Tag: The Roofless Church

  • Tools for Creating Greater Belonging

    Tools for Creating Greater Belonging

    Belonging is an essential need for every person. And, creating greater belonging is the main ingredient for community thriving and healthy democracy. But what do we do when our ability to foster belonging reaches its limits? Or when we are frustrated with being excluded from the communities that profess to be welcoming?

  • The Burden

    The Burden

    Almost every Black person I know who has grown up in America knows what it’s like to feel the existential burden placed upon us that says, “You represent your entire race.”

  • Conversation  Catalyst or Conversation Coward?

    Conversation Catalyst or Conversation Coward?

    Usually I write poems or long blogs to express my thoughts. This time I drew a picture. The point of the picture—if it’s not obvious—is that I think we are at a critical moment in the world when we can choose to be #ConversationCatalysts and foster a #CollaborativeCulture or we can be #ConversationCowards and devolve…

  • A Call to Restore the Balance

    A Call to Restore the Balance

    A bird flapping with one wing is grounded and spins in a circle going nowhere fast. – The Way

  • The Alpha and the Omega: Why Endings Are as Important as Beginnings

    The Alpha and the Omega: Why Endings Are as Important as Beginnings

    Endings matter because the final moments of a group’s togetherness can substantially influence the entire experience. The ending can modify the experience, make it better or worse, embed it deeply in memory or, absent a strong close, can dilute an experience into something that happened, but mattered little. Tim McNamara – https://sweetunrest.com/ending-well-treating-classes-like-gatherings-part-three/ One of the…

  • Gender and Pay Equality is Not a Threat. And yet…

    Gender and Pay Equality is Not a Threat. And yet…

    Whenever I think about gender and pay equality, I think of my highly intelligent mother who was never treated fairly in any workplace that she ever worked in outside of a family business. And even when she decided to determine her own destiny, by creating her own business, JoSi and Sons, I saw people try…

  • Employment, Engagement, and Empowerment: The Way of Enough

    Employment, Engagement, and Empowerment: The Way of Enough

    When I entered seminary back in 2009, it was because, after working on a very disappointing Diversity Recruiting project with a certain company, I became convinced that a seminary degree would be just what I needed to “evangelize” the good news of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging in organizations. After all, at their best, I…

  • Don’t Lose the Vision  When You’re in the Valley

    Don’t Lose the Vision When You’re in the Valley

    Many times in my life, I’ve come to the top of a mountain, metaphorically speaking, only to realize that my journey is leading me to yet another mountain. For years, I’ve tried to articulate this path in a way that is both descriptive and prescriptive for those who may also find themselves on a precipice…

  • Diversity and Subcultures: Lessons from the Bronies

    Diversity and Subcultures: Lessons from the Bronies

    Recently, when speaking at a TEDx MileHigh Rethink Event, I shared a humbling experience I had with the Brony subculture back in 2013 that helped expand my awareness of cultural formation and how gathering or collectivizing around a certain set of values helps people transcend divides. Although “corporate culture” has made its way into the…

  • Take This Life w/ Lyrics

    This song is essentially a prayer and was written to express a desire to live as fully into the light of the Creator’s Love as I can. The youth at the church I used to serve challenged me to perform it in front of our congregation which has a predominantly white membership after hearing me…