Does your community have an active clergy collective or ministerial alliance? 

Too often I hear about how "we used to have a ministerial alliance, but people just stopped meeting together after awhile." Amid the many responsibilities of ordained and lay leaders in churches, it can be hard to maintain healthy colleague relationships with fellow leaders in the community. Yet, these relationships prove critical during community-wide crises. This weekend, the ordained and lay leaders of Charlottesville, VA, knew they could easily communicate with one another and respond in joint effort at a moment's notice. ​

(Once again) We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast…

Folk down south told her when she was little, “Your nose got the strongest memory.”

Blackness covered the sun, the street sizzled, and the Brick City crumbled under her six-year-old feet. Ten hours earlier, Lil’ Ol’ Grandma was sittin in a dirt patch in front of Hayes Homes playin jax with her baby sister, Mae. Mae was known round town for her smarts. She skipped kindergarten so the two sisters would be in the same class next year.

But storm clouds was coming.

Mae bounced the opal green ball, but before she could sweep the jax from the dusty earth, she saw Mr. John out the corner of her eye. They was draggin him in the 4th precinct. Looked like the sack potatoes, Big Momma used to pick down south in Georgia.

Thunder rolled. Crowds gathered. People shouted. A steady downpour of pent up rage.

As tears fell from Momma’s eyes and sizzled on the street, she turned to Lil’ Ol’ Grandma and shouted, “Y’all girls run home and don't let nothing happen to Mae.” Ten steps away from their mother’s arms, lightning leapt from the concrete.

The dungeon shook. Glass shattered. People running.

With fire jumping from building-to-building, Lil’ Ol’ Grandma could only squint in the toxic plume. The inside of her throat began to sweat as the fog-like smoke settled in her lungs. She reached out for her baby sister, but Mae already drifted away. Out of the corner of her eye the opal green ball floated down the sizzling street like the bottles bobbing in Newark Bay. 10 steps away, Mae lay lifeless with a shard of glass jutting from her neck.

Since that night in ’67, Ol’ Grandma never been right.

It’s ten till 12 in Baltimore and Lil’ Lucy just started dreaming when she’s startled out of hope, “I remember. I remember…” All night long, Ol’ Grandma sat before that cracked TV screen.

This story would change if we could see ‪#‎lillucy‬.

We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast.
‪#‎onceyouseeyoucannotnotsee‬ ‪#‎fearlessdialogues‬

We interrupt this regularly scheduled broadcast…

As curfew falls on this Baltimore city street, day-old ashes gather on her apartment windowsill. Yesterday riots canceled school, and nixed her two free meals, so at ten till 10 only nervous energy fills Lil’ Lucy’s empty belly.

But the dreams are charred in the Comeback City…

All day long, Mr. Freddie’s face kept flickering and flashing on the cracked TV screen. In her 6-year-old mind, he was a ghost. Lil’ Lucy remembered, Mr. Freddie passing her at the busstop. 

But this was not a dream. Ol’ Grandma sat transfixed before the cracked screen, and every ten minutes she’d cry out, “I remember. I remember…” Momma’s desperate eyes searched the shadows beyond the paned glass and prayed softly that her only son could dodge the armament and make it home alive from the nightshift. 

In this waking nightmare, Lil’ Lucy curled up on the threadbare couch, pressed her eyes together tightly and imagined a bright sunny morning with a smile on her mother’s face.

This story would change if we could see #lillucy. 

We now return to our regularly scheduled broadcast….

#onceyouseeyoucannotnotsee #fearlessdialogues

ICTG Advisor Rev. Dr. Gregory Ellison, II, is an ordained Baptist minister and Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care and Counseling at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University.  He is the founder of Fearless Dialogues, and author of Cut Dead, But Still Alive. 

