and John M. Perkins

Before you can do what’s right, you have to see what’s right.

When it comes to racial reconciliation, we often ask, “Where do we go from here?” But has it ever occurred to you that the real question is “Why are we still here?” In other words, until we’ve seen the problem of racism correctly—its history, its current effects, and its root causes—we aren’t equipped to head in the right direction. We’ll just keep falling into the same old patterns. The blind will lead the blind, and no one will have the vision to foster real change.

But take hope! Restoring our spiritual sight is exactly what Jesus came to achieve.

In this book, Josh Clemons and Hazen Stevens—one white, one black, and both brothers in Christ—will invite you to start the journey toward racial reconciliation and justice. Join us as we:

• Know the story of racism in the West, the church’s complicity in it, and how that story impacts each of us
• Own our own contributory roles in the present and historic sin of racism
• Change the story by getting involved with the laborious—yet glorious!—work of racial reconciliation and justice

In Know. Own. Change., the authors set aside the world’s patterns of division and hate. Instead, they set a tone that emerges from spiritual kinship in Christ. Every page seeks to honor Him, pointing believers back to Jesus as the one who is reconciling all things to himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Moody Publishers
• Release date: May 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9780802475459

Book preview

Answering the Call

We’ve got to raise the conversation on reconciliation in the church back to the common language of love.

—DR. JOHN PERKINS

Leadership is a calling."

We sat facing Dr. John Perkins, a spiritual father to the reconciliation movement in America for the past seventy years, and listened to him pour out wisdom over our lives. He had invited us to his home in Jackson, Mississippi, and we relished the privilege to sit at the feet of such a hero in the faith. While his statement held truth, its profoundness came more out of the substance and consistency of the man who spoke it.

Throughout his work, Dr. Perkins has suffered greatly for what he believes in—he carries a deep and abiding burden to see reconciliation come to the church. For that belief, he’s been slandered and falsely accused, beaten within an inch of his life, and arrested and jailed unjustly on multiple occasions. Yet he has persevered.

So when he shared that wisdom, we knew we needed to heed it. He meant that leadership is not derived primarily from gifting, human ingenuity, or even the desire to right a wrong, but that true Christian leadership in any area is God-given. It is an entrustment from heaven; one we must respond to with faithfulness. And as we seek to serve the church through the ministry of reconciliation, we seek to be faithful to that calling God has put on our lives. We call men and women to be reconciled to God and to one another, and to be united as one people in devoted love to the God whose image we all bear.

Dr. Perkins felt that call and diligently pursued it throughout his ministry. We have felt that call and have pursued it, in particular, through our OneRace Movement initiative. And because you have picked up this book, we know you have felt that call too. You sense that longing in your heart to be a reconciler in your sphere of influence. Whether in business, government, education, entertainment, or ministry, your heart burns to see racism torn down and for us to be united as one.

Leadership is a calling—not only to raise awareness and to educate, to challenge and motivate, to guide, but also to be part of the solution. Oftentimes, that calling will come when you least expect it. We know it did for us.

THE BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT

I (Hazen) grew up in the heart of the most affluent neighborhood in Atlanta. Though I never heard a racist slur or joke in my home growing up, and my family didn’t overtly express negative views about people of color, I also never saw them engage in any peer relationships that reflected any form of racial diversity. When I was growing up, my interactions with people of color consisted mostly of those who worked for my family, not neighbors, classmates, or coworkers.

The big gleaming white-steepled church I attended from elementary to middle school did not have a single family of color. If they were there, I don’t remember any Black or Brown people joining us on our summer choir tour to Yellowstone or our spring break ski trips to Colorado. They weren’t part of the annual handbell choir recital or the Dutch clogging in the Christmas pageant.

Not until I went to college did I begin to understand what I’d missed because of this cultural and class homogeneity. As my eyes opened to the richness of life spent among diverse people, I lamented the absence of people of color in my life for so long. Soon I felt God calling me into the ministry of reconciliation.

Part of that ministry came when I met Josh in 2015. He was a church mobilization director for an evangelistic outreach organization, and I was serving under him as a volunteer prayer coordinator. The church where I serve as an executive pastor is well known for prayer in our city, so the organization’s leaders invited me to be a member of their steering committee. Josh and I became fast friends. Josh guided me in understanding parts of the body of Christ, namely the African American church, that I had mostly grown up distant from. Through this first season of serving together, God used those experiences to show me the need for greater unity and reconciliation in the church as a whole and in our city. So a year later in 2016, when God planted an idea within several leaders to begin an initiative that would teach cities to love across color, class, and culture, I knew exactly who to call.

