Several years ago, my life was falling apart in every way possible: divorce, losing clients during the recession, and my mother’s battle with cancer. In my mind, I believed that I had no one to turn to. As I faced the prospect of going to therapy, I had to admit to myself that my idea of strength was incomplete.

When I was a child, my uncles only taught me to be strong — a fighter — but nowhere along the way did I learn the value of empathy, compassion, affection, and love, or what this looked like coming from a strong man. Could I be a man who has the ability to be firm but also at the same time be compassionate, loving, caring, empathetic, and understanding? Would it bring into question my manhood or my strength? Deep inside, I wanted to be strong and be a man who is able to embrace all these aspects of myself. But I didn’t know how.

I’d been taught that a man stands on his own two feet and makes his own decisions. My uncles never asked anyone for help when going through life’s challenges, so I learned from their example and accepted their advice.

But saying I could “just fix it myself” was like handling shattered glass. The hidden parts of myself were like broken pieces with sharp edges, and every time I tried to reassemble them, I cut myself. This realization helped me understand that eventually I would hurt others. Yet, as a man, I could not ask for help.

Once I began to examine myself — my real self, not the person I wanted people to think I was, who had that great “carefully filtered, half-truth life posted on Facebook” — I began to question what I had accepted as true about myself because of my past. I could no longer accept those old ideas of manhood as true. Accepting the belief about manhood that I inherited from my family had become harmful to me; they were preventing me from becoming the person I truly wanted to be.

As I became less reluctant about going to therapy, one friend said, “Man, why do you need someone else to tell you what to do?” It suggested that I was either weak or not in control. My knee-jerk reaction was to continue putting forth the image, the persona that I can handle things and am in control.

But on the inside, I was falling apart. After my first session, I started to face the truth that the perception I’d worked so hard to maintain kept me from peace of mind and happiness. Was what I wanted people to think of me worth the price of not having joy and peace? Was that perception worth the price of the inner pain that I endured? Sacrificing true happiness on the altar of public perception was no longer worth the price I was paying.

I finally got tired of performing and worrying about other people’s opinions. Some part of me cared more about having peace than maintaining the perception that I was in control. For years I pretended to be happy, pretended that I enjoyed life, but now I actually wanted to become the person I was pretending to be.

It was with great discomfort and anxiety that I let go of who I wanted people to think I was.

Little did I know that therapy would give me tools to not only love myself, but genuinely love others and feel confident in who I am.

I had tried carrying the weight of all the hell I’d been through and just living as if it were not that heavy, ignoring the burden of my own past and history. I pursued success, thinking that more money, more things, more prestige would eventually fix my life. I lived the idea that all of my problems were behind me now and life would be good if I just did everything for myself. And I did it. I got a college education; I bought the right stuff — homes, cars, tailor-made suits — and had a successful persona. Yet, I knew these things and accomplishments had not delivered on the promise. I was still unhappy. I only pretended to be happy. So I had to ask: What is going to make me happy? Can therapy help me find out?

When I thought about therapy, the stigma it carries in my community, as well as in other cultural contexts — the assumption of weakness and not being able to handle struggle runs the gamut. I had to make a choice. I had to examine what I believed about being a man, I had to re-examine my own ideas of manhood.

Why do I have to just carry the burden and suck it up without admitting that carrying it, sucking it up, and enduring it hurt me? Believing myths about therapy were not helping me, and as I looked squarely at the stigmas against therapy, I understood they were unfounded.

A rule in broader African-American culture and especially Black churches is we don’t tell people our business; we don’t put our mess in the street. “What goes on in this house stays in this house.” Gossip was behind the idea of not telling anyone your business, and given all the gossip that goes on in churches, I understood the roots of this caution. But my fears were put to rest when I was told: “It allows you to get it out in a safe place, where you know it will never be repeated. When you get it out, when you speak it, it takes the weight off.”

What we’ve had to go through as a people has an impact on the consciousness and sub-consciousness of even the most highly functioning African Americans, especially how we feel about ourselves. As a Black male, I am aware every single day that the moment I walk out of my house, it is highly possible that I will have to deal with some form of discrimination or assumption about me because of the color of my skin. That has an impact. I have to constantly fight against that psychologically and mentally.

By going to therapy, I was challenging stigmas in African- American culture that prevent me from being unapologetically and authentically myself, standing up for my truth, and not letting cultural barriers stand in the way of my emotional health. It forced me to examine the aspects of Black culture that needed to be questioned.

Rather than being “Black enough” to withstand oppression, shouldn’t my community and my culture be proud of me for doing what I need to do in order to be healthy, feel happy, have peace, show compassion, and display affection and love? Shouldn’t my community be proud of me for doing what it takes to become the best person I can be and to live that way courageously and boldly?

The church, however, was another matter. In my experience, church people regard emotional or mental health as a spiritual issue. If you are not emotionally healthy, something is wrong with your prayer life, your spirituality, or your faith.

Fortunately, I had never bought into that. My view was that if my emotional or psychological challenges are related to something that happened to me — verbal, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse — it is not a spiritual issue. The person and experience created the source of my pain. There are life experiences that impacted my beliefs about myself, causing me to question my value or feel I am “less than,” and those experiences are not a spiritual issue. The spiritual truth is that I am a creation of the Divine, worthy of love, respect, and dignity. The spiritual truth is that I am good, because the God who created me is good. Dealing with social and emotional issues helps me to disarm them of their impact in order to embrace the truth of God’s word.

I am grateful that I didn’t take the “just pray about it” approach to dealing with real emotional pain and trauma. That is not to discount the power of prayer — I pray and meditate daily — but perhaps it was through my prayer and meditation that God led me to counseling.

If I broke my leg, everyone in church would look at me like I was crazy if I said I was just going to pray about it. If I broke my leg, they would say, “Go to a doctor.” When something is hurting me emotionally that I can’t heal, shouldn’t it be okay to go to therapy? God uses that trained therapist to help me heal, just as he uses the medical doctor to set a broken leg.

