5
The Three Rs

Sometime around 1825, a British man named Sir William Curtis coined the phrase “the three Rs.” Like most people today, he meant Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic. He had to stretch a little to actually nail the three Rs, but it worked.

My teachers probably stressed these Rs as the fundamentals of education, but when I was a child they never really stuck. Reading wasn’t on my to-do list until Uncle Bud signed up our family to receive the daily newspaper just before and during World War II. That’s when I discovered comic strips! I still smile when I think about Popeye, Dagwood Bumstead, and Sky King. And I don’t have to stretch too far to see how Jiggs and Maggie (the characters in the strip Bringing Up Father) helped shape my own worldview and dreams. Jiggs was a working-class Irish immigrant who had struck it rich but still struggled with his anxieties, bugaboos, and aspirations. Sometimes I see a smidgen of Jiggs in myself. I have what the world would call success—at least a measure of it—but I still struggle with that boy inside me, the one raised in the backwoods of Mississippi.

I don’t think Uncle Bud realized the contribution he was making to my life by subscribing to a daily newspaper, but the older I get, the more I recognize how much that newspaper did for me. I would look at the news articles too, eventually making it a habit. To this day I prefer to read the news and digest it rather than hear TV commentators and their spin.

During the early days in Mendenhall, a group of us developed and focused on a different set of three Rs: relocation, reconciliation, and redistribution. The group included Artis Fletcher, Dolphus Weary, H. Spees, and me. We identified and defined these three Rs, but my family and friends had been living them out since relocating from California back to Mississippi.

We had programs and looked at statistics. H. even wrote an impressive paper. Yet for me, real community development has always flowed from an awareness of what it means to be a good neighbor and then living out that knowledge. Good neighbors go beyond caring for others—they strengthen them as well. When individuals grow, families grow. When families grow, communities grow. When we live out the three Rs, community development happens. And that’s what we tried to do during that time—every day, no matter our neighborhood, from Mendenhall to Jackson to Pasadena and back to Jackson and around the world. Those three Rs will work worldwide.

The first R is the toughest but most crucial one. People jump on the relocation bandwagon with enthusiasm, then want to compromise when they actually try to live it out. To relocate means to move from one place to another, from the old to the new. It can be exciting, profoundly biblical, and even romantic in an odd way.

Jesus modeled relocation. He is the one who “became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14 NKJV). Put simply, relocation means living in the community where God has called you. But relocation consists of much more than changing your zip code. Living out the first R means becoming involved in the community, knowing your neighbors, and being aware of the issues that confront them on a daily basis. It goes even further. Once you know their hurts and feel their pain, your neighbors’ issues become yours too.

People often say they need to be a voice for the voiceless, which sounds good but often ends up becoming imperialistic and patronizing. The oppressed already have a voice; the problem is that no one is listening. I am talking about allowing their voice to be heard. The more privileged people in society need to hear the voice of the oppressed and marginalized. We are here not to talk for them but, rather, to listen to them and provide avenues for people outside of the community to hear them as well. We can lament the pain of others and do a few things to alleviate it from afar. We can visit the rough ghettos and homeless shelters. That is good and needed, but we cross a threshold to a deeper place when we go from simply being visitors and guests to living as neighbors and family.

To me, relocation is about incarnation. The ancient Chinese philosopher Lau Tzu provided a good description of what this means: “Go to the people. Live with them. Learn from them. Love them. Start with what they know. Build with what they have. But with the best leaders when the work is done, the task accomplished, the people will say ‘We have done this ourselves.’1 When we live in a community together, we get to know one another. Sometimes getting to know our neighbors is hard because we may have disagreements or fall victim to the same problems that they face—crime, substandard schools, declining property values, and so on. In the case of crime, it may even be some of our neighbors who victimize us. For instance, personally, not long ago someone in our community stole Vera Mae’s car. She can’t drive it anymore, but the theft was still wrong, and we were still hurt that someone did that to us.

But oftentimes the close connection gained from living as neighbors and family brings joy—we discover one another’s gifts and strengths we might never have noticed from a distance. With low-income communities especially, it’s much easier to see the positive things from the inside. When you’re outside looking in—or if you just drive through from time to time—you’re more likely to see only the problems and needs. Relocation is an equalizer. It helps people overcome alienation and fosters vibrant, close relationships. Family.

