Envisioning A Kingdom Gospel: Racial Sin, the Gospel, and the Kingdom of God

We are seeking, by God's Spirit of reconciliation, to respond to the Gospel with love for our neighbors. With lament, we recognize the divisions within our city and the Church. In hope, we testify to the power of God to break down walls of hostility.

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Below is information about a past adult Christian Education class that helped us explore the question of Race and the Gospel as well as links to resources you may be interested in exploring. If you have questions or would like to learn about similar events, contact Adonija.

Special thanks to our guest presenters:
Joel Hamernick, Sunshine Gospel Ministries
Soong-Chan Rah, North Park University
Tite Tienou, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Class Introduction and Summary

 

Session 1 Public Justice: Reflecting on the Ways in Which Sin Affects Systems Around Us

Joel Hamernick lives and ministers in the historic South Side of Chicago area known as Bronzeville and Woodlawn. He is the executive director of Sunshine Gospel Ministries, which provides youth outreach/mentoring, a community tech center and a service-learning/missions program for college students (Bridgebuilders).

Joel provided a video series that covers this topic. https://vimeo.com/iamabridgebuilder

Joel mentioned some helpful books for further reading:

 

Session 2 The Need for Lament Over a Broken Racial History

Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago and the author of Prophetic Lament (A Commentary on the book of Lamentations from IVP Books, 2015); The Next Evangelicalism (IVP Books, 2009); Many Colors (Moody, 2010); and co-author of Return to Justice (Brazos, 2016), and Forgive Us (Zondervan, 2014). Rah is formerly the founding Senior Pastor of the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, a multi-ethnic, urban ministry-focused church committed to living out the values of racial reconciliation and social justice in the urban context.
Soong-Chan, his wife, Sue, who teaches special education, and their two children, Annah and Elijah live in Chicago.

Here is podcast of Dr. Rah on his book Prophetic Lament

Session 3 The Universal Church and cultures at this Ephesians moment: Ephesians 2:11-22

Tite Tienou is the Director of the Paul G. Hiebert Center for World Christianity and Global Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He has taught at the Divinity School since 1997.

Here are resources from this class.