Another aspect of the church view of therapy is this idea of being under spiritual attack. In my experience, attacks weren’t spiritual; they were physical, verbal, emotional. Those were emotional attacks, not what some would consider spiritual. Attacks on my self-worth and my dignity weren’t spiritual warfare. They were negative social attacks that contradicted spiritual truths. Traditional old-school approaches to mental health do not serve us well now.

As I began therapy, I was able to align prayer with the support of a professional who began to help me strengthen my emotional state and become more balanced. While God and I still talk regularly, I now have someone in the flesh to talk to, confidentially, who is trained to give me another perspective and tools to build the life I desire to live. Thanks be to God.

Romal Tune is the author of Love Is an Inside Job: Getting Vulnerable with God. 

I can’t help but wonder sometimes if what I have heard preached from pulpits, on television, social media, and blogs, does nothing more than perpetuate classism, racism, and the collapse of communities due to gentrification.

It appears that many faith leaders have been able to build communities and churches by choosing areas of specialization. You have those who focus on spirituality, those who focus on service, those who focus on entertaining theatrical experiences, those who pride themselves of making empty promises of prosperity to the poor, those who focus on purpose as means to personal prosperity, and those who focus on justice issues void of justification through Christ. That said, there are justice minded congregations whose work is rooted in who they believe they are called to be as Christians. In my opinion, these are the more healthy well-rounded environments. But again, as someone whose work focuses on changing the life outcomes of oppressed people, I am biased towards congregations that are spiritual, social and practical.

As a kid I lived in many communities in Northern California, two of which were Hunters Point and the the Mission District. Hunters Point was a poor community and by all definitions considered the ghetto. The Mission District was a predominantly Mexican community, also poor and perhaps could have been considered a ghetto. But growing up, that label was only used for Black communities. I’m not sure if the Mission would have been called a ghetto, but it was definitely lower income. We couldn’t have lived there if it wasn’t.

As an adult I also lived in Shaw/Howard University community of Washington, DC. It was a predominantly Black community with some significantly poor pockets. There was crime, violence, drugs, prostitution, etc.

All of the communities mentioned have now change and are in the final stages of gentrification. All of these communities have churches in them with long standing histories. For most of the churches in these communities they are suffering to maintain membership or grow. Other churches have decided to either close or move to the suburbs because they believe “That’s where the people are going.” Some move to the suburbs because their members with money have moved to the suburbs so they have decided to follow the money; for others they are being forced to the suburbs due to their inability to find relevance with the new people who now live in the community as a result of gentrification. And for still others, they are moving to the suburbs because it allows them more space to build bigger churches.

Has our message and preaching perpetuated and paved the way for gentrification? If churches were equipping people inside and outside the church with life skills and other tools that enable them to get a quality education, start businesses, attend college, make financial contributions as an investment in the lives of other people (not in building maintenance), purchase their homes rather than rent, own their business rather than rent the from people who don’t live in the community, vote to address social ills that impact the community, cultivate leaders from the community who are able to then run for public office and have a vested interested in the future of their community, then isn’t it possible that gentrification would not be taking place?

Here are my questions:

• What have we been preaching that may have led to the demise of our communities? Have we only preached to give people hope but done nothing to change the life outcomes of those who feel hopeless?
• Have we preached heaven while corporations and construction companies buy the earth right from under our feet?
• Have we preached prosperity to the poor without equipping them with the skills to compete for jobs, without teaching them how to save and invest their money, without making sure their children are well educated and able to attend college so that they can compete for high paying jobs?
• Have we preached purpose and personal gain in such a way that now all people care about is themselves and what God is going to do for them?
• Have we decided that the best an all powerful God can do about poverty is allow us to feed the poor, donate our used clothing, or provided other services that sustain life in its present circumstances? Is our God powerful enough to change life’s circumstances?
• Is our idea of intentional community one that allows us to move in and buy our homes so that we can live amongst people who are still poor and renting? And do we even invite people who don’t look like us into our intentional community or are we just intentional about keeping them out because they don’t look like us or are not like us?

Inner city communities across the country are gentrifying. It not primarily the fault of the church, but that does not mean we are not at fault and have not been complicit in the displacement of people who once called these communities homes.

If we are going to save what’s left of our communities and the families that reside in them, it will require messages and ministries that are practical. We need messages and ministries that change the life outcomes of the people we serve. We have to ask the question, what do the people need that will empower them to change their lives and sustain community as we know it?

And we have to trust God to lead us toward answers.

Leroy Barber has dedicated more than 25 years to eradicating poverty, confronting homelessness, restoring local neighborhoods, healing racism, and living what Dr. King called “the beloved community.” Leroy starts projects that shape society; in 1989, burdened by the plight of Philadelphia’s homeless, he and his wife Donna founded Restoration Ministries, to serve homeless families and children living on the streets. In 1997, he joined FCS Urban Ministries, working with Atlanta Youth Project to serve as the founding Executive Director of Atlanta Youth Academies, a private elementary school providing quality Christian education for low-income families in the inner city. Leroy is currently the Global Executive Director of Word Made Flesh, an international organization that works among the most vulnerable of the world’s poor. Rev. Barber is on the boards of The Simple Way, Evangelical Environmental Network and the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA). His new book, Red, Brown, Yellow, Black and White: Who’s More Precious In God’s Sight?, will be published this fall.

The Word Made Flesh vision statement says “we focus our energy to make Jesus known among the poor while reconciling the church with the poor.” Can you unpack that for us and share what that looks like in the lives of the people you serve?

It really looks very different in various places around the world, but the common thread is being a presence of hope in difficult situations without agenda. Many of our communities started by being present with people, for example, sitting in train stations, spending time with children on cold nights as they tried to stay warm, visiting brothels and offering prayer and a place to talk, or teaching children in red light districts. Making Jesus known meaning being present as followers of Jesus.

RT: How do you define evangelism? Is it spiritual, social or both?

It’s quite the loaded term for most people either for good or bad. Many see it as the proclamation of the gospel; some see it as a social endeavor. I like to think of it more holistically. A combination of things physical, emotional, social and spiritual that all point to the goodness and power of Jesus being present with us. I like to think God cares about all these things.