I recently got back from a trip to Sao Paulo Brazil as part of the Fearless Dialogues programs. While we were there, our schedule was extremely packed, and I was late getting to our last meeting, on the last night. The meeting started at 8:30pm of a day that had started more than twelve hours previously, and all that I knew was that if was with a pastor who also did street art. So, I took my time on the way back from the store from a supply run. When I, finally, got into the room for the meeting, however, the room felt charged and alive. On the other end of the table, sat a heavily tattooed man with tremendously kind eyes, and he was pouring out a piece of himself into a room filled with a small collection of strangers from a different continent. This is the kind of scenario that Fearless Dialogues creates.

At its core, Fearless Dialogues is part therapeutic technique and part community organizing framework. It developed out of Dr. Gregory Ellison’s book Cut Dead But Still Alive and his experience working with people who felt their marginalization as not being fully seen. Generally, Fearless Dialogue events get together a diverse group of people who share something in common – a shared living space, shared cause, or shared belief – and leads them to see those who are often left unseen, to see each other, whether mayor, teacher, or drug dealer, as assets for building the community, and to see their own innate giftedness. This has been done with over 5,000 people in over thirty cities around the world including Nashville, Atlanta, Ferguson, and Sao Paulo.

I personally have seen it work in two different directions. I was part of the team that put on Fearless Dialogues in Nashville, Tennessee. In that instance, it was about bringing together a community that was experiencing significant marginalization to see potential in one another for rebuilding. I helped facilitate a Fearless Dialogues event with the Emory University Board of Directors. That was a much different scenario more focused on guiding people who live in a privileged position to see those who often go unseen and see an individual role for themselves in pushing back against marginalization.

Healing is deeply embedded in what Fearless Dialogues is. Coming out of Dr. Ellison’s work, one of the core messages is that marginalization is deeply traumatic. Going through life being unseen can cut someone to death – though they still live. Thus, in Fearless Dialogues, part of what happens is bringing those who are often unseen into a community that does see and helping them find their gifts for making a difference in the three feet around them. Equally, for people often doing the unseeing, Fearless Dialogues is a call to take part in a healing process – to see the harm that has been done and see a role in participating in healing. 

In Sao Paulo, we had a chance to see both sides of the process. Early in the trip, there was a more formal Fearless Dialogues session held with some seminary students at a major university in Sao Paulo. The school of theology is undergoing some internal struggles between Liberationist and more fundamentalist theologians. As a nation, Brazil also struggles with race. While there are more people of African descent living in Brazil than any other place on the globe outside of Africa, few People of Color make it into higher education, and, certainly, there were few People of Color in attendance in the seminary classroom that evening. Therefore, the session was much more about learning to see the unseen and finding a role in ending lack of sight, and I saw a small version of this take place in a small group that I participated with. Besides me and one other American colleague, there were four Brazilian pastors in training. Three were outspoken, well in command of themselves, and radiated confidence. The fourth was quieter, visibly more awkward, and retiring. He shared that he often feels the need to withdraw due to lack of confidence. Within his seminary community, he often feels unseen, yet he had an important skill for the conversation. He spoke English, so he was the life line for the two Americans and the glue that held the conversation together. From this shifted dynamic, an honest and deeply sharing took place that altered the landscape of sightedness – at least in that moment.

Yet, it was in the less formal dialogue at 8:30pm at the end of a long week that really stands out for me. The kind eyed and tattooed pastor was at wit’s end. In caring with people living in extreme poverty and drug addiction – coming out of his own struggles addiction, he had run dry. Whether he found in the room of five Americans and a translator six sets of eyes that saw him, or whether he commanded our attention by the force of what he was sharing, it is impossible for me to know. However, I do know that I was deeply affected by what he shared, and I shared back what encouragement I could. It is that connection that is the essence of Fearless Dialogues for me. That we can all find strength in each other, when we actually see who is around us.

Rev. Dr. Gregory Ellison, II, is an ordained Baptist minister and assistant professor of pastoral care and counseling at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University.  He is an ICTG Advisor, the founder of Fearless Dialogues, and author of Cut Dead, But Still Alive.  

