#5 | Culture, Community, and Confronting Cries of Injustice | Daniel Yang

It's watering time, everybody.

Yes, it is time for Apollos Watered with me, your host, Travis Michael Fleming, where we want to take a fire hose to your faith and saturate you with the things of God so that you might take a fire hose to the world and saturate your world with the good news of who Jesus is. Today we are going to hear from Daniel Yang.

We've been talking, talking about the kingdom of God and examining what God says in his Word about his kingdom.

But today I want to talk to someone who is really at the tip of the spear, who's interacting with church planners, academics, authors, pastors, Christian leaders, and how we can expand the kingdom of God.

The culture around us is changing, especially here in the United States, but the world over, chances are we're interacting with people that were not born in the culture that we were, that may not speak our language or share our faith that they are coming from in a completely different background. And we need to be equipped to be the best disciple makers we can be and learn how to talk to them and discover what God is doing in our world.

Now, Daniel is the director of the SEND Institute at the Billy Graham center at Wheaton College. The SEND Institute is a Christian think tank for church planting in North America and he has an amazing amount of insights. His story is phenomenal.

I hope it encourages us, but it expands our knowledge of the kingdom of God and enables us to see what God is doing in the world so that we might partner with him to help expand his kingdom. I hope and pray that God may enlarge your faith by listening in to this interview that I did with Daniel.

As we talk about what God is doing in the world today, I want.

To welcome the first ever guest to the Apollos Watered podcast.

He is a believer in Jesus Christ, a husband, father to five children, a church planner, thought leader, student, Christian think tank director, musician, and less important but pretty cool 80s and 90s basketball enthusiast. I want to welcome Daniel Yang to the show today. Daniel, it is good to have you with us.

Hey Travis, thanks for having me on, man. Good to be on Apollo's Water. I love the title of it.

Thanks. I appreciate that. We're kind of excited. Want to water people's faith and I know that that's what you've been doing in a lot of ways.

Even just going through your biography. I'm a little bit tired just going through it. You got a lot of hats that you're wearing and keeping busy with five children. How are you guys?

I should have, should have made you name all my kids. That would have made the intro even longer.

Well, how are you guys surviving during.

COVID You know, there's so many cool things that have happened in the midst of it that have, I think, even increased the faith and the connection that our families had.

And then like most other families, you know, we got to deal with the virtual learning and, you know, my wife being a first grade assistant but not getting paid for it, so. Yep. But it's good, man. It's been a good time and praying for all those who are affected by the pandemic. We've lost close loved ones.

We have friends that have lost their parents. So I know that keeping things in perspective, things have been good for this household.

It is crazy just to hear about that and hearing it, how it personally affects you and your family, and then knowing you're still having to wear all these hats and being a husband and father and a leader of a think tank. I mean, your ministry experiences have been pretty wide and varied.

But I'd like to just introduce you to our audience so that they can learn more about who you are. So would you mind just briefly sharing your story?

Where you're from, where you grew up, how you came to know the Lord and some of the ministries you've been doing?

Yeah, yeah, I'll. I'll give kind of like broad strokes, and if whatever you want to press into, we can do that.

But my parents were immigrant refugees from Laos that were Hmong in background. And so if you're unfamiliar with Hmong people, it's an ethnic tribe predominantly in China and Southeast Asia.

So there was a war that was being fought simultaneously in Laos at the same time as Vietnam. Same war, different fronts. And so the one in Vietnam was televised, the one in Laos was not. It was later known as the secret war in Laos. And so my.

My dad was part of the guerrilla units that were recruited by the CIA. And so, long story short, when the Americans pulled out in 75, that left a lot of the Hmong stranded in Laos.

I was conceived in a Thailand refugee, refugee camp, born in the cornfields of Illinois. That's probably too much information for a lot of people.

But although technically I did spend some time in Thailand, I was born here in the US So the first American citizen out of my family, I grew up in Illinois in the East Mulling Quad Cities area, which is about two hours outside of Chicago. But we left Illinois and but we, we moved to Detroit when I was about 8 or 9. And so essentially I grew up in inner city Detroit.