RT: How does the Word Made Flesh vision align with addressing systems of oppression that perpetuate poverty and a permanent underclass?

It’s my conviction that to know God is to care for the poor and represent freedom to the oppressed. We see ourselves called as a vocation to walk with people into freedom. We learn from our friends and neighbors as much as we “address” systems. I am careful not to be the great hope as opposed to being in the struggle. Jesus, King of all, sides with us as we challenge oppressive systems.

RT: I found this description of your forthcoming book: “After more than two decades in urban missions, Leroy Barber discovered a disturbing trend: the virtual absence of people of color in the mission field has created a widening racial disconnect, to the point that Christian ministries can no longer relate to the people they claim to serve.” Can you give us a glimpse into how you address this disturbing trend Red, Brown, Yellow, Black and White: Who’s More Precious In God’s Sight?

I think we have to name it first. The time has come that we address head on the racism that exists. I, like many other leaders of color, feel the sting each day. We suffer in silos and have for a long time. I am not the first but hope to be one of the last to let this silent pain continue. This book is naming the monster and offering some first steps towards freedom.

Is it realistic for to believe that this trend can be changed? More importantly, do you believe that those who control power and access want it to change, or will it require more prophetic voices like yours to speak truth to power?

I think it is well known that power doesn’t give up anything without resistance. We are mounting the resistance–or, I should say, continuing the resistance. Yes we need more people to speak, but unfortunately speaking out has a cost and many have paid that cost. Within our time, I would like the church to end racism within its walls and ministry.

RT: What inspired you to write Red, Brown, Yellow, Black and White: Who’s More Precious In God’s Sight? Was there and experience that led to it, conversation or observation of what’s happening in the church and with fundraising?

The pain of people of color. My own pain. I see great leaders judged because they don’t know many people with money or come from networks of privilege. This is not acceptable.

RT: Who did you have in mind when you were writing this book. In other words, who does the narrative serve?  

I would like it to inspire the many leaders of color who hit glass ceilings in their missions work, I would like it to inspire natives American, Latino, black, and Asian leaders who are called but not supported. I would like it to make known the white advocates who suffer each day. I would like it to be on college campuses and in seminaries to spur creativity in tackling this systematic injustice. Isn’t it funny that many of the missions and ministry organizations standing against injustice perpetuate it within their own organizations?

RT: What’s the most important thing that you hope the reader takes away from the book?

A new or renewed sense of kinship and equality for leaders of color. I think we can be incredible together.

RT: What type(s) of action would you like to see people take after reading the book?

Take time to examine self and create space for the other in your life. Increased relationships and giving to leaders of color.

RT: What’s next for you after the book tour? Any new project you can give us a heads up on?

I live in Oregon now, the least diverse state in the US. We’re working on a few projects to help churches and organizations diversify. The hope is that the answer of “we wish we could find a leader of color” will no longer be an excuse.

RT: What’s the concept of church that you are addressing with postChristian?

I think we’ve fallen victim to the misapprehension that worship, or church, is the point. Those are simply a means to an end though. Too often we’ve become so fixated on preserving our traditions, our buildings, our budgets or even our own personal pride that we’ve ended up worshipping the false god of religion.

People can be Christ-like without necessarily going to church, just as people can go to church every week – or even work in one, for that matter – and hardly resemble Jesus at all. Personally, I care far less about what form the Church takes in the future, how much of what we have now lasts, or how much it grows numerically. What I am passionate about is helping people seek God together, to share their stories, to hold one another accountable, and through intentional community, multiply one another’s joys and share the burden of our sorrows.

Ideally, this is what Church is about at its core. But it’s ended up being about so much more, much of which really keeps us from a Jesus Path. In so much as Church as it exists today can facilitate this humbly and with a heart of service, I support it; as for the rest, I welcome its disintegration.

RT: Who did you have in mind when you were writing postChristian? In other words, who does the postChristian narrative serve? 

Certainly those who are drawn to this person we call Jesus, but who are suspicious of the Church that often lays claim to him. It’s also for those still within institutional Christianity who are desperate for a bigger understanding of what’s going on both within the Church and beyond it; With respect to the changing face of religion in the culture.

Related: How Would Jesus Vote on Hot Topics?

Does religion matter in the West any more? What went wrong? What can be done about it? Do we even need religion in the world today? Anyone compelled by such questions will find plenty to think about and wrestle with in the pages of postChristian.

RT: What inspired you to write postChristian? Was there and experience that led to it, conversation or observation of what’s happening in the church?

When I was 17 years old, I was kicked out of the Baptist church for asking too many questions. My youth minister actually threw a Bible at my head! I vowed that, if I ever had anything to do with religion in the future, it would be in a space where my questions, doubts and struggles weren’t just tolerated; they were welcomed. So this has been the trajectory or my entire writing career, more or less, to engage those interested in wrestling with the hard questions around the importance of theology, religion, social justice and the Gospel in our lives.

Particularly with respect to postChristian, I found myself having more and more discussions with people about whether or not we were in a post-Christian reality in the United States. In short: yes we are. More specifically, we’re in a post-Christendom reality, which means that the Christian voice isn’t necessarily the biggest, loudest voice at the table any more. And in some ways that’s good for Christianity and good for the culture as a whole, as it gives us permission to try so hard to hold on to old power structures, and to reclaim a more humble, service-minded walk in our pursuit of Jesus.

RT: What’s the most important thing that you hope the reader takes away from the book?

More than anything else, I want people to have hope. I want church leaders to find hope in the persistence of God’s Word in the world, whether this or that church or denominations survives. I want those who have been beaten up by Church to find hope that they are not alone, and that just because they don’t seem to fit in a church doesn’t mean they can’t be Christ-like in how they live. And I’d like for those who have called for the removal of organized religion from the public square to find hope in the fact that at least some of us within the larger Christian tribe are seeking new ways to coexist with them without forcing them to be more like us.

RT: What type(s) of action would you like to see people take after reading the postChristian?

