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God's Neighborhood: A Hopeful Journey in Racial Reconciliation and Community Renewal
Scott Roley was once an up-and-coming singer/songwriter in the contemporary Christian music scene, but then God called him to a different kind of ministry. He left his life of privilege, became a church pastor and moved into a disadvantaged neighborhood. There he began to learn hands-on what "loving your neighbor" required of him--social justice, community development and racial reconciliation. As a youth of the '60s, Roley attended the March on Washington and was captivated by Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision for societal transformation. Now, as a community leader and activist, he is embodying the ideals that are needed to forge a just society. Following Jesus' example of incarnational ministry, Roley's work demonstrates how God uses faith-based organizations to change lives. This remarkable life journey exemplifies Christian hope in caring for the disinherited and renewing our communities, one neighborhood at a time.
216 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2004
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June 3, 2011
Review: http://atrossbooks.com/2012/03/10/boo...
I have been thinking more of late about issues I have ignored in both Scripture and myself. I picked up God’s Neighborhood in the chance that it might deepen my understanding of both re-community-ing one another (the act of moving into poor or disenfranchised neighborhoods for the cause of Christ) and racial reconciliation. Growing up in small midwestern towns where everyone was relatively poor and relatively white, race was not ever really a concern. I was raised to believe we are all one race made by God, of course, but I never had the opportunity to exhibit this belief, and in such conservative towns there is an assumed (and therefore invisible) suspicion, not of minorities themselves, but of their cultures. One could not help pick up the feeling that every black man was a Black Panther and that young hispanics were gang members (gangs with who? We live in redneckville.)
Thus, taking the time to understand their cultures and beyond this, to actively work towards undoing the perceptions of minority cultures, if not minorities themselves, has become something I have gotten interested in over the last two years or so. God’s Neighborhood isn’t exactly what I expected, but it is a very good book about exactly this sort of journey.
It isn’t what I expected in that it is autobiographical concerning a young pastor, Scott Roley, and his family, who moved into Hard Bargin, a poor neighborhood in Franklin, Tennessee. It contains less theology about racial reconciliation and community reintegration than I would have liked, but then that wasn’t what the book was about, and it is interesting enough in its own right. It begins with a few chapters recounting Roley’s young life during the civil rights era and the presidency of JFK. He stood in D.C. as a boy and listened to Martin Luther King Jr. give his famous speech. He met JFK only a few months before his assassination, and had dinner with Robert Kennedy before his assassination too.
Here the book begins to become painful. He describes their gradual move into poorer neighborhoods in Virginia, Michigan, and Tennessee, and the exposure this brought to his invisible racist attitudes. He recounts yearning to meet and speak with the black pastor in his neighborhood, only to freeze on the steps of his church in fear, and turn away. He recounts the suspicion the minority pastors felt toward the mission trips taken by suburban white churches to come into their neighborhoods to “help.” He finally shows the reconciliation that took place when those barriers were finally brought down. These later chapters are generally divided by subject, though they continue to be personal reflections on how those subjects have connected in his life and experience. He speaks about adoption because he has adopted several children. He speaks about the realization that there aren’t white and black neighborhoods, but only God’s neighborhoods, and on that subject on integration, on building genuine integrated community. He speaks about relocation through their own experiences of relocation into a poor neighborhood. He speaks, in the penultimate chapter, about repentance through his own repentance.
Most importantly, though, he speaks of the hope and healing that came with the reconciliation that happened in Hard Bargin. An interracial pastors group called Empty Hands Fellowship began, and eventually the influence of this group spread to the wider churches. The inner healing that came through this group took on incarnational hands and feet as they began ministries to help the poor and needy in their communities around Franklin. To date, they now have ministries focusing of social justice, helping anyone in need; a tutoring program; gang reconciliation programs; a prison ministry; a shelter and ministry to single or battered women; a food and clothing collection and distribution ministry; a racial reconciliation among women group; a neighborhood renewal ministry; integrated churches; a children’s clinic; a theological study center for laymen; a free law office; and two integrated private schools to provide disadvantaged children with a rigorous classical education that will allow them to lead successful lives. In this I see much of the call of the gospel.
The one downside to the book is its tepid and weak prose, but even then I found myself moved by what Scott Roley has done that it didn’t seem to matter much. One of the things I was most pleased about was Roley’s work in the Presbyterian Church in America denomination (PCA) to submit an overture to the denomination calling for it to apologize for the complicity of Presbyterians in Southern Chattel slavery, an overture that the denomination passed with overwhelming support. If churches catch the vision presented here, even if not precisely in the same way, the Church and the Kingdom will have come a bit more fully into this broken world.