If you've seen the movie Gran Torino, that really is about how I grew up.

It's a movie about Hmong refugee immigrants that grew up in inner city or that are in inner city Detroit, dealing with a lot of the racial dynamics of the urban inner city, but then also being immigrants. As a matter of fact, half of those kids in that movie were kids in my youth group that I'd mentored at church.

So a lot of my aunts in that movie, my brother in law's in that movie. So anyways, you guys can check it out. Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood.

And then I was an engineer for Boy, let's see, I got married, was at the University of Michigan, graduated, was an engineer for about nine years. I was serving in the church as a lay leader, but also at the same time I was beginning to.

I won't get to the story, but the Lord used a series of events to call me into really what I thought was going to be a missionary.

I never felt like the Lord was calling me to become a local church pastor necessarily, but then I didn't really quite feel that overseas missions was where we felt led either.

And so a part of really the journey in my mid-20s was being faithful in my career, being faithful as a local church leader, and then also asking the question, what is my missionary context?

And so really came to the conclusion that the Lord had fashioned our upbringing and our immigrant experience because not only is there a great mission field here in North America, but in some ways in God's sovereignty. I kind of think about myself and others like me as, you know, the homegrown missionaries to North America.

And so that really became a lens through which I began to see my, my own ministry. And probably when I was about 28, 29, my wife and I, we left Detroit. I grew up in a predominantly Hmong congregation, Hmong church.

And we came on staff at a church in Texas, was there for about three years, mentored by God, a guy who I love, respect and is still a dear mentor of mine, Bob Roberts Jr. He took me around the world with him a couple times to meet with Muslims and just to learn about the global church, but also global religions.

I, I'm deeply indebted.

As a matter of fact, I'm right in the middle of doing a, preparing a presentation for Evangelical Mythological Society about inter religious dialogue, but did a lot of that stuff with Bob, he also trained me up as a church planter, sent me out to Toronto. We planted churches in downtown Toronto and was there for five years and had an amazing experience leading a multi ethnic church in Toronto.

And then we came here.

When I say we, my family, we came here to the Chicago area about three years ago to start up the SEN Institute at the Wheaton College Billy Graham center. And then also to start a PhD at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. So I've been doing that for about three years as well.

And then just in the midst of the pandemic, just thought, you know what, I don't think I'm doing enough yet. Let's also plant a church.

So for the last three months, been working with the team of young, young people that we've been working on planting a, a group of missional communities called the Prodigal Network. So I'll stop there. Man, that was a mouthful. But that's my life. 40 years worth of life packed into about five minutes.

Well, you know, it kind of goes with the theme of the show. We often talk about saturating your faith with the things of God. And one of the analogies or metaphors we use is a fire hose.

And so you are keeping right in line with drinking from a fire hose, with giving us all that information. So you mention you were starting up or helping start the SEND Institute at Wheaton College.

Can you just rate for our audience what is the SEND Institute? Because I don't think many people are familiar with it.

Sure. Yup. So the SEND Institute is a, an institute of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center.

And so we're housed out of the Billy Graham center, which Billy Graham commissioned in the 80s to be a global center for research for evangelism around the world. And so the executive director now, who is Dr.

Ed Stetzer, invited me on three years ago to start the SEND Institute as the initiative out of the Billy Graham center that focuses on North American church planting. So what I do at the institute is we convene those who lead church planning organizations and networks.

And so they get together for best practices and then we talk about the future of the church and how to plant better churches that are effectively reaching people who don't yet know Jesus. And so in a nutshell, we gather a lot of people to think about how to plant churches better.

You know, hearing a lot of the news that we do, you hear about different scandals involving, you know, celebrity pastors, or we see churches that are turning into temples. But, you know, it sounds like there is A pretty exciting thing going there because it seems that God is raising up people to.

To reach all of the different ethnic communities that are coming to America. What are some of the good things that you're seeing that are being really birthed in this, in these new church planting networks?

I mean, what are you hearing from these men and women who are coming or speaking to you about what they see going on in the world today and what God is doing?