Lots of discussion. I hope it stirs imaginations, sparks dialogue, and even leads to some serious personal reflection. No one gets away without a challenge in this book. I’m realistic; this one book isn’t going to change the course of history, but if it contributes to some reconciliation of broken bonds among us, and if it helps us re-imagine Christianity in a way that more closely resembles the life and teachings of Jesus, I’d be more than happy with that.

RT: Do you feel that the work you’ve done in writing postChristian transcends racial boundaries? In other words, is this a book for people, no matter what your ethnicity or social location?

The book takes on some universally human themes. We all struggle with lust, anger, greed, judgment and fear. We also all long to be more loving, courageous and humble, at least I hope we do! postChristian is a sort of roadmap for the future of faith, and it does that in part by looking at the big theological and historical picture. But I try to focus as much as possible on personal story, since human narrative is the thing that binds us together as a larger culture. Story is universal.

The book also calls out exploitive ministries like prosperity gospel, which disproportionately preys on the marginalized and disenfranchised. I also emphasize a theology of liberation as a necessary path forward, one in which oppressor and oppressed must find ways to coexist in peace, together. That is certainly something that people from various oppressed groups can relate to on a deeply personal level.

RT: How can people get involved with the work that you are doing?

Find or help create intentional community, wherever you are. That can be a church family, but it can also be a group that gathers regularly at your home, coffeehouse or pub to discuss things that matter to you. Help model for people how to vulnerably and freely share their story by learning first how to share yours. Invest in people not because you might get them to go to church or to think more like you, but because they might have something to offer that could change you for the better, no matter who they are, and because they’re divinely-inspired creations of God.

Also by Romal: Who’s Looking for Me?

There are plenty of noble causes out there, and I am not an advocate for one or another in particular. I do believe, though, that the real belonging, togetherness and real meaning we speak of when we say “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven…” can be found, right here and right now. But it’s hard work. There’s no magic wand. It takes time, one person, one relationship, one story at a time.

RT: What’s next for you after the book tour? Any new project you can give us a heads up on?

I’ll be touring the country throughout the fall, talking about this book. But I’m always blogging over at Patheos, podcasting for the Homebrewed Christianity CultureCast, and folks can connect with me on Facebook, Twitter or by email by visiting my website.  They can check out a sample of my new novel, Blood Doctrine, there, and keep up with all my travels and writing.

As for a next book, I am working on a project focusing on what Jesus has to say about gender, sex, sexuality and embodied spirituality. More on that as I have more specifics to share, but I think it’s another one of those difficult, important conversations we need to be having.

When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked. A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” “You unbelieving generation, ” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood, ” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.” “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit, ” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” (Mark 9:14-25)

Several years ago while in counseling dealing with my “issues” related to the loss of my mom and the experiences of my childhood, my therapist made a statement that shifted the way I think about my decision-making, my past, and my future. It was one profound statement. “Romal you have been making decisions based on your fractures and not your future. In other words, you are masking your pain by making decisions that make you feel good about you, but are not good for you. You are drawing people and experiences into your life based on unresolved past pain and not your purpose.”

She was right. I started working on myself and paying attention to my thoughts, behaviors and the people I was drawing into my life. Then I started making changes based on the fact that I had to be deliberate about dealing with the pain of my past so that I could fulfill my purpose and “overcome my fractures” so that they do not impact my future.

Related: The Hardest Part of Christian Parenting…Wanting Our Children to Actually Be Like Jesus

This is also important to my responsibilities as a parent, a father (a dad). If a fractured past is not dealt with and healed it will inevitably impact your children and their future. Some of fractures were the result of my broken relationship with my dad. He was not there for me as a child and when we finally did meet and spent several years together it didn’t go very well. As a result, I was angry. Angry because he was not there for me, angry because we did not have the type of relationship I wanted.

I wanted a relationship with my dad like the one shared with us in this passage of Scripture. I wanted a dad who would do whatever it takes to make sure that I was okay; a dad who never gave up on me, who believed in me. I was angry with my dad because when I look at this passage of Scripture, this is the kind of father I wanted but did not have. If you are like me, whether you choose to admit and acknowledge it or not, the anger towards your dad is impacting your life, relationships and yes, your children. But in the words of Benjamin Franklin, “whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.”

In order to break the cycle you have to learn how to forgive and be willing to forgive. What is forgiveness? I’m not sure who said it but “forgiveness is letting go of the life that you thought you wanted.” It means that there was an idea of what life should have been like or could have been like if you had your dad, and because that life didn’t happened you are angry. But you have to realize that life was never based on what was actually possible. It was not based in reality or facts. It doesn’t mean you did not deserve better, it just means that you cannot punish yourself or someone else for not living up to an idea. You have to “let go of the life that you thought you wanted.”

I heard a quote from a teenager once who said, “Unresolved pain becomes anger without a conscience.” Like so many young people, my pain resulted in anger and my anger led to unhealthy behaviors. In as much as I thought I was over the painful experiences of my childhood I was not. I had only become really good at suppressing them. There was a part of me that I did not like. The part of me that was angry and ashamed that I did not have a father. It was a part of me that told me I wasn’t good enough and that I did not matter; a part of me that I did not love or feel was worthy of love because I believed that my dad didn’t love me. But as Pastor Phil Jackson once said, “When you do not love all of who you are, the part you do not love will cause a revolt.” Like many kids today, the part of me that I did not love revolted in anger and like the boy in the Scriptures, I hurt myself and I hurt the people around me. But God desires that we have peace and that we heal. His plan for your life is not for you to live a life based on past pain but on God’s power to help you heal.

As Fathers we have to overcome our fractures so that they don’t impact our children and their futures. In other words, the places that caused your brokenness are the places you need to pray and ask God for a blessing. Recently I came across an interview where Maya Angelou was having a conversation with Dave Chappell. And at one point he says, I don’t know about you, but after all that you have seen and been through I would still be angry. And she said, you should be angry; if you’re not angry you’re either a stone or you’re too sick to be angry. But in your anger, she continued, you must not be bitter. Bitterness is like cancer; it eats upon the host and does not do anything to the object of its displeasure. So use the anger, write, paint, talk it, and never stop talking it.