When Hazen approached me (Josh) about starting a reconciliation movement, I was surprised. Not because I wasn’t interested but because I was preparing to plant a church in the Atlanta area. As I prayed about it and discussed it with my wife, I felt God calling me to plant in a different way and I agreed to partner with Hazen in this new ministry. We knew that if we were going to share with others how to pursue kingdom diversity and gospel-centered reconciliation, we had to intentionally practice it ourselves. And so with all vulnerability and trust on the table, we have wrestled, wept, prayed, rejoiced, and journeyed together on race. That commitment has reaped a deep friendship, stronger devotion to Jesus, and a greater outpouring for the work of reconciliation.

Together, since 2016, we have helped lead a reconciliation initiative called OneRace Movement. We have gathered more than 150,000 people in live events to stand for unity and to decry racism in every form. We have traveled more miles together, had more disagreements, and engaged in more race conversations than I could ever recall. We have listened to leaders share their stories of deep pain and wounding. And we’ve borne witness to stories of healing, forgiveness, and redemption. And with each celebration, we know we have more work to do, more lives to touch with the Good News of the gospel that brings about true and lasting reconciliation.

WHY RECONCILIATION IS STILL SO NEEDED

Reconciliation work is tough. It’s disruptive and it is certainly complex. And yet when we sign up for it, we sign up for the beautiful and redemptive work of bridge building. When we decide to join the story of God, we become co-laborers with the great Reconciler Himself, Jesus Christ.

From the foundations of the world, God predestined Jesus to come and rescue humanity from the consequences of the fall. Through the condescension, Jesus put on flesh and dwelled among broken humanity. As He endured the cross and all of its shame, Jesus reconciled us to God and invited us to be reconciled to family.

Our story of redemption is wondrous and complete because Jesus paid the high price to secure us back to God and to make us part of His family. We are made one across lines of color, class, culture, and gender. And though we are continually becoming more like Jesus, we the church have a story that includes struggle, pain, heartache, loss, and devastation.

This is where we—the American church specifically—find ourselves. We have pain, riffs, and a sordid history relationally. We have never been one. We have never lived as a family. In fact, for a long period, part of the family was considered subhuman, reduced to property, and subjected to the unimaginable. Another part of the family, our indigenous brothers and sisters, have been robbed and conquered because of the belief that God desired this land—Manifest Destiny—for America, meaning we laid claim to it and did awful things to ensure it would be ours alone. The devastation against these members of the family has diminished the church’s ability to flourish. It could take several volumes to discuss women, the plight of our Hispanic siblings, or the Asian side of the family, and we see a common narrative unfold there as well.

To make matters worse, imagine not talking about this pain. Not lamenting it together. Not acknowledging or rectifying it, allowing the ripple effects to continue into the present.

While we stand on the shoulders of giants like Dr. Perkins and countless others, who felt God’s call to reconciliation and pursued it, paying a significant price that we might enjoy the progress and the potential for equality in the present, we recognize that we too have a role to play and work to do.

Reconciliation work is not a one and done—because sin continues to plague us and threaten the strength and unity of the church. That’s why reconciliation work is tough but necessary. It is necessary because we still have unaddressed wounding. It is necessary because the church, who should be leading the charge, has been derelict in its responsibility for centuries.

A GRAND INVITATION

We find ourselves in the middle of a family tragedy. But redemption is near! This is where you and I come in. This is where the church has a grand invitation. We have an opportunity to heal this broken family through the redemptive work of Jesus. We are invited to shoulder our crosses, to love sacrificially, and to fight for one another. We are invited to be reconcilers.

As we accept this invitation, we first need to understand the issue and the goals. So let’s affirm the places we agree and work from that place of unity:

Recognize We Have a Problem

Since you’re reading this book, you likely feel the racial tension in your church, community, or across America. You sense that we have a problem. However, this problem runs deeper than division, racism, and ethnocentrism. It’s a problem that dates back to its inception at the fall. When Adam and Eve chose to oppose God, sin was introduced into the world. Racism at its core is sin. It is a manifestation of humankind opposing God, exalting our ideas and desires over His.

