Dear Pastor or Church Leader,
Greetings to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! May grace and peace be multiplied to you and to your church family.
“Racism.”
“CRT.”
“Wokeness.”
“Just preach the gospel.”
We know that it has been frustrating to think and navigate racial tensions and issues as we try to faithfully lead our churches. Christians are divided on these things. There are times when we just want to ignore the problem and other times where we find it consuming our thoughts and emotions. As those who love Jesus we know we can’t find peace in sidestepping or idolizing the issue. And feeling distant and angry at otherwise faithful church leaders seems off. It seems wrong.
Besides ignoring the challenge, other leaders think rallying with everyone who agrees with you will do the trick. Just pick a tribe, rally for your position on this issue, and wait for this stuff to pass. We want to try something different. We have pastors who will teach and lead us in thinking about the challenge. And they don’t all agree on everything. We don’t intend to iron everything out before gathering with LA pastors and church leaders. We will work through disagreements or quibbles with each other’s perspectives humbly, openly, and lovingly.We want to think about why the race conversation is so hard, frame it theologically, and think about it historically and personally, all with our Bibles in front of us, so that we can love and lead our churches to love their neighbors with biblical discernment. We want to think hard and prayerfully and love one another even where we disagree as teachers and as churches.
We’re having a conference on Thursday, October 12 with Isaac Adams coming to town. Isaac pastors Iron City Church in Birmingham, Alabama and wrote Talking about Race: Gospel Hope for Hard Conversations. He will be joined by LA Pastors Bobby Scott (Community of Faith Bible Church, South Gate), Matt Jones (Del Rey Church, Los Angeles), and me, P. J. Tibayan (Bethany Baptist Church, Bellflower). There is more info on these teachers below. We will honestly address the issue as pastors of local churches and as brothers who love one another.
All pastors and other church leaders, brothers and sisters, are welcome to this conference.
This is not an echo chamber to merely state our points and move on. This is not a platform to lob grenades at others from self-righteousness (though we are all tempted by what is common to man). Even though it is a full work day of your time, it will be worth it as you meet and rekindle friendships with other LA pastors and leaders. It will be worth it to more deeply consider biblical truths and pastoral perspectives together that will help us commune with and follow the Lord Jesus. It will be worth it to receive encouragement that even if we don’t agree on everything, we agree on many things and there is hope to move forward in leading God’s people where God has called each of us. We don’t have to distance ourselves from others. We don’t need a pep rally. And we don’t need the nagging guilt that we should be thinking about and addressing this challenge.
The conference is just around the corner, so put it in your calendar and click this link and register today. If you’re one of the first 30 registrants we will pay for your Chick-Fil-A lunch and give you the book, Talking About Race: Gospel Hope for Hard Conversations by Isaac Adams. Don’t wait, register now.
Yours in Christ (since all things are yours in him),
P. J. Tibayan
Bethany Baptist Church, Bellflower, CA
Quick Overview of the conference:
Who is it for? Pastors and church leaders who want to disciple their churches faithfully toward ethnic unity and ethnic harmony with Christ Jesus at the center.
What is it for? To encourage and equip church leaders to think biblically and theologically about ethnic tensions today so that churches are strengthened to faithfully disciple their people to love their ethnic-minority neighbors and neighborhoods (opposing our society’s culture of ethnic disharmony) the way they faithfully disciple their people to love their unborn neighbors (opposing our society’s culture of abortion). We need to be able to have honest teaching and conversation that names the sin or folly biblically and specifically for what it is and then calls for the appropriate response or repentance and fresh faith in Jesus Christ.
How will we know it was effective? If pastors and church leaders connect as friends. If biblically thoughtful ideas and convictions and practices are communicated and considered. If pastors and church leaders leave encouraged to keep discipling their churches faithfully.
Schedule:
9:30 Intro and Session 1: Isaac Adams
11:00 Session 2: P. J. Tibayan
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Session 3: Matt Jones
2:00 Session 4: Bobby Scott
3:00 Session 5: Panel an Open Q&A with all in Attendance
4:00 End (Be encouraged to grab dinner with others!)
Teachers:
Isaac Adams serves as lead pastor at Iron City Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and is the founder of United? We Pray, a ministry devoted to praying about racial strife. He is a speaker and author of the new book, Talking About Race: Gospel Hope for Hard Convos.. You can find him on Twitter at @isickadams.
Bobby Scott is a pastor of Community of Faith Bible Church in South Gate, California. He is a council member of The Gospel Coalition. It is his consuming desire to be used by God to strengthen the urban church, and he believes this objective will be best met by building families, motivating singles to live radically for Jesus, and developing a ministry upon the teaching of the word of God. He also holds a BS from UCLA in Kinesiology. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Naomi. They have six adult children. You can follow him on Twitter @pastorbscott.
Dr. Matt Jones has a passion for God and instructing people from His word, the Bible. He has been pastoring in the Del Rey Church as lead pastor. Even more importantly, he has been happily married to Erika and the proud father of seven children. The Jones family is a certified foster home with Los Angeles County, always ready to shelter the orphaned and kids in need. He completed his first doctorate at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University and a second doctorate at the prestigious London School of Theology in England, engaging Postwar evangelical history, racism, and theology. You can follow him on Twitter @PastorMattJones.
P. J. Tibayan is a member and a pastor-theologian of Bethany Baptist Church in Bellflower, California, shepherding the church to share their lives so neighbors know God and live with his joy, hope, and love. He also helps lead The Gospel Coalition L.A. and the Shepherd LA Initiative to connect and resource likeminded pastors for healthier churches in L. A. He blogs at SaintPJ.com. P.J. has completed a few degrees in Bible and theology. He and his wife, Frances, have six children and trust that the sixth one is present with the Lord in heaven.
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