You have a right to be angry, I had a right to be angry. But you do not deserve to be bitter. You deserve to heal and be made whole. You deserve that and your children deserve that. In fact you should be so angry that you are determined to make sure that another child, your child, does not have to experience the emotional pain you experienced.

When my kids were younger we use to go ice-skating all the time. My son was afraid to skate. One day we got to rink, and I helped him get his skates on and we got out on the ice. The first thing he did was grab the rail. As he stumbled along holding the rail, I said, “Jordan you have to let go of the rail and learn how to stand on your own two feet. You’ll never learn how to skate as long as you’re holding on to that rail.” He said “But daddy, I’m scared. If I let go, I’m going to fall.” And I said, “But Jordan, the rail is not helping you, it’s only holding you back.” Too often we hold on to things that make us feel safe but are not good for us and hold us back. So I said “Jordan, take my hand and let me teach you how to stand and skate.” He said again, “But daddy, I’m going to fall.” I said, “Yes, that might happen, but if you do I’m going to pick you up.” Finally, he let go of the rail and took my hand. He stumbled along while I’m holding him up but soon he got his balance and began to skate. As he started to develop confidence I said, “Jordan I’m going to let go now so that you can skate on your own.” He said, “But daddy if you let go, I’m going to fall.” I said, “Yes you might fall but if you fall what do you think is going to happen?” He said, “You’re going to pick me up.” That’s right. So he let go of my hand and began to skate around the rink. At one point he got too far away from me that I wouldn’t be able to catch him if he fell. And yep, he fell. But when he fell, I looked at him waiting to make eye contact. He turned, looked me in the eyes, and I smiled to let him know that he was okay and I was close by watching. He stood to his feet, regained his balance and started skating again.

Also by Romal: Who’s Looking for Me?

There are times in life when we hold onto things that hold us back, but when we let go and take God’s hand, He teaches us something new that we never would have learned by holding onto what we were used to out of fear of falling. When you take God’s hand, God will teach you to stand, and if you fall He is never far from you and is ready to lift you back up on your feet so that you can keep going. Take God’s hand and allow Him to heal your fractures so that they don’t keep you from experiencing an amazing future.

I remember the night my cousin and I planned our funerals. We were teenagers. I was fourteen and she was sixteen. Sitting up late one night, we fantasized about what it would be like when we died; all the people who would show up, who would cry, who would share memories and talk about how much they loved us. Death did not seem like a bad thing to us. Because for us, dying meant that we would finally be noticed; people would finally see us and treat us like we mattered. All we really wanted was for someone to come looking for us.

Who’s looking for me?  This is the question kids across the globe are asking and they want an answer.

Thoughts of escape haunted me often. The year before the “funeral planning” with my cousin, at the age of thirteen, I was lying in the bed one night crying and praying, “God if this is what my life is going to be like, please kill me.”  I felt alone in the world. My mother was addicted to drugs and absent.  My father was unavailable and absent.  My extended family tried to do the heavy lifting of parenting, but was limited by emotional dysfunction and economic disparity.  No one seemed to care about what I was going through, how I felt, or what would happen to me if things did not change for the better. I felt like I didn’t matter.  People would cut their eyes at me as I walked down the street asking for change so I could get home from school.  They would either ignore me, or worse, look at me like I should be ashamed of myself. What an oxymoron.  Nonetheless, their distain seemed to be even more proof that I didn’t matter.

Related: NY Times Letter Calls for Pope to End Harm to LGBT Youth

At that point in my life, it felt like no one was going to show up for me. No one was going to come looking for me.  As a result, I lived life like I didn’t matter and like no one cared. I made poor decisions and ended up not only treating myself like I didn’t matter, but also treating other people like they didn’t matter.

Like most kids, there was no shortage of churches in the neighborhood.  I would see people dressed in nice clothes, loading their family in the car for church on Sunday morning, looking across the street at me as if I should be ashamed of myself for not going to church. But they never asked me to go.  I would see cars pulling into the church parking lot and people greeting each other as they made their way in to worship, but again, no one ever walked across the road where my friends and I were hanging out to ask if we wanted to join them. It didn’t cross our minds to take the initiative and just cross the street to attend church, primarily because it was clear by the way they looked at us or ignored us that we wouldn’t be welcomed.

My story is no different than that of teens and young adults across the globe today. Male, female, Black, Hispanic, Asian, White; millions of teens and young adults are wrestling with issues that are daunting.  They are in despair and desperate, wondering  “Who’s looking for me?” and often they answer it themselves, “No one.”

As a result they do not attend church because they question whether God is real.  If God is real, does God really care? After all, if God and His people cared about me then surely they would come looking for me. They would want me to know that I am loved, that I matter, and that I have purpose and untapped potential.

When teens and young adults feel like they do not matter the results are many. They don’t attend church because they believe church is not relevant to them or for them.  They internalize the pain of rejection, which then leads to sadness, anger, and low self-worth. Some kids lash out and hurt others through violence.  I saw a tweet quote a young man from East LA and he said, “Unresolved pain leads to anger without a conscious.”  Others hurt themselves through addiction, self-mutilation and worst of all, suicide.

So much of the pain that we see acted out in the lives of young people is a cry for help, a resounding alarm that says “come look for me, notice me, prove to me that I matter to God and that I matter to you!” Are we doing all we can to go out and look for hurting young people?

Before any of us ever knew Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives, He came looking for us, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)  Jesus went looking for people who needed healing spiritually, emotionally, and socially; “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.”  (Matthew 4:23)  The Bible is clear that through the body of Christ, God still goes looking for the hurting, the rejected, the misunderstood and the mistreated.  And the mandate to his followers is to do the same work, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12)

My heart grieves for teens and young adults (no matter where they are or what they look like) who feel hopeless, alone, rejected, and treated like they don’t matter; because I was one of them, I know the pain of that isolation, the sadness that comes with being treated like you are not worthy, the self-doubt that comes from wondering “why doesn’t the church want me? Why am I not good enough for them to come looking for me?”  Some will argue this is “not their ministry” but we have but one ministry, the ministry of reconciliation. Jesus did not give us the power to pick and choose which kids are worthy of being a part of His church. When we choose to pick who is in and who is out, we become a social club with a cross on it.