Let’s dig into this a little deeper. But first let me offer a word of caution. Check your motivation before calling U-Haul. If you move to the inner city (or another low-income community) solely out of guilt or for the thrill of it, it almost never works out. You will swoop in with big dreams and quickly be flattened by reality. Things will happen—and few of them will be what you expected. People will disappoint and hurt you. Funds will run low. And a neighborhood kid may break into your car! I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. Now, some of those people moved on because God called them somewhere else, and they have continued to live out these principles in their new locations or have adapted them according to where God has called them. That’s good. But others left because their expectations weren’t met, or because it got too painful, and they retreated to whatever was familiar and comfortable to them.

My observation, in general, has been that some of the individuals and families who started with flawed motivations ended up being the most broken. While I must be careful not to judge and certainly do not know every circumstance, I wonder whether some were listening to their own hearts rather than God’s voice.

No formula exists to figure out where you should go to best serve God. You can only listen to His voice. If He calls you to a struggling community, then you must accept that life’s going to be tough. You must stick to your commitment and, in the end, realize that as much as you are serving others, ultimately you are serving God.

Also, approach relocation with humility. You cannot move into a neighborhood thinking that your presence or kindness is going to change the whole neighborhood or every person you come into contact with. The truth is people will deceive you wherever you go. Some folks I have worked with for years have learned all the language around relocation and the three Rs but use that language to exploit rather than build a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. They know how to use a person’s kindness and goodwill to get what they want, but in the end, they don’t want real conversion or to grow in the body of Christ. It’s a hard truth, but if you really want to help people in a way that encourages growth rather than dependency, you have to be aware of this truth.

Sometimes I think we have lost the concept of the benefit of sacrifice in Christianity. We underestimate how God uses hard times and self-denial to make us stronger. Many people, when they find out that I choose to live in West Jackson, either write me off as crazy or want to make me into some kind of martyr. I am neither.

When you go to the place God has called you to go, are you a martyr or are you living out the highest possible calling in your life? Do you really lose anything when you give up everything to get exactly what God wants for you?

God calls some people to leave one place and go to another, where they live out their lives. At other times, the move is temporary, but in God’s timing. Toward the end of my first tenure in Jackson, my work had expanded to a national, even an international, level. My passion was to expand the Christian community development movement to cities everywhere.

The late Al Whittaker, a friend, was on my ministry board at the time. He confirmed my thoughts and told me, “With the work you seem called to do, it doesn’t matter what city you live in.” I had completed my part of the task in Jackson, and it was time to move on.

Another board member, Donna Lake, made it even easier. Donna and her husband, Dr. Kevin Lake, had an empty guesthouse in Pasadena, California, and invited Vera Mae and me to stay as long as we needed to get clear direction on our next move. We drove from Jackson to Pasadena, stopping to visit friends in Dallas and Albuquerque along the way. I was flying high, feeling free and joyous. While I loved every minute of living and working in Mississippi, and I loved the people there, I knew I was on to my next assignment. Vera Mae? She left behind the children she was teaching in what we called the Good News Club, and I knew she would miss them. But I didn’t realize how much. I think we were about twenty miles outside of Jackson when I glanced over to her and saw the tears in her eyes. She is not one to complain when she knows God is leading, but as she reminisced, the tears flowed.

While I like to meditate on God’s Word and listen for His voice, I am not one to sit for days on end. Almost as soon as we arrived in California, I was visiting people and listening to them talk about their struggles. Drugs. Joblessness. Broken families. Crime. Gangs. The stories about the troubles growing in northwest Pasadena really got to me.

Vera Mae was out and about too. She visited a church with a friend and liked the pastor’s preaching. I listened to some cassette tapes of his sermons and liked what I heard. We wanted to live in the community that surrounded whichever church we decided to attend. After all, how else would we become part of the community? So that’s how we came to buy a house on the most dangerous street corner in Pasadena.

We drove out to a particular house that was for sale, but it was too run down, and Vera Mae just shook her head no. The house across the street, however, was also for sale and in better shape—not much but enough so that Vera Mae would consider it. A ninety-four-year-old woman owned and lived in the house. We didn’t have quite enough for the down payment—even then houses were more expensive in California than in Mississippi—so we were nervous that she would not want to sell to us, but she did. Later we learned that the house had been on the market for two years and the woman was afraid we would see all the drug dealers on the street and be scared off. Little did she know what would come about in the future.

Once we bought the house, there was no going back to Jackson. We started Bible studies, prayer meetings, Good News Clubs, and everything we do. But the idea of relocation cannot be just about outsiders coming in; it has to be centered on leaders being raised up from within. I remember telling Vera Mae one night that the only way we could make change happen was if we instilled in these children a love for their community that was stronger than the desire to get out. As more and more people with resources move out, the neighborhoods become poorer and poorer, and the community becomes drained of its most valuable asset. One of my best friends, Wayne Gordon, always said that the Remainers, those who stay behind, are the glue that holds a community together and helps make it a better place to live.

