Black Christian Women's Magazine - Really?

The other day I was sitting in my office when I overheard one of my collegues on the phone. She was talking to someone about securing an interview for one of her artists in a black Christian women's magazine. She said the topics would be: Grace, Salvation, Biblical Parenting and Marriage. She hung up and I sat back and thought how sad it is that we are still dividing people based on race. How tragic that we are still doing that in Church.

Look at the topics again: Grace, Salvation, Biblical Parenting and Marriage. How do those only apply to black Christian women? Don't they apply to all women (or all people) no matter what your skin tone.

My boyfriend often says that he thinks lots of people will be surprised when they get to heaven that there aren't "White Churches" and "Black Churches" but all the people of God are just one church. Can't wait for the day when I'm sitting in my office and I over hear my collegue saying, "I've got an interview for you the topics are: Grace, Salvation, Biblical Parenting and Marriage." I can't wait for the day when people are seen as more than just a collection of light or dark melanin.

Loving my Neighbour

I don't know why she stays and I don't know what to do.

Last night I woke up for the second time in a week to my neighbour screaming and swearing. Her boyfriend using his fists to mark her body with what would soon be black and blue imprints. I didn't know what to do. I was shaking as I called the police. Shaking for the next hour and a half as I lay in bed far away from the danger that was lurking in my neighbours house.

I left a note on the car this morning. "Dear (I don't even know your name!). I've heard the fighting. Last night I called the police but all was quite by the time they got there and I didn't want to cause more trouble for you so they left. But I wanted you to know that I'm here for you. If you need a 'safe place' or need a hand to hold on the way to the policestation or just a cup of sugar. I also want you to know that you're valuable, beautiful and worth more than you know. And you are not alone." Then I gave her my telephone number and email address and signed my name.

It felt like I'd done nothing, like I'd stood by and watched him beat her. I thought about how the bible says we've got to love our enemies, about how I don't feel one drop of love for the man downstairs. I feel hate. I feel fear. I feel disgust. But I don't feel love for him. (And he hasn't done anything for me.) I'm praying God will help me to love him. Not like him but somehow find a way to offer the kindness, honesty and friendship that Jesus would.

Then there's my neighbour who doesn't know how to leave him. How do I love her? Is a note enough? No, but it's a start. So often I make the Bible something that is out there. Something that isn't a living, breathing, life-changing part of my life but this morning I feel like God is inviting me to be part of this story, to risk something for someone else and love them even when we don't understand what they do. I've a long way to go in loving my neighbours (both of them) well but I hope it started today and I hope that soon I'll know their names...

The face in the mirror

I was deeply challenged recently while reading a book by a man who performed along musicians like Jimi Hendrix, John Lenon, Mick Jagger and Elton John about my own heart and what I've learnt about God, other people and the church. This man, Jimi Calhoun, wrote a book entitled A Story of Rythm and Grace about what the church can learn from Rock and Roll about healing the racial divide. He ended the eleventh chapter in a way that made me inhale slightly deeper, feel a little uncomfortable and want to change my habits. This is what I read:

"Go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. Pretend that the mirror is not for personal grooming, but an instrument of social reflection. Look closely at the image before you and say, "I am and have always been your best advocate." Now imagine that the person in the mirror is a different colour. Could you, or would you, be able to say thos same words to that mental image? If not, ask yourself why."

I didn't go to the bathroom, I didn't even look in a mirror, I didn't have to. I already knew the answer. If I smudged a little brown into my complextion and dyed my hair black and smiled the statement out to the person of another race I had composed in my mind or if I made my skin a little lighter and pulled my eyes to form slits and straightened my hair and whispered the statement I knew the answer remained the same.

I could answer without a doubt that I am and have always been my own biggest advocate but I couldn't say the same for the other races that conjoured into the mirror in my mind. It scared me. It scared me even more when I imagined myself: homeless, a prostitute and a drug addict. There was no way I could say to those people in the mirror, "I am and have always been your best advocate." Shouldn't I be able to?