Also by Romal: Are you Involved in Self-Centered Christianity? if not, you should be!

Believers are called to do what Christ was doing.  Is it beneficial for us to merely fellowship amongst ourselves?  Is it a blessed experience to show up on Sunday for worship, and close the doors behind us leaving hurting young people on the outside as they wonder who will come looking for me?  My prayer is not only for the young people on the outside, but for those of us on the inside that call on the name of Christ as Lord of our lives.  I pray that we will be compelled to go looking for children who need to know that God is looking for them.

Most of all, I pray that we remember that in Christ, it is not hide and seek, but seek and be found.

Why are young people uninterested in attending church, specifically young people with no recent family history of attending church? In many urban centers similar to where I grew up, churches are dealing with one or possibly two generations of un-churched teens and young adults. Their grandparents went to church, their parents went occasionally, and now this generation hardly goes, if at all.

For many kids in urban and suburban communities, the issue is not only one of relevance, it’s issues of honesty and transparency. With this generation, it is all about being who you really claim to be. Young people value honesty; not only in what we say but also in making sure that it aligns with how we treat people.

Young people observe churches and see us (Christians) acting like everyone else. They see the turf wars. They watch religious leaders compete with each other for power and prestige; they observe the competition for members, and they take notice of how we covet our buildings, as our personal turf, and think more highly of our leaders than we should.

Related: Put Your Guns Away…

To a kid on the streets, some churches and clergy bear some serious similarities to gangs. Like gangs, traditionally, churches will not help you unless you are a member. Before you get any assistance the first question is “Are you a member?”; they will not work with the church down the street (they hardly talk to each other), they compete over who’s bigger and who has the better pastor; and members talk about how much they love their church (crew) and their leader more than they are heard stating their emphatic love for Jesus Christ and worshipping God in spirit and in truth. If you can’t see the similarities to gangs then let me make it obvious. Gangs rarely work together, gangs compete over size, gangs are turf oriented, gang members love the street and turf they control, and gangs love their leaders. Gangs of the same name will not only hate each other, but they also seek to kill each other. All churches call on the name of Christ but not all of them work together, namely because they compete for members to join their crew.

Our lack of collaboration, picking who’s worthy of being a member of our church (crew) and who is not, is not drawing young people. In actuality, it is driving them away, causing them to make the street their sanctuary.

Sadly, in as much as some churches act like gangs, gangs do a better job of reaching young people than we do. For some young people, the church is just another crew in the neighborhood trying to get them to join. Gangs appear to win that competition most times, if not every time. When a kid who is hungry has to choose between a gang offering to take them to McDonald’s, versus the church that offers a soup kitchen, the kid is probably going to choose McDonald’s. When a gang member offers to buy a kid a new pair of sneakers and some clothes and the church shuns the kid when he or she shows up in tattered clothing, the kid is probably going to choose the gang. When gang members offer to walk a kid home who’s been bullied and the church is closed until Wednesday night Bible Study, the kid is probably going to choose the gang.

I have seen churches closed and selling their property in neighborhoods where gangs are flourishing. It can be argued that one cause is the churches were not being who they claimed to be and living out “whosever will let them come.” They did not take seriously the words of Jesus to “Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19)

Gangs have no problem going out to be “fishers of kids;” they do it daily. They will take all kids (“whosoever will let them come”). They are not picky. Too often churches will say things like, “If we can save one then our labor will not have been in vain.” Gangs never say anything of the sort. In fact they will give you one out of one hundred if they get to keep the ninety.  But Jesus said “If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hill and go to look for the one that wandered off?” (Matthew 18:12)  We are not called to just save one; the text suggests that we cannot sacrifice anyone.

Also by Romal: You Can be Pro-Choice Politically and Be a Pro-Life Advocate in Your Community

If we are serious about reaching young people and saving lives, the church needs to call a truce. We have to lay down our weapons of judgment, dogma, exclusionary doctrine, and turf wars. After all “the earth is the Lords…” (Psalm 24:1) It’s not our church. We didn’t die for it and we didn’t rise for it. God just wants us to live for it.

If the church seriously wants to advance God’s kingdom on earth and reach the young people who need us most — those who are waiting for us to show up — then we have to join forces. We have to take a cue from gangs and go outside where young people are, talk to them, get to know them, meet a need, show them that we are not just another crew. We must show them that we’re not more interested in them joining “our church” than we are with them giving their life to Jesus Christ.

I almost gave up on my drug-addict mother. But then I discovered that God never gives up.

In memory of Dorothy Molex (my mom), Philip Seymour Hoffman, and the countless others who battle the demons of addiction.

“What are you arguing with them about?” he asked. A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” (Mark 9:16-18)

I never thought the Bible had anything to say about addiction.  It’s not something that I ever heard preached or read in the Bible.  As someone who grew up in a household with an addicted parent, I wanted answers, but church didn’t provide them and the Bible appeared to be silent — until I decided to read this story through the lens of my life and personal experiences.

I’m not so sure the father didn’t believe, but he did have doubts. He brought his son to the disciples because of what he heard Jesus had done for others. He dared to hope, to believe that healing was possible, but faith and hope were mixed with doubt. His son had had this problem for a long time, and nothing the father had tried in the past had helped the boy. Naturally, the father had doubts, but he wouldn’t have taken his son to the disciples if he hadn’t believed there was a chance they could help the boy.

When I read this story of a father trying to find a way to help his son to stop hurting himself, it reminds me of my mother’s addiction. When I’m talking to young people across the country, I hear a lot of stories like mine. It’s a complete role reversal of what we see in this biblical story. A lot of young people have a parent who does things to harm himself or herself. In many homes today, it’s the son or daughter who is looking for someone who can help the parent.

