racism and the church

Making Racism Personal

This sermon is based on James 2:8-11 . You can also view each week's sermon/worship service on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5ncsq_QNvCv61bIwKUpP5A Series Overview: Many people believe that the best way to read the Bible is to keep it at arms’ length. After all, any distance between them and having to do what the Bible says has to be a good thing. See, they prefer knowing and being rather than actually doing. We are, as Kierkegaard said, “a bunch of scheming swindlers” preferring to look the part of a Christian instead of literally putting what Jesus says into practice. But there is another way. Here’s the starting point: We need to take what Jesus says and make it personal.

The Silence of Our Friends

“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.” --Martin Luther King, Jr. Years ago, when we were church planting in Canada, we worked with a lot of new immigrants, mainly Chinese, but from other countries, as well. One of these new immigrant families many of you from River’s Edge will know, Chris and Debbie. Most of us can only imagine how difficult it is to immigrate to another new country as an adult. Everything is different. What you know to be true is often no longer true. I can still remember getting a call one day from Chris that someone had broken into their apartment and stolen several things. It was a traumatic experience. As we were talking, I asked if they had called the police. Chris