I think we are in interesting times. I don't know if I'm necessarily an optimist, but I think there's a lot of great things happening. I do tell people that we just to remind them.

Probably a lot of your listeners will be familiar with Rick Warren.

Rick Warren planted Saddleback Church back in the 80s and, you know, thankful for him, actually had a chance to spend a day with him last year and just, man, one of the most amazing leaders that I've ever spent time with. But he planted his church 40 years ago.

Like, it sounds like it's, you know, like we're gonna have flying cars by then. But the reality is we're actually closer to that, which in a sense, is actually a more diverse North America.

Whites will be less than half of the population, which means in my lifetime, they went from being 85%, which was in the early to mid-80s, to less than 50% in my lifetime. And so that's a fast change in demographics. And I'll get you to your answer in just a second.

But the shifts of demographics is probably one of the most interesting, interesting things that's happening in North America. Like, you don't have these kinds of, like, aggressive demographic changes elsewhere.

I mean, you get some diversity, especially in the Middle east, the uae, you know, in. In different parts of the world, where you do get high levels of diversity. But the, the rapid change of North America going from white to.

To less than half population, like, that's happening very rapidly. Part of that is immigration, and part of that is the birth rates of the current generational cohorts. This is.

This all makes a big difference in the future of the church, which, where I am excited is that I, I made mentioned this earlier when I was talking about my, my own life story. But we often think about how, you know, the nations are coming here so that we can reach the nations.

And you know, I'll be quite frank, whenever we say that, whenever I say that I repeat something that I heard a white person say. And so the nations are coming here so that we can reach them.

If you actually study the trends though, the nations are coming here because God wants the nations to reach North Americans. I say that because a vast number of the immigrant population that comes are already Christians, already evangelical.

I belong to a denomination, largest denominated Protestant denomination in North America, the Southern Baptist. More than half of our churches that we plant annually are non white churches. A lot of them we would consider immigrant congregations.

And part of the religious trends that we've seen in North America actually revealed to us that the reason why evangelicalism is not in steep fast decline in the same way that we see mainline Protestantism is because of the immigrant churches that have been planted here in the last 40 years. So I'll say it another way. I mean, it's the immigrant church that's keeping evangelicalism from fast decline in North America.

That to me indicates to me that not only is the nations coming here for North Americans to reach the nations, but the nations are coming here to reach North Americans.

As a matter of fact, the Economist put out an article about a year and a half ago about how Africans are sending missionaries to North America to reach North Americans. And so that to me is a, is a positive. It's like Missions is in Luzon.

If anybody's of your listeners familiar with the Luzon movement, they've been saying this since the 70s. Missions is everyone reaching everyone. You know, it's, it's taken the whole gospel to the whole ends of the earth. And to me that's quite exciting.

And I don't know if all of the church in North America gets that, but that to me is one of the exciting facets about the future of.

The church that's really changing, like you said, how evangelicalism is going about it.

But what do you have to say to those evangelicals that are white, are in those communities that are predominantly white and yet they hear about this trend of going to the multi ethnic church.

And I totally agree with you because when I was out in Boston we saw that the white evangelical churches were on the decline, but the immigrant churches were the ones that were transforming what evangelicalism looked like.

But I find that a lot of white evangelicals either are threatened or they're really forced into this way of looking at the world through the lens of politics rather than through the lens of the gospel. What would you help them to see and digest this?

Because it really is a movement of God and it's not something that they should be threatened by, but I find that many are. And sure. I mean, what do you think that can be done to help. Help them see what really God is doing and how he could. And they can join him in that.

Yeah. You know, I mean, I'll. I'll be honest with you, Travis. I mean, I don't know if I'm, you know, me personally, if I'm the business.

In the business of helping white evangelicals understand these things, but I can speak broadly to what I think are the positive things that we're seeing happen and how. How sometimes they can be misconceived by any part, anyone in the church, not just whites, but anybody in general.

You know, part of it is, you know, you had mentioned the mixture of politics with, with, you know, our Christian mandate. There is a natural dynamic that happens when a majority culture, again, it doesn't have to be white. It could be anything else.