Related: Philip Seymour Hoffman. Beautiful, Flawed, Humanity.

You may have someone close to you who is possessed by a modern-day version of evil spirits. Some may be involved with liquid spirits that bring out their demons; alcoholism is a terrible beast. Other friends and family members are addicted to a wide range of legal and illegal drugs. Drug and alcohol addictions stem from the need to medicate unhealed wounds. Addicted persons, we now know, are hurting themselves by fighting a demon that can only destroy their relationships with family members, their jobs, and themselves.

In much the same way that this father’s son changed from normal to possessed, so a variety of demons can turn our parents or other loved ones into people we don’t recognize. Today, addiction is probably one of the most damaging demons in the lives of families and youth.

My mother was addicted to drugs and alcohol for most of my childhood. Living with an addict was an unstable and unsafe life. My mother’s drug use made her disappear from the family home for weeks at a time. After I moved to live with my father in New Jersey, I would call to speak to her, but my relatives usually did not know where she was. To protect my feelings, they tended to tell me that my mother had left the house just before I called. After a while, I gave up on trying to speak to her.

I was angry with her for being a drug addict, for abandoning me, for behavior that hurt both of us. Still, I loved her. For more than eight years, my mother and I talked only two or three times a year, but that was if she happened to be home when I called or if she called me to ask for money.

In God’s Graffiti, I share the story about a letter that I received from my mother. Initially, I was afraid to open it, but when I finally opened the envelope, I saw that my mother had put lots of work into the letter. It was a long letter, several pages stapled together. Here’s part of it:

Hi Romal, 
 I haven’t talked to you in a long time but I hear that you have been doing well. I didn’t call because I feel like you’re mad at me. I have my own apartment. I’m living in Vallejo not far from mom’s house. I’m not running the streets any more. I got a job working with elderly people in hospice care. I’m studying to become a nurse. I stay with my patients sometimes to keep them company, help around the house, cook lunch and dinner for them. I joined church and I’m getting baptized next week. I haven’t been drinking or anything like that for a while. The church has really been helpful to me and the people are really nice. My friends there are really supportive. We spend a lot of time together and they also have a recovery program that I am in.

If you look at my mother’s letter, you’ll see that the church did not heal my mother. The church was supportive of her and encouraged her journey to wholeness. Church is a place where believers worship together. Many churches also provide supportive ministries for people with specific needs. But church alone cannot heal anyone.

Here is what is important to understand: What truly changed my mother was the love and presence of God. God does not live only in church. God lives in the world and in each one of us. My mother found a reason to love herself again because she knew that God loved her for who she was and for who she was becoming. God loved her in spite of her mistakes because God was more concerned with her future than with her past. God showed my mother what unconditional love looked and felt like by surrounding her with nonjudgmental people who treated her with respect and dignity and helped her learn to love herself. That’s what led my mother to seek treatment in a drug rehabilitation program, to participate in counseling, and to find a job that allowed her to work with hospice patients who needed the kind of loving support that she had the heart and the experience to provide.

Also by Romal: Are you Involved in Self-Centered Christianity? If not, then you should be!

My mother’s journey to recovery and wholeness wasn’t easy. It isn’t easy for anyone to overcome an addiction. But it is amazing what happens when demons leave our spirits. I gained the mother I had always wanted. When my mother died, I was angry for a long time — not with her, but with God. I was angry because, after all of those years of watching her hurt herself with drugs and alcohol, we were finally getting the chance to build a relationship when she was free from addiction. Our relationship was amazing. I would send for her to visit her grandchildren and me; she would buy them gifts and play with them. We were finally a family.

God gave us a blessing. The blessing was restoring our relationship before she died and granting her time to get to know her grandchildren and the opportunity to know that I was okay. Most of all, the blessing was knowing that before she died, my mother had a relationship with God.

My mother broke my heart many times during the years of her addiction and recovery. I finally realized that there was nothing I could do to change her. Eventually, I had no other choice but to ask God to protect and heal my mother, whose addiction took her to dangerous places. It took years for God to answer my prayers, but God was faithful. But I never stopped praying or believing that my mother would be healed or imagining a healthy relationship with my mother once her addiction was over. My point to you is, never give up on the people you love. Believe they can get better. Pray for them, and ask God what role you may have to play to bring the person whom you care about to wholeness. Trust me, it can happen. I’ve seen it for myself.

On Sunday after the Seattle Seahawks beat the 49ers advancing to the Super Bowl, you could not scroll through your Twitter feed or Facebook or any other form of social media and not hear someone talking about Richard Sherman. In typical made-for-TV form, the public started defining a guy they’ve never met and do not know beyond his performance on the football field and interviews after the game.

Although not a new problem, for the past few years black male achievement has been at the forefront of discussion amongst foundations, educators, and political leaders. Black males are at the top of the list when it comes to the dropout rate, suspensions, being pushed out or kicked out. Not often can you find something good being said about a young Black male in the media unless he “plays by the rules” of what is acceptable behavior.

But here comes Richard Sherman, a young man from Compton, a city that thanks to movies, T.V., and a dash of ignorance, gets a really bad rap. Yes, Compton like any other urban community has its issues; issues that can be pointed to as reasons for why Black males are not excelling in the classroom. Richard Sherman graduated second in his class from Dominguez High School, went on to graduate from Stanford University and is now, as he says, the number one cornerback in the NFL. Forget the countless number of student athletes that don’t even graduate, this guy gradated from Stanford. If that’s not Black male achievement then I don’t know what is. Oh, and one other very important factor that flies in the face of most Black male stereotypes: he grew up in a home with both of his parents.

Related: White privilege, and what we’re supposed to do about it

Not only is Richard an example of Black male achievement, he is also an example of defying stereotypes based on where you come from, what you look like, and succeeding no matter what other people think about you. If you asked the average person, “What would a teenage Black male educated in a Compton Public school likely to do in life?”, they wouldn’t give a response that sounds remotely like what Richard Sherman has done; and the only reason their response would be negative is because of racial stereotypes, misconceptions and generalizations related to Black males in urban context.

