Our Experience of Redeemer Fellowship, Kansas City: Part 2
Part 1 here.
“Another indicator of a deceptive alliance at work could be when an abusive leader or board attempts to control a crisis by insisting on one-on-one meetings with those they perceive as a threat. What usually happens at these meetings? The leader may try to reiterate shared beliefs and goals. We’re on the same team, remember? These meetings are often a trap designed to control your behavior and trick you into making statements of conformity that can later be used against you.” — Wade Mullen, Something’s Not Right
I said my piece. I was a wreck of pain and sadness. I was shaking with tears streaming down my face.
The response was atrocious.
There was defensiveness, self-justification, anger, and lots of intense words about how I need to “know their hearts”. Two pastors, Kevin and Evan, railed on about the ills of social media, how hard it was to hear the protestors march in the streets blocks away from their homes, and other such comments. Then they handed the mic to the one Black pastor to explain what the church would be doing in the spring in regards to race. Another optional book discussion.
I handed the mic back and walked out as the room swirled around me. The walls came in and out of focus. Was I really just berated in front of all the members while I stood there in tears? How could they be so calloused?
A friend caught me on my way out and shared a word of thanks and encouragement, but I had to get out of that building. I got in my car and called my husband to update him as he was home with out kids. His voice was shaky and he inquired if it was safe for me to be driving. I said I was ok enough, but I had to go.
I drove directly to the nightly protest happening near my home and stood in solidarity with others who didn’t need me to “know their hearts” in order to see how much they cared.
Shortly thereafter I formulated an email to the two pastors who had responded to me at the meeting. I was angry and so hurt, but I still wanted better for them, for our church. An excerpt from that email reads:
I asked the question I asked at the member’s meeting last night out of a place of deep pain. In response, the members received a message of defensiveness and a pushing off of the real issue. You had a golden opportunity to share your hearts for those who are hurting, to mourn with those who mourn, to speak into how the riots and protests are surface unrest that speaks to great turmoil under the surface. You had a chance to show the members of color in the church body that you care about them.
What I saw instead was a kicking around of the issue and then handing the mic off to the one Black man on the stage. Racism isn’t only his issue to speak into, it was every White man on that stage’s issue, and needs to be seen as every member of our congregation’s issue.
But that’s not what we got to see. That’s not the example that was laid before us. The only real call to action that anyone got in that meeting was to delete their Facebook account and to educate themselves without defining what that means or looks like, not providing resources, and no call to repentance for the sins of complacency and ignorance. Kevin, you were more passionate about how awful social media is than how awful it is for those of us who fear for our children’s lives to watch a 12-year-old boy shot dead by police for playing in a park, those in the church who fear for their own lives and safety after watching a Black man strangled to death by a cop in broad daylight, and those of us who are wounded by seeing injustice and violence aimed at the Black community by those in power bother historically and currently.
I would go on to share a few potential ideas I think it would be helpful for the church leadership to consider.
The response from Kevin was saying we were loved and that there’s two things he wished had happened differently.
First, I really wish I hadn’t answered the question you asked. Secondly, I wish you wouldn’t have asked the question you asked… [it was] phrased such that it demanded a defense, and sounded, at least to some degree, like it was based in suspicion and anger, void of relationship.
Your deep passion, and perhaps uncertainty and fear, have the potential to broadcast themselves as anger and condescension…I sensed in your comments what appeared to be a starting place of enmity and hostility, rather than one of charity and love.
Immediately I am diagnosed as the problem.
I shouldn’t have asked the question. I asked the wrong question. My question was based in suspicion and anger, as though those feelings are not justified or warranted. I was acting as though we were void of relationship, but nothing about their response showing a complete and utter lack of care, concern, or empathy. All the characteristics he laid on me were actually a description of how he responded, an abuse tactic that is employed consistently by narcissistic leaders.
It would continue to be affirmed in both word and action, that I was the problem. Not that their silence was a problem. Not that my anger and hurt were justified. But rather me, a woman who dared speak publicly about their failure of leadership, was the issue.
Despite that, I pressed on. While the issue at hand was race and racial justice, the bigger, broader issue it pointed to was poor leadership. Leadership that was willing to throw you under the bus to save face, unwilling to apologize publicly or privately for wrong doing, and a leadership preference that said “ignore my actions, just trust my heart”. This pattern is written on every wall of the building.
Both pastors shared a strong desire to meet in person and we ended up setting up a time to do so. It would get rescheduled 3 times before the secretary who took care of Kevin’s calendar let me know he didn’t think it was necessary to meet anymore. Despite the fact we carpooled with his family to bring kids home from school daily, I worked out at the gym with his wife, and we had known them for years, even spending holidays like Easter at our home with them and the other pastors and their families, that’s the last I would ever hear directly from Kevin.
The only meeting I was offered was with the one Black pastor, Brian, and his best friend at the time, Ricky, who was also a pastor. During that meeting there was a lot of positive interaction and a decent amount of back of forth where we were made to feel as though we were on the same team with our concerns. Sadly there’s only two things that stuck themselves firmly in my memory years later from that day.
First, their willingness to openly disparage another woman who had left the church. While she had been problematic in her open discussion of racial issues with me and many others, there was something about the way they were happy to speak of her that should have been a red flag to me that they were also equally willing to speak cavalierly and derogatorily about me or anyone else who pointed out a problem.
Second, Ricky let me know that it wasn’t racist for him to be afraid of Black men he doesn’t know if he sees them on the street, that it’s just reasonable given statistics. I remember staring at him, and saying no, that’s not how that works. It was pushed aside and made clear to us that the line of conversation was done. And per usual, it would never be spoken of with us again despite him saying it wasn’t racist for him to fear our child, our friends, and our neighbors based solely on the color of their skin. Ricky is now the lead pastor of Redeemer Fellowship in midtown.
At this point, my life was in tatters inside and outside the church space. My narcissistic dad had once again been forced out of the house due to being caught in lies about his decades of deviant sexual behaviors. A child we had been planning to adopt for months was having major health issues and then the mom chose to parent him rather than place him in our home (something we are thankful she was able to do). And the church we had made a home of and served in for 6 years had ostracized me.
The public and private response from leadership at Redeemer to my lament left others fearful of being seen as on “our” side. We ghosted by many, and I even had a member refer to me as a sell-out to my race. The pastors were made aware of all these things, yet it was me they continued to treat as the problem. Week after week I would not even be offered eye contact or a hello from pastors or elders as we came to church.
Over the next couple of years we continued to attend Redeemer. I wasn’t happy there, but I didn’t know what to do or where else to go. We were so embedded, despite all the fractures of relationship we had experienced. I wanted them to live up to what they said they were. I wanted them to stop hurting people. I thought I could stay and continue to press in and make change. But in order for change to happen, there has to be humility and a desire to change that comes from leadership, something not present or allowed at Redeemer.
There were sporadic events and opportunities concerning racial justice, but my discontent continued to grow. I saw the way women were relegated to the back seat. I saw women who were not the silent type be vilified and held back and their husbands seen as not leading well, not controlling their wife properly. I saw many families of color leave, saying they just couldn’t stay in a space where they were “rendered voiceless”, a direct quote from a friend of mine.
I also had my eyes opened to the way you were very much part of the inner circle or you were on the outside looking in. Power and decision making were clung to by a small number of men and those who had direct access to them. This insular community was self-protective, and as the years went on, you either kept up with their prescribed narrative, kept your mouth shut about the problems you saw, or you were out.
This way of running a church, a place of worship, felt so counter to what was best for all involved and completely unnecessary.
