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Nikki,
I had read More Than Serving Tea during exam week
(for the record/curiousity's sake, I'm not AA but white).
At the end of my first year of college I started asking a lot of questions about race, and though other people looked at me funny and told me to chill, I realized it would be completely hypocritical for me to want men to care about me and for me to not try to understand the minority experience and what it might mean for me as a white person. In the middle of the beginnings of this journey I found InterVarsity and realized that was a good place for me to explore these things further/step out in leadership. Nearly two years later, I'm my chapter's M-E Team Leader, out of all things!
Then this past semester it's been interesting to see things swing back the other way-- as I've learned so much about ethnic reconcilation and justice, I've seen a lot of places I need to forgive/heal as a woman and a lot of what I see as gaps in the leadership/scholarship on gender issues. (Everyone focuses on the theological debate, when I see a need for egals to move forward by also discussing more practically what gender rec and justice from a biblical perspective might look like in various areas and how what we've already learned about ethnic rec/justice might help inform that conversation.)
I'm still in the middle of this part of my journey, and I'm not exactly sure where's it's going to go. I've struggled a lot trying to understand how we should stand for truth, when that would make us a source of major disunity. In fact, I think Eph will be part of my journey in some way, though I'm not entirely sure how. But many days I struggle to understand how the church should stand against evil principalities and powers when so much of the church isn't at a pt of understanding/wanting to. Part of what I saw in Eph last week was that somehow unity and being above these powers aren't antithetical (just as, for ex, community vs. outreach isn't supposed to be a real conflict). But I'm still grappling with what all of this looks like for me as an indiv, for the parachurch, for the church, etc.
Then this past semester it's been interesting to see things swing back the other way-- as I've learned so much about ethnic reconcilation and justice, I've seen a lot of places I need to forgive/heal as a woman and a lot of what I see as gaps in the leadership/scholarship on gender issues. (Everyone focuses on the theological debate, when I see a need for egals to move forward by also discussing more practically what gender rec and justice from a biblical perspective might look like in various areas and how what we've already learned about ethnic rec/justice might help inform that conversation.)
I'm still in the middle of this part of my journey, and I'm not exactly sure where's it's going to go. I've struggled a lot trying to understand how we should stand for truth, when that would make us a source of major disunity. In fact, I think Eph will be part of my journey in some way, though I'm not entirely sure how. But many days I struggle to understand how the church should stand against evil principalities and powers when so much of the church isn't at a pt of understanding/wanting to. Part of what I saw in Eph last week was that somehow unity and being above these powers aren't antithetical (just as, for ex, community vs. outreach isn't supposed to be a real conflict). But I'm still grappling with what all of this looks like for me as an indiv, for the parachurch, for the church, etc.
Ashleigh
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