Thousands of people around the globe filled city streets with banners and signs chanting
"I can't breathe" in response to a grand jury's decision to not indict New York City police officer
Daniel Pantaleo for the killing of Staten Island resident Eric Garner. It was a decision that was
highly anticipated given the backlash for a lack of indictment of another policer officer in
Ferguson, Missouri for the killing of a young unarmed black male named Michael Brown. New
York City especially felt the effects of this decision with protesters walking the streets for several successive evenings in an effort to disrupt traffic and city logistics with an understanding that if the citizens could not get justice, then the city would not get peace. Police presence was heavy, but they were given instructions to allow peaceful protests to go unobstructed. The mayor's empathetic tone for protestors put police officers on edge. During this turmoil another police officer shoots an unarmed black male named Akai Gurley as he was walking down the stairs of his building. Tensions rose throughout the city and just when things were reaching its peak two NYPD officers were shot while sitting in their patrol car by a man who claimed to be exacting revenge for the recent victims of police killings. All of this happens within a span of 17 days and the question is how does the church engage in the healing process when so much community trauma has taken place. My congregation, and several others have chosen to engage in protest, prayer, and partnership as a way of promoting healing and peace within our congregations and community.

After the decision of the grand jury to not indict officer Pantaleo several Brooklyn pastors
joined together in an effort to create a space for the church to practice peaceful protest for those who could not and would not join in the late night protest. This was a particularly sensitive issue because several members of the congregation are police officers, but in dialogue with them and other officers I felt confident in promoting this protest without the fear of it seeming anti-police. We ended service early and marched with several other congregations within the community to express our discontent and to stand in line with the rich history of the African American church of speaking up to issues of injustice. As we marched onlookers within the community joined our walk, sang beside us, and prayed with us. 

Since prayer is a tool for transformative power the march ended with a prayer rally.
Congregations had been praying on their own, but it was important to pray together as a part of the larger community. It was a great moment for the community and a call to action for the
churches within the community to continue experiences like this. We were called to do it again
after the shootings of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, the two officers shot in their
patrol car. The shape of it changed in that it was a prayer vigil for peace and justice. We were
careful to be sensitive to the police officers during their time of grief while also keeping in mind
that justice was still at the forefront of the discussion. Eric Garner's sister, Ellisha Flagg, also
joined us in our call for peace and spoke to all those gathered. This rally was planned in
partnership with our local councilman and police precinct. Some officers from the community
affairs bureau of our local precinct marched with us as we continued to try to bring healing to
our community after so many devastating events began to take its toll. We prayed together for
the victims of senseless violence, the safety of police officers, the relationship between the
mayor and the NYPD along with the relationship between the community and NYPD. It was a
sobering reminder that in the grand scheme of things all lives truly do matter and have value in the sight of God. A powerful moment occurred when one of the pastor's read the names of those who were killed in our community to violence in the past year. As each name was read and single white ballon was released into the sky. 

Certainly the need for continued healing is important. The local congregations have
decided to continue partnering together to create experiences that foster healing and prayer. We have also decided to partner with the local police precinct and elected officials to create
dialogue and ensure that the community still has a say in policy and how it is policed. Needless
to say these partnerships already existed but trauma has a way of reshaping and remodeling
our current practices. Through continued dialogue we are better able to deal with traumatic
issues when they arise instead of being reactionary. 

Reverend Shaun J. Lee, a Brooklyn, New York native, serves as the seventh pastor of the Mount Lebanon Baptist Church.  His ministry focuses on getting individuals to establish a true relationship with Christ, establishing a meaningful membership in God’s church and a concrete connection with the surrounding and global community. Reverend Lee firmly believes that the Word, Worship, and Work are central to advancing the Kingdom of God. An active member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Reverend Lee aims to connect with the un-churched through various pillars he’s set in place. Staying in tune with his own personal passions of social justice, he crafted institutions to reflect his ministry including a monthly soup kitchen, back-to-school BBQ that provides 500 children with supplies, a strong social media presence led by volunteers from the congregation and the Judges 19 Ministry which focuses on helping both men and women victimized by domestic abuse. Reverend Lee is married to Valerie, and delights in the nurture of their daughters Sian and Sanai.