What About Us‪?‬ Epicentre West LA

This week has been our best conversation yet.  Teira and Chris go unplugged and talk about all the pieces needed to build a multi-ethnic church.   We talk about how to develop diverse leadership, what are the blocks to developing diverse leadership, how the multi-ethnic church is to be God’s corrective to worldly justice theories that come from political parties and higher education.

This week Teira shares her experiences and viewpoints about how trauma affects people individually and as a cultural group. We dive into ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) and unity as well as diversity in the African American experience. As a teaser for a future podcast, we touch on the topic of multiethnic churches and dream about how they could be rather than how they are.

Part 2 of an emphasis on White Christianity.  Pastor Chris shares his journey of planting a church in East Los Angeles, a Latino community.  He offers a Biblical paradigm of white leadership in cross cultural and cross class settings.  He and Teira look at complex issues like colonization and critical race theory, exploring how Jesus followers are to uniquely engage both in the larger societal dialogue and in cross cultural ministry.

Pastor Chris takes the lead in this podcast to talk through his personal journey and key moments and people that helped him get unstuck from the kind white guy, to a liberated advocate of justice.  Some of the topics discussed are the importance of defining white-American culture, the powerful influence of individualism and optimism, the vast diversity of white americans on the journey of reconciliation, finding a better term than white supremacy, principles of engagement for white folks, and the sober warning of Scripture for white Americans today.

Pastor David Kitani (New Life Community Church) joins the podcast to share his personal journey as an Asian-American growing up in So Cal, and his personal convictions about the unique call of Jesus on the Asian-American community.  This episode is full of real talk!  Dave goes there in breaking down the problem of the “model-minority” label, the pain of being silenced in the conversation, and the complicity of injustice.

Teira and Chris talk through the radical nature of Jesus’ compassion.  How is the compassion of Jesus relevant and challenging for White Americans in these times?  How is Jesus’ compassion relevant and challenging for Black Americans?  For all types of Americans?  What happens when you challenge the paradigm that “Jesus loves me?”