0206 - How Can I Help My Pastor In A Time of Racial Suspicion? (w/ Miguel Davilla)

Hosts: Isaac Adams & Trillia Newbell

Guest: Miguel Davilla

Overview: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)

How can lay church members help their pastors in times of racial suspicion? What is racial suspicion? Trillia Newbell and Isaac Adams sit with pastor Miguel Davilla to discuss the posture church members can have to serve, love, and encourage their pastors in times of racial division. Join them for the conversation with each other and their prayers to God. 

In this conversation, Miguel talks about what it’s like to pastor a church in a divided country. What are resources that pastors wish they had? How did the racial conversation get to where it’s at? Why are racial issues more prevalent today than they were five years ago? What’s a way forward in a way that we would all shake our head yes to? 

The answers to these questions are complex, and pastors don’t have all the answers. “We’re imperfect men called to an impossible task,” Miguel says. Part of that task is loving people who might disagree with each other and/or with their pastors. “All brothers and sisters in Christ are all coming to the race conversation at different stages—it’s as though we’re all boarding the train at different stations but assuming we all boarded the train at the same time.” 

And yet, how do people aboard this train love their pastor? Miguel answers: “Loving your pastor in a time of racial suspicion is about the posture we have — where there’s not this suspiciousness that says, ‘I’ve already created a judgment about where you stand, and now I want you to prove me wrong  vs. I’m assuming you’re on the most God-centered view as possible, and I’m hoping you don’t prove me wrong.”  

Join Trillia, Isaac, and Miguel as they pray for pastors in the trenches of racial division. Most importantly, we pray this episode encourages you to pray for your own congregation. Grace & peace. 

Links & Show Notes:

1. The Whole in Our Holiness Ligon Duncan's message from T4G 2018 Isaac mentioned at the top of the episode (homework assignment!)

2. A Quiet Exodus: Why Black Worshipers Are Leaving White Evangelical Churches

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Recorded and produced by Karl Magnuson
Graphic design by Rob Alvey