I'm pretty sure when Jesus does the same exercise, he's able to look into the mirror, catch their roving eyes and say, "I am and have always been your best advocate." And then reach out to them through the glass and wipe the hair from the brows gently. I know because he does the same thing to me.

I was challenged by this musician because I want to be able to say with Jesus, "I am and have always been your best advocate" to people who I ignore in the streets, to people who don't always smell good and to people who I often think look nothing like me. However, Jesus sees all our hearts and he knows that we all look the same and that we all need him as our biggest advocate. And I'm hoping as I walk with Jesus I'll learn to be a good advocate too.

Chris Seay: The Gospel According to Lost (A review)

The Gospel according to Lost explores the elements of the TV show Lost in an analysis of faith and metaphor and places itself as a resource to those who want to go deeper in the journey.



As a big Lost fan and a television producer I found this book disappointing. I’m not sure what I had been expecting but it definitely wasn’t this book. I hadn’t wanted the author, Chris Seay to explain Lost to me but I was hoping for a deeper spiritual discussion than the book offers and perhaps more wrestling with the deeper themes the TV show hints at. At the very least I was hoping that the book would stir up strong feelings and questions just like the TV show does but it doesn’t. I guess I was hoping for more depth than the book offers, it seems to just scrape the surface of the show and never really grapples with the bigger issues the book claims to cover like what lost has to say about the clash of faith and reason, the struggle with guilt, the dichotomy between fatalism and fate and how being lost presents an opportunity for liberation and paralyzes others.


Bottom line: if you love lost rather buy the box set. I don’t think this book has much to offer. It might look cool on your bookshelf but you won’t be reaching to read it again and again.




Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Following in Jesus' Footsteps

I spent the last month in the Philippines. For almost 5 weeks I travelled through the country and lived with local families and ate local food and visited NGO’s and experienced moments of beauty. I’d love to say that I felt God was with me every step of the way but that would be lying. I felt he was with me a few times: on a boat as the sunset over the ocean, during worship in a strange church, in the eyes of an orphan who grabbed my hand to show me his world but mostly God and Jesus felt distant during the 5 weeks. I kept talking to him but I felt like he didn’t exist and I began to think that maybe he didn’t.



Then during my last week I climbed an active volcano. Something I have wanted to do since I was about 16. On the way up I struggled and sweated and slipped my way uphill through the sand so porous it could only have been made of ash. The view at the top was magnificent but I didn’t find God there. I edged down towards the crater with guide and almost slipped on a corner but he caught my hand and steadied my booted feet. He was in rubber flip-flops but his feet were as steady as mountain goat.


The time came to descend and I decided that I would follow in our guide’s footsteps. I would literally put my feet in his footsteps. That’s how the descent started as he lifted his foot I placed mine in the displaced soil. The plan worked really well till I was about half way down and decided that if I just put my feet in the vicinity of his I’d be safe and I wouldn’t slip and fall. I stopped being so careful, stopped walking in his footsteps and the ground slid out from under me and I just managed to stop myself from landing in the dust. I returned to the rhythm of placing my feet in the guides footsteps.


As I did I began to think of Jesus. I began to think how he walked up to the men who became his disciples and said, “Come follow me”. I pondered how he didn’t say, “Come walk beside me” or “Come with me” or “Come along for the party” but he said “Come follow me…come put your feet where I have trodden and I will show you a new life, I will show you a new way of living and even though we walk along the edge of a volcano you can trust me that I know the path and that I won’t let you stumble and fall.”


I left the Philippines sure that even when I couldn’t see God if I kept putting my feet in his footsteps I had nothing to fear, if I keep listening for Jesus’ voice saying, “Come follow me” then I won’t stumble and fall. All I need to do trust Jesus enough to put my feet where his were and that sometimes easier said then done.