The second R—reconciliation—is the heart of the gospel. It is the process by which God brings us to Him and keeps us. It is the main activating force within the redemptive idea. It is the process of forgiveness of sin. The Bible makes it clear that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19 NKJV). It’s also the process by which believers in Christ are joined to one another: “His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility” (Eph. 2:15–16). He’s working out our forgiveness. It’s His intention to hold us together through reconciliation. Reconciliation is working in the process of forgiveness—being forgiven and forgiving others. It’s an ongoing, living thing in the Bible. It’s active. It’s a moving force. We work out the idea of redemption with redemptive living. Our churches today make reconciliation an event or an institution, rather than treating it as a gift from God and an integral part of the gospel message in general.

Paul understood the importance of reconciliation. We read in Galatians the account of how Peter withdrew from fellowship with gentile believers—and how Paul confronted him:

Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.

But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? . . . A man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.” (2:11–16 NKJV)

The way Peter allowed ethnicity to divide the early church and tried to impose his own cultural values on fellow Christians was not in line with the truth of the gospel. Paul was making a serious charge! Clearly, God desires reconciliation between believers with different ethnic backgrounds. The way we accommodate racism and bigotry in the church, even today, is a heresy and a major blind spot.

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Cor. 4:3–6 NKJV)

When I first started preaching that message in the 1960s, I met huge resistance from many churches. Today, many Christians embrace the idea of reconciliation, and that encourages me. I fear sometimes, though, that our vision is still too small.

God is all about reconciliation, but we run the risk of missing Him when we allow racial reconciliation, or any kind of reconciliation, to rise as the dominating force—if we allow it rather than God Himself to become the ultimate goal. I see how this happens—it makes sense when we have been so damaged by division, hostility, and oppression. But some of the ways we go about fiddling with our relationships with one another in the name of reconciliation reveal the extent of our own damage—sometimes even of our own obsession with race. We spend too much time trying to fix the things we don’t like rather than simply reconciling everything to God. Instead, reconciliation is most successful when churches treat it not as a project or an event but as a way of life. It simply becomes the congregation’s commitment to evangelism and discipleship—it’s how they fulfill the Great Commission. Things only get fixed—truly fixed—when they are mended by God through faith. Often we have it backward, trying to fix things for God rather than letting God fix things through us.

My family and I returned to Jackson in 1996, after living in Pasadena for fifteen years. A couple of my kids and grandkids attend Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Jackson. Let me give you a little history about this church. Before Redeemer existed, a congregation called Trinity Presbyterian Church held services in Redeemer’s current location. Trinity, a predominantly white congregation, has had a long-standing relationship with New Horizon, the predominantly black charismatic church I currently attend in Jackson. Trinity and New Horizon have come together for mission work and other outreach efforts, which I consider very important to reconciliation. Building relationships across racial lines for the sake of bringing the gospel message to people who haven’t heard it is a beautiful picture of what I believe God wants for His church.

The neighborhood around Trinity started to change a few years ago. It had been mostly white but was becoming mostly black. The church was having trouble growing, and a building became available in a different area of town that would give the congregation room to expand. The neighborhood would also be more conducive to growth in terms of white members. Trinity’s members and board discussed at length what to do. Eventually they decided to move, but a number of members—white members—didn’t want to go. Some of the women were meeting for a Bible study with Vera Mae and working with neighborhood kids after school. This was their community. So Trinity “planted” Redeemer in the original location.

It pains me any time I see a church move out of a community with race as a contributing factor. Too often when this happens, a white congregation leaves behind an empty building in a dying neighborhood rather than choosing a creative solution or simply staying on course. So the Trinity and Redeemer story isn’t flawless, but I am encouraged by the outcome.

Today, Redeemer’s congregation is about 45 percent black, but even in the beginning, when a much higher percentage of whites attended, the church brought in Michael Campbell, a black man from Miami, to be the senior pastor. To see a majority-white congregation choose a black leader is significant. And the congregation’s membership is growing—whites, blacks, and a few Asians too. Campbell’s position is somewhat unique, because it is much less common to see blacks leading mostly white congregations.

On the one hand, whites need to recognize and affirm the many gifts, including the gift of leadership, that blacks bring to the table. At the same time, I long to see black pastors reaching out, breaking down walls, and seeking a multiethnic church body.