Understand That the Gospel Is the Solution

The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus provides us with a fresh start. It’s through reconciliation with God that the sin problem finds resolution. It is also through the cross of Christ that we find a bridge back to a united family. Apart from the gospel we could never fully actualize this new humanity we have been called to.

Remember That Reconciliation Is the Goal

Jesus has secured a means for us to become a new humanity, a family, a holy temple, the bride of Christ. As believers, we are charged to live into this reality on the earth.

Know That We Have a Part to Play

We are invited to love God and to love one another. If we are to be fully devoted to God, then we must also be fully devoted to what He cares about: people. We must be concerned with loving our neighbors—more specifically, our diverse neighbors. The neighbors who are different from us. When we neglect that calling, we participate in the denigration of the imago Dei (the image of God) in them. And when we choose to love only those like us, we denigrate the imago Dei by overexalting it in others. These are the ways we have created the deep and historic divisions in our society. It will only be by holding a correct view of the imago Dei, one where we rightly value all as equally fashioned in the image of God, that we will heal these divisions. This is our grand invitation.

POINTS OF FRICTION

To be sure, throughout the pages of this book, as we discuss race, history, and the gospel, we will encounter points of friction and disagreements. That friction can tempt some of us to withdraw, discredit, revise history, and reduce the gospel mandate to live reconciled. That friction can tempt others of us to overamplify the trauma of racism and filter all things through that trauma. We must be aware of both temptations. We must engage this work with a zeal for truth, and must view our shared history from a position of humility as we cleave to our common goal, which is reconciliation.

So we can be more aware, here are a few places on this journey that might cause us to do some wrestling:

• History. Our burden is not to present an exhaustive historical account of race, America, and the church. We aim rather to employ history to build a narrative around racial difference. We will use history to understand where we’ve been and how that impacts where we are. Some of the history we present may be new or have certain aspects that you’ve never considered. That’s okay. We ask that you press through it, wrestle with the discomfort, and take breaks along the way. The only way forward is through.

• Guilt and Shame. For White reconcilers, it can feel as if guilt or shame are being forced upon you because of the realities of history and the candid nature with which we discuss race. Don’t disengage. It’s like a muscle that is out of shape; it can be painful or exhausting to use it. It’s the same with race. For many White people, conversations on race can be taboo, unfamiliar, or nonexistent. Give yourself permission to lean in, learn, lament, and become an advocate for reconciliation. Together, we are going to become color brave, meaning we are going to learn to have honest conversations about race.

• Racial Trauma. For people of color (POC), the trauma of racism and history can be tough to deal with. Take your time. Our aim is to present language and a greater understanding of where we are racially. Many assume that POC know all there is to know about race and reconciliation. That simply isn’t true. Give yourself permission to lean in, learn, lament, forgive, heal, and also become an advocate for reconciliation.

The work of reconciliation is a clear directive from the Scriptures. Paul said it this way: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28). We all are invited to the table of brother- and sisterhood to pursue oneness.

This pursuit will undoubtedly be tough. If you’re doing it right, you will experience tense moments. You might even want to throw in the towel and give up. Don’t. The body of Christ needs you. We are being knit together to tell the story of His love and grace. We are in this together. You are essential to the work.

JOURNEY TOWARD BECOMING A RECONCILER

Our hope for you as you read this book is that you’ll begin the inner work of transformation to become someone who loves sacrificially and works intentionally to undermine racism in all of its forms. We call this being a reconciler. Reconcilers are committed to the gospel and to being a bridge across people groups. They make conscious efforts to engage with the history of race and its painful impact, and they remain committed to bringing love and healing to the world around them.

To help you on this journey, we have structured the book into four parts. In the first two chapters, we articulate the problem and tension we all feel. This is where we offer you the opportunity to move forward in your journey of transformation. For any true transformation to take place, you must first know the story. So in chapters 3, 4, and 5, we focus on what to know and how to know it. We will seek to answer the question, How did we get here? Once you know the story, you humbly can own the story. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 focus on what owning looks like. Here we deal with the importance of lament, confession, repentance, cultural identity, forgiveness, and practicing our faith differently. In the final chapters, 9 and 10, we spend time walking through the ways we can change the