I have been thinking more of late about issues I have ignored in both Scripture and myself. I picked up God’s Neighborhood in the chance that it might deepen my understanding of both re-community-ing one another (the act of moving into poor or disenfranchised neighborhoods for the cause of Christ) and racial reconciliation. Growing up in small midwestern towns where everyone was relatively poor and relatively white, race was not ever really a concern. I was raised to believe we are all one race made by God, of course, but I never had the opportunity to exhibit this belief, and in such conservative towns there is an assumed (and therefore invisible) suspicion, not of minorities themselves, but of their cultures. One could not help pick up the feeling that every black man was a Black Panther and that young hispanics were gang members (gangs with who? We live in redneckville.)
Thus, taking the time to understand their cultures and beyond this, to actively work towards undoing the perceptions of minority cultures, if not minorities themselves, has become something I have gotten interested in over the last two years or so. God’s Neighborhood isn’t exactly what I expected, but it is a very good book about exactly this sort of journey.
It isn’t what I expected in that it is autobiographical concerning a young pastor, Scott Roley, and his family, who moved into Hard Bargin, a poor neighborhood in Franklin, Tennessee. It contains less theology about racial reconciliation and community reintegration than I would have liked, but then that wasn’t what the book was about, and it is interesting enough in its own right. It begins with a few chapters recounting Roley’s young life during the civil rights era and the presidency of JFK. He stood in D.C. as a boy and listened to Martin Luther King Jr. give his famous speech. He met JFK only a few months before his assassination, and had dinner with Robert Kennedy before his assassination too.
Here the book begins to become painful. He describes their gradual move into poorer neighborhoods in Virginia, Michigan, and Tennessee, and the exposure this brought to his invisible racist attitudes. He recounts yearning to meet and speak with the black pastor in his neighborhood, only to freeze on the steps of his church in fear, and turn away. He recounts the suspicion the minority pastors felt toward the mission trips taken by suburban white churches to come into their neighborhoods to “help.” He finally shows the reconciliation that took place when those barriers were finally brought down. These later chapters are generally divided by subject, though they continue to be personal reflections on how those subjects have connected in his life and experience. He speaks about adoption because he has adopted several children. He speaks about the realization that there aren’t white and black neighborhoods, but only God’s neighborhoods, and on that subject on integration, on building genuine integrated community. He speaks about relocation through their own experiences of relocation into a poor neighborhood. He speaks, in the penultimate chapter, about repentance through his own repentance.
Most importantly, though, he speaks of the hope and healing that came with the reconciliation that happened in Hard Bargin. An interracial pastors group called Empty Hands Fellowship began, and eventually the influence of this group spread to the wider churches. The inner healing that came through this group took on incarnational hands and feet as they began ministries to help the poor and needy in their communities around Franklin. To date, they now have ministries focusing of social justice, helping anyone in need; a tutoring program; gang reconciliation programs; a prison ministry; a shelter and ministry to single or battered women; a food and clothing collection and distribution ministry; a racial reconciliation among women group; a neighborhood renewal ministry; integrated churches; a children’s clinic; a theological study center for laymen; a free law office; and two integrated private schools to provide disadvantaged children with a rigorous classical education that will allow them to lead successful lives. In this I see much of the call of the gospel.
The one downside to the book is its tepid and weak prose, but even then I found myself moved by what Scott Roley has done that it didn’t seem to matter much. One of the things I was most pleased about was Roley’s work in the Presbyterian Church in America denomination (PCA) to submit an overture to the denomination calling for it to apologize for the complicity of Presbyterians in Southern Chattel slavery, an overture that the denomination passed with overwhelming support. If churches catch the vision presented here, even if not precisely in the same way, the Church and the Kingdom will have come a bit more fully into this broken world.
February 28, 2016
I have given this book five stars because it has been life-changing for me and it has stayed with me in the sense that it is still on my bedside table even though I read this over Christmas break. I continue to go back and search for passages that I cannot shake so that I can read them again. I highly recommend this book to anyone. Prepare to be challenged.
The beginning may seem a bit disjointed to aficionados of literature as Scott tries to briefly give you an overview of major events that set the foundation for who he is today. I got the impression that there is so much more to his journey beyond what he chose to share just to lay a foundation for the main point of his book. Try to stick with it and hear his passion as someone who has a lot to share and the only way to do it is just to spill it and not worry about winning the award for the best WRITING. If you feel the need to complain about that at the end, read it again because you totally missed the point! :) Coffee with Scott Roley is now on my bucket list.
The beginning may seem a bit disjointed to aficionados of literature as Scott tries to briefly give you an overview of major events that set the foundation for who he is today. I got the impression that there is so much more to his journey beyond what he chose to share just to lay a foundation for the main point of his book. Try to stick with it and hear his passion as someone who has a lot to share and the only way to do it is just to spill it and not worry about winning the award for the best WRITING. If you feel the need to complain about that at the end, read it again because you totally missed the point! :) Coffee with Scott Roley is now on my bucket list.
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