Of course, reconciliation isn’t just about being in relationship with people from different backgrounds. It’s about mending broken relationships through repentance and forgiveness. Sometimes the repentance and forgiveness are on behalf of whole groups of people.

In 2008, I traveled to Glendale, California, to participate in a conference sponsored by seven local Chinese churches. I preached on a Friday night, a Saturday night, and a Sunday morning. Those attending the conference had come together for three days to talk about reconciliation. During one presentation, I was given my honorarium check. The pastor making the presentation used part of his time to apologize to me. He talked about how Chinese people used to buy property with deeds that specified “no blacks allowed.” They had accepted that racist clause even though they also had benefited from changes that blacks had fought for during the civil rights movement.

One leader described how during the civil rights movement many Chinese had gotten rich while blacks had fought for them to have equal rights and not be discriminated against. That’s powerful insight. He basically said, “We got rich and never did anything. This is our opportunity to ask for forgiveness and say thank you.” To be thankful and ask for forgiveness is true reconciliation. The honorarium check represented an atonement—bringing forth something that is meaningful. We weren’t just shaking hands and eating and drinking tea together—our relationship had become more than that.

This brother was repenting on behalf of his people for the wrongs that had been done to my people. It was a little overwhelming to go up there and accept the apology, but I did. After the service, a long line of people stopped me to confess their own prejudice and feelings of guilt. It was an extremely humbling experience.

Later when I talked more with the Chinese church leaders, they had more to say about the need for Chinese Christians to repent and be reconciled. They explained the problem: they were too Chinese-focused. Most of the time when they talked about planting a church, they envisioned a Chinese church. When they went out to eat, they ate at a Chinese restaurant. Everything was Chinese. They wanted to change and were planting a multicultural church. They brought me out to California to share the biblical texts as well as my own experiences and convictions that had shaped my thoughts on planting multicultural churches.

Now, I have traveled to places like New Zealand, Australia, China, Jamaica, Malaysia, Brazil, and all over Africa trying to spread this vision of Christian community development and the biblical truth of reconciliation. The vision for true reconciliation is on the rise all over the world. It’s like what John saw in Revelation—people from every nation coming to God’s kingdom where His redemptive story is approaching its eternal state. If God is in it, it’s going to happen. And we know that God is in it, so it is going to happen. There is no turning back.

Because reconciliation is so hard to live out on a consistent basis, I fully believe that it’s one of the greatest displays of God’s redemptive power. Our world is aflame with racial, tribal, and other kinds of tensions between groups of people. We have taken God’s definition of reconciliation and made room for bigotry by inserting race into the concept. Racial reconciliation is not a biblical term. People use race as a slave master, a means of injustice and exploitation. The very purpose of the gospel is to reconcile human beings to God and to one another. When human beings are reconciled to God, their relationship with every culture is in harmony. A reconciled church would be an incredible testimony to God’s ability to do things that are impossible for human beings to accomplish on their own. So what I call for—what I believe the gospel calls for—is unity across ethnic and cultural barriers. Jesus prayed for that the night before He died: “That [all believers] may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23). Our unity—our reconciliation—bears witness to the world of the surpassing love of God in Jesus Christ.

The third R—redistribution—tends to make some folks nervous. They hear the word and think it’s some sort of Robin Hood thing or a Communist conspiracy—taking from the rich and giving to the poor. That’s not what I mean at all. That wouldn’t work anyway. I’m not suggesting that we move money around or level everything out so everyone has exactly the same amount.

What I envision is Christians developing a new perspective on resources. Look around at everything God has created in this world! How can there not be enough to meet everyone’s basic needs—food, housing, clothing, health care, and so on? We ought to talk about redistributing opportunities. Too much free stuff undermines people’s dignity and feelings of value. The value is more appreciated when it comes out of one’s own effort. In the Bible, the book of Ruth demonstrates the principle of redistribution quite well. When we talk about redistribution, we’re really talking about stewardship. The problem, of course, is that we’ve gotten away from the understanding that all of the resources belong to God, and that we are stewards of whatever portion of those resources He has entrusted to us.

Unfortunately, America’s current welfare system creates dependency and entitlement. Homeless shelters and food pantries are doing a good job helping people, but their scope isn’t large enough, and they don’t offer training for jobs or ways to connect people to work. What I would like to see is a new alternative. It’s estimated that 1 percent of the people in the world own 50 percent of the world’s wealth.2 Again, I’m not asking these billionaires to just give their money away to every person on the street but, rather, to help create an alternative system. These billionaires have the resources and businesses to provide job opportunities and fund nonprofits that can offer training schools for those who have never worked before. This is real redistribution: the people with the most skills and opportunities sharing with those who don’t have them.