Richard Sherman and Romal Tune speaking to students through SWAG

Never mind that Richard Sherman has defied all the stereotypes you would typically place on Black kid from Compton, for some he’s still not good enough. Richard gives of his time often to help kids in need. He visits his alma mater Dominguez High School; he visits kids in the hospital, buys students laptops, and so on. Just last year Richard did a tour with our SWAG-Student With A Goal campaign to promote academic excellence in L.A. He talked to students in Compton, Watts, and South Central about the importance of education. His mother, brother and a few other family members joined us on the tour. When we tried to get media for the event, very few showed up. Ironically, several didn’t think what he was doing that day was much of a story. Simply put there wasn’t any drama or something negative to point out. How many of the critics can say that they give of their time and resources the way Richard does? And how many of the athletes some consider “class acts” go back to their neighborhood and or high school (on their own dime) encouraging kids to follow their academic example?

My point here is simply that before people start calling someone a thug, classless, and so on, they should really take a step back, put things in context, assess their personal biases and look at the entirety of the person they are judging. By the way, I’m a 49er fan.

Last week, every morning I turned on the news and there was at least one murder in Detroit. Ironically, I was in the city for about a week to present at the Fall Youth Explosion Revival hosted by Hartford Memorial Church. After the revival, I learned that several of these murders were attributed to drug dealers or gangs, and I was reminded of a lesson I learned many years ago on my own journey of healing from the wounds of poverty and pain. The lesson: hurt people, hurt [other] people. With this in mind coupled with the violence perpetrated by young people in our cities, it’s fair to say that kids are hurting.

When I look at what’s happening in Detroit and in many other cities, I find myself asking, “Is there anything people of faith can do to meet the needs of hurting children?” Furthermore, how can we provide dynamic direction in the face of despair? Ultimately, how can we prevent victims of abuse, violence, and neglect from becoming perpetrators of the same?

The first thing we can do is be honest and transparent about the hurts of our young people. We cannot heal the wounded places in our lives if we choose acknowledge that we have been wounded. Simply saying these kids need to locked up is a lazy thinking and hardly a solution to the problem. What we do for children is a reflection of who we are as the church and what we will become as a nation.

Related: Louis C.K. on Our Neighbor’s Bowl and What “Fair” Is

Knowing that liberation and healing often comes through storytelling (faith comes by hearing the word says) I told a number of biblical stories at the revival about young people who were hurt yet healed and went on to become great leaders. I first told the story about Jephthah who was a young man rejected by his family and community. Not because of anything he did wrong, but simply because of his parents’ mistakes. Like all of us, Jephthah had nothing to do with how he came into the world, but still he was stereotyped and mistreated for being born outside of marriage. As a result of his rejection the Bible says that he fled to the wilderness where “a gang of scoundrels gathered around and followed him.” (Judges 11:3) Like many young people in our communities, Jephthah ran to the streets and found refuge in other young men and women just like him – other young people who were hurting.

On the second night we talked about the boy possessed with a spirit that caused him to hurt himself, and I related that story to how people today often hurt themselves through addiction. However, for many of our children the “boy possessed with a spirit” is really a drug addicted parent and the burden and responsibility of finding healing and restoration is taken on by the child. In this example, the son or daughter of an addicted parent is hurt by resentment, worry, doubt, and verbal abuse.

We also addressed the fact that at the core of many hurting children is their belief that they do not matter. Unfortunately, these kids are told they don’t matter in a number of ways. In their homes they hear “you don’t matter” when parents are too busy to spend time with them in order to nurture their dreams and aspirations. Children are made to believe they don’t matter when they are yelled at and told that they are only good at doing wrong. Community and political leaders tell our kids that they don’t matter when neighborhood schools are closed and government programs that keep them from going hungry are cut. Even schools tell our kids they don’t matter with zero tolerance policies that push them out of school yards into prison yards in record numbers. The bottom line is that much of the crime and destructive behavior we are seeing from young people is in response to being treated like they don’t matter.

This is why the biblical stories of young people who were hurting, who we would consider to be “at risk”, are so important for us now. In these stories, the church can find encouragement and the audacity to begin turning a wounded child into a winning child. For example, we can start the healing process by doing the same thing the community did for Jephthah in Judges Chapter 11. The community was in trouble and needed someone who could fight for them and protect their families. They made up their minds to go into the wilderness and get Jephthah. They confronted the pain they caused him and asked for forgiveness. They recognized the leadership potential in him and made him a leader.

If we are going to save the lives of children that have been pushed into the wilderness we have to go into the wilderness and get them. We have to find the humility and courage it takes to admit how we hurt them, ask for forgiveness, and then empower them to lead. Once we do this, once we begin to value their talents and make an effort to reconcile, we begin to demonstrate that they matter to us. In fact, their pain matters, their story matters, and their purpose matters.

Also by Romal: Is “Preachers of LA” Representing Preachers the Right Way?

Because our young people matter, each night of revival we closed with an altar call petitioning them with a simple request: If you have been hurt and want to find healing please come forward for prayer. But the petition didn’t stop there, I continued with:

If you have been angry and feel like you are alone …
If you are afraid of what the future holds and don’t know what might happen to you …
If you are sad and tired of trying to find a way out by yourself …
If you have a family member you love but he or she continues inflicting the hurt of addiction …
If you are willing to give God a chance and trust God with your future …
If you know in you heart of hearts that you matter to God …
… please, come forward for prayer

After the call was made young people pressed their way to the altar with tears in their eyes willing to give God a chance. However, it was not only youth who came, but also adults – men and women who never healed the hurting child inside their hearts.

In that moment we realized that we all matter and that the journey of healing that will move us from wounded to winning began! What I witnessed for two nights of Youth Revival was evidence that God is working to defeat despair in Detroit and turn wounded children into winning children. In so many cities across the country, children are hurting and lashing out because of their pain and anger, and God is calling us to be real about our hurts and to heal as a community. The time for treating young people like they matter through our words, interaction, grassroots organizing, local and national advocacy, mentoring, and more is now.