Police brutality meted out on people of color is embedded in the video feed of our culture. Not even two weeks after honoring the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, our frozen reality dishonors his dream. During a traffic stop, 29-year-old Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by five members of a special police strike force in Memphis. All five are fired and facing murder charges. I (Rick) was off the grid for four days and didn’t know what was happening in the world. I emerged into a sea of grief and shock… again.
I knew Vibrant Faith’s Fred Oduyoye and Dr. Nancy Going had been just across the border from Memphis, leading a ministry training at a black church in Mississippi as part of of Thriving Congregations project. Right away, I wondered if anyone had shown up for the training, and if they had, how could they engage in the training with all of that grief, anger, and despair swirling around them? When I talked to Fred and Nancy, I learned my expectations were completely off, and for reasons I could not have predicted.
In this Reachable Reconciliation conversation, Fred tells the story—discover a crucial takeaway that every ministry leader needs to hear…