Take, for example, a friend of mine who owns a car dealership and has provided for me and my ministry with his resources in so many ways. One time he went with me to an event in San Diego for Plant with Purpose (formerly Floresta), an organization that works in rural areas all over the world developing local leaders and providing sustainable agriculture and land restoration training, savings-led microfinance, and church mobilization. When my friend learned about all this organization does, he became actively involved and even served on its board of directors. Plant with Purpose is a wonderful example of how to properly implement redistribution.

Many of the people I see in the community around me have been damaged by broken families and the poor school systems that don’t have the money or committed teachers to help train the children coming up. This is a large-scale problem. Consequently, the church needs to come alongside the business community to provide moral training and familial love that affirms the dignity of these children. The church can care well for these kids—but it cannot do it alone. This is why the schools are integral to these conversations as well. Redistribution requires a holistic approach. Yes, it has to do with economics, but it also has to do with the resources and opportunities people have access to that help them grow and flourish. The resources to make this happen do exist—there is plenty to go around—the question is how do we reach the church, the business community, the government, the schools, and all who have an interest in organizing a type of redistribution that truly empowers people?

The early church gives us an example of what redistribution looks like:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need. (Acts 4:32–35)

Apparently God placed enough wealth within the community of believers to meet the needs of the whole community—as long as those who had a greater share of the wealth remained willing to give some part of what they had for the benefit of others. While this is a wonderful model that ought to be lived out among believers, it is unique in the sense that these people were there from every nation under heaven and had given themselves to God. The joy they experienced was so complete, and their giving was completely out of a sense of joy. It is a model that came out of the joy, respect, and love they had for one another.

In today’s society, examples of redistribution can also be found. For instance, let’s look at the University Presbyterian Church on the University of Washington campus. Housing is a big need for many students. So some wealthy businesspeople have sold their large homes, moved into smaller homes in the community where the college is located, and bought additional houses in the area to use for student housing.

Another program that is somewhat of a spin-off of the same group involves businesspeople buying large plots of land in Latin America, breaking the land up into smaller plots, and providing ownership opportunities to people there who have never owned land before. What they’re discovering is that having smaller pieces of land owned by a larger number of people is making the society as a whole more productive. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that God’s way of doing things is the best way!

Habitat for Humanity is one of the most effective Christian organizations involved in redistribution efforts. People put some sweat equity into building their home and also have to pay some money back to Habitat for the project, but without any interest. This allows low-income families the opportunity to own their own home.

Programs like this instill gratitude in people and help them see the value of ownership, caring for and respecting the things they own. When people have ownership over something, if they help pay for it or build it, they are much more likely to take care of it than if it is just handed to them for free.

Something I’ve learned about these three Rs over the years is that if you get one or two of them, the others tend to follow, though really none are easy. I believe that’s because they’re all tied to the idea of loving God and loving our neighbors. Relocation is imitating Christ, who “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Phil. 2:7) so He could show us the full extent of God’s love. Reconciliation is God bringing people into relationship with Himself and other people. Redistribution is caring for others’ needs as we care for our own.

If we’re committed to these central values, we’re eventually going to see all of their manifestations in our lives. It’s like the fruit of the Spirit. You don’t just pick one and grow it. As the Spirit works on your character, all of these aspects of God’s character begin to be revealed in you: “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23 NKJV).

In the same way, if you’re living in a community of need (relocation), and you’re developing deep relationships with your neighbors (reconciliation), you’re going to start looking for how the resources you have access to can benefit these neighbors you love (redistribution), and it’s joyful. If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it. Do it cheerfully. I’m not talking about some system. I’m not talking about socialism or capitalism. These are people who want to be social or people who have capital and want to be good stewards and invest their resources in a way that has the best eternal return, for the highest dividend we can receive is discipleship that leads to Christian character development. I’m not talking about selfishness—keep your money, your misery, your fear, your suspicion. The poor don’t need any more of that. Or, if you’re in the community (relocation) and investing your resources in ways that improve life for your neighbors (redistribution), you’re likely to develop significant relationships as you work side by side with people who come from different backgrounds (reconciliation).

Of course, to live out these principles day to day, we need to be intentional. But I really do believe that as we practice each of them, they all become more a part of our fundamental approach to life, and we become better able to love our neighbors as ourselves. Maybe this is exactly what Jesus had in mind when He told us to go into the world, making disciples of every nation.