Prejudice
In 1991 I was attending seminary at Regent University School of Divinity. I was probably not the typical seminary student because I was very determined to remain active in ministry while I was studying, and I quickly got involved with a church planting team in Virginia Beach. We started what is today Coastlands Community Church. It was a wonderful experience and I learned a lot about church planting during that six months. I really liked it. I felt like I was doing something important and significant for the Kingdom of God. I wanted to do it again.
So, I started asking my professors if there was an opportunity for me to actually lead a church planting team, and I told them that I wanted to start this church in an area that really needed a church. Dr. Howard Foltz and Dr. Owen Weston were the men who were mentoring me the most in the area of planting churches. And they both said, “If you want to plant a church where it’s really needed, Norfolk has the most poverty, the most crime, and the most single-parent families in the region.” Norfolk is a big city, so I wondered what section of Norfolk I should plant in. This required some research. That research led me to the East Ocean View section of Norfolk, VA. So in September 1991 I moved into a low income housing project in East Ocean View to start a church.
Super Church
I knew from my research that East Ocean View had big problems and very little church influence there. I knew that residents needed the Gospel, but I did not know what their felt needs were. What was something that I could do that would really help them? So I determined that I would simply ask them. I did surveys. I walked up and down the streets, knocked on doors and asked people, “What do you think is most needed in East Ocean View?” The answers came back: good paying jobs, more police patrols, activities for children. I could do nothing about the first two, but I could do something about activities for children. So I decided to start a church in East Ocean View just for children 4-12 years old. I called it Super Church and it was a big hit. During our first service, 72 kids showed up.
Kids were giving their hearts to Christ. I was doing Back Yard Bible Clubs around the community during the week, and kids were learning the Bible. The 35-year-old grandmothers that held that community together gave me all the support I could ever hope for. We were really making a difference. Not everyone knew my name but just about everyone knew me as “the white boy.”
Riots and Prejudice
Eight months after I moved to East Ocean View and started Super Church, an event on the other side of the country shook my world. On April 29, 1992, what became known as the Rodney King Riots broke out in Los Angeles. Violence first erupted at the intersection of Florence Boulevard and Normandie Avenue in south-central Los Angeles. Traffic was blocked, and rioters beat dozens of motorists, including Reginald Denny, a white truck driver who was dragged out of his truck and nearly beaten to death by three African American men. A news helicopter, hovering over the street, recorded the gruesome event. Los Angeles police were slow to respond, and the violence radiated to areas throughout the city. California Governor Pete Wilson deployed the National Guard at the request of Mayor Tom Bradley, and a curfew was declared. By the morning, hundreds of fires were burning across the city, more than a dozen people had been killed, and hundreds were injured.
Rioting and violence continued during the next 24 hours, and Korean shop owners in African American neighborhoods defended their businesses with rifles. On May 1, President Bush (41) ordered military troops and riot-trained federal officers to Los Angeles and by the end of the next day the city was under control. The three days of disorder killed more than 60 people, injured almost 2,000, led to 7,000 arrests, and caused nearly $1 billion in property damage, including the burnings of more than 3,000 buildings. Sound familiar?
I was a white man living in a black neighborhood. I had absolutely no reason to be anxious or afraid; the people who lived in East Ocean View had shown me nothing but kindness and support. I had walked up and down every street in the community and never been harassed. But now I was anxious for no other reason than I prejudged the black people living in my neighborhood and lumped them in with a group of black people beating white people 2000 miles away. I prejudged everyone in my neighborhood because they were black. For the first time in my life I was nervous around black people and the only reason for my nervousness was my own Prejudging—Prejudice.
Of course, nothing happened to me in East Ocean View all those years ago. My neighbors treated me the same during and after the riots as they had done for the eight months prior to the riots. My anxiety and fear were completely unfounded, illogical, and unreasonable -- just like most every kind of prejudice you can dream up. These kinds of subtle attitudes and not-so-subtle attitudes have caused divisions within the church and hindered the mission of Christ since its beginning and here I was on a mission for Jesus, thinking I was so noble and righteous and enlightened. This episode really uncovered some uncomfortable things in my heart. I recognized that I needed to repent. I did not need to tweak my direction, I needed to make a 180!
Repentance
My repentance was all about racial prejudice, judging people based on the color of their skin. If you had asked me if I had racial prejudice in my heart before the Rodney King Riots, I would have been offended by the question. But sometimes events like that reveal something in our heart that we have covered up or never realized it was there.
Here we are again. It’s almost 30 years later and America is tearing itself apart over racial prejudice again. This is another opportunity to investigate our own heart. Resist the temptation to throw stones and judge others but rather look to Jesus and ask him how your heart can become more like his. Racism is a heart issue. We will not be able to legislate it away. The Christian Church has the answer, the only answer—personal repentance and a heart shaped by Jesus.
A few days after the riots ended the Holy Spirit prompted me to go around the neighborhood and talk to the parents and grandparents of the kids who were attending Super Church. I basically told them what I have told you in this article. I confessed my prejudice as sin and asked them to forgive me -- and every person that I talked to was understanding and quick to forgive. Maybe we should have some conversations today. We’ve lost the art of conversation over the past three decades and replaced it with clicks and comments that help no one. Why not step back from the computer and have an eyeball to eyeball conversation with a human being. It’s amazing what you can learn when you listen. One lady who hosted one of my Backyard Bible Clubs told me, “Darlin’, if anyone had tried to hurt you (during the riots), I would have jerked a knot in them!”
