Barneyisfat

It's 2 AM, I'm alone in the St. Louis Airport(literally - other than an occasional cleaning lady the airport is empty), I'm avoiding Bible Chapter Summaries (I am 50 tedius old testament chapters away from being done forever!, and I am going to review my weekend retreat from my scribbled notes of thoughts from the weekend.

This weekend was spent attending the Ethnic America Network's Ethnic Ministries Summit; a 3 day event designed to bring people who work in multi-ethnic ministries and slacker college students looking for some credit hours together for an enchanted time of learning. I, obviously, fall into the "slacker college student" category and not the ethnic minister grouping.

The first person who introduced himself to me was a Malaysasian man, TV Thomas, who happened to be a good friend of my mentor, Dr. Fred Smith. It was nice to find an immediate connection.

Our first speaker was Jerram Barrs. Jerram is a British Presbyterian, a self described - "frozen chosen." The focus of the conference is the ideal that every church should be multi-ethnic and that worship should reflect the rainbow of cultures present. We had a lot of black music.

I love the spirit of African American church music; but everything seemed so patronizing. We would listen to a great negro spiritual and then some cracker would mount the stage and say (with a pompous, pretentious, British accent) MMM, yes, that was spledid, now wasn't it?

Our speaker on Thurday was a powerful black man. His sermon addressed our selfish desire to believe that our worship is superior; that we have a grasp on God that "they" just don't get. He ended with a story of traveling to the African bush. As a city boy, his eyes revealed that he was more than a little frightened to get off the bus after several hours spent without passing a building. A bushman quickly rebuked him in the native tongue. A translator revealed that the man had said, "God is here!" Sometimes we think that our norms and values reflect God best, but we must see that God works when we move beyond our comfort zone.

I met some really fun kids from Lancaster Bible College. We had dinner together and hung out a good bit. I like them a lot, and honestly, they reminded me of Fallsies ... which I didnt' hate.

Our speaker tonight spoke about racial reconciliation. He spoke to the black audience while tolerating the white audience's presence. It was a magnificent sermon. He told them that welfare was destroying their society and that Payday Loans would take them under. He asked why black people are making more money than previous generations, but still experiencing the same quality of life. His message moved everyone beyond his or her comfort zone. It challenged the crackers to work to build up the black communities through education.