When a majority culture perceives a loss of influence. And I don't necessarily think that's. That's what's happening amongst white evangelicals.

Again, I, I don't feel like I'm in the business of, you know, even understanding or having to. To explain things to white evangelicals when any culture feels a perceived loss of influence.

And we see this with, you know, generational cohorts, boomers and Xers, you know, when you're having to let go, like, you know, the most.

The easiest way to understand this is if you're in a local church congregation, if you got first generation, second generation, and second first generation just won't let go. They won't invite the second generation into their board meetings.

They won't let, you know, they won't let the second generation do, you know, evangelistic outreaches, because it brings in certain kinds of people into the church that they're not familiar with. Everybody's kind of familiar with that dynamic.

And in a, in a sense, I feel like the, the church in America is kind of experiencing that at a macro level. Some of it may be tied to, you know, racial issues, but I think a lot of it is just also just generational challenges.

And what does make things cloudy for people is that, you know, we have. Everything is politicized. And so when we talk about immigrants here in North America, we have.

For many people, there's only one category of immigrants. And it's hard for them to think beyond the nuance of the different kinds of immigrants.

And then I think there was a time where we just thought that there was a flood of Muslims coming to North America and. And that that was going to cause a shift.

And when the reality is that most of the immigrants, and prior to Trump and Barack Obama, most of the immigrants that were coming in were Christians. You know, they were from places in part of the world where they were Christian refugees that were fleeing Republic of Congo.

You know, they were fleeing persecution there.

You know, I think a part of what we all need to do, regardless of your racial background, is to understand the nuances of things like immigration, to understand the nuances of how inner cities were developed, of how neighborhoods unite. You know, I mentioned that we were in Chicago. What was redlining?

What was.

What did that mean here in Chicago? Why was the west side and the south side of Chicago created?

And that's a responsibility that we all should take on in understanding the history of our own context in our own cities.

And I think in some ways when we do that, we have a better lens to view things like ethnic congregations and inner city neighborhoods in thinking through those things.

And this is a subject that's in the media greatly. Discussion on the topic of racism. And.

And I'm hearing churches talking about issues that they're really facing and trying to know how to deal with racism is one that's been there for quite some time, but it's come to the forefront due to many of the events that we've seen transpire over the past several months. And I think many people are coming face to face with situations and opinions and perspectives that they've perhaps not had to deal with before.

And I find that it's been very difficult for many people, and they're looking for an environment and way to dialogue or learn more about that so that they can educate. What are some resources that you would recommend that people just look into?

Perhaps a podcast or book, maybe even a periodical, maybe some YouTube videos that they could look at to help them broaden their understanding of some of the racial issues and their background in the world, especially in the United States, so that we can know how to navigate and discuss these issues more intelligently and from a greater Christian perspective, that we might truly be the body that God desires us to be and his kingdom might continue to be grow.

Yeah, man, that's a big topic. And there's plenty of resources out there. I, I totally get your question. You know, what's, what's the, what's the easy accessible resources?

There are so many things that are happening right now that I think if I were advising somebody who truly, truly had pure intentions and they really wanted to engage and they just, for whatever reason they had, you know, they're an adult and they're in their 40s and for whatever reason, they just had never had to deal with the race issue.

Which I will say, Travis, between you and I, that's, that's a white person like privilege, because most, most people who have gotten to their adult years that aren't white have probably dealt with race issues their whole entire life.

But for those who, you know, again, this is kind of the awakening moment in their American experience and they're having to deal with this for the first time. You know, I think, man. Phil Vischer, yeah, everybody loves the Veggie Tales.

He put out the YouTube video that I thought was really helpful to help understand kind of the history of what we're seeing play out in terms of our TV screens on the CNN headlines.

Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, some of these issues here, the incarceration issues, you know, African Americans being 13% of the population, but they make up 30% of the, of those who are mass incarcerated. There's historic issues behind this.

Phil Vischer, again, he's the Veggie Tales guy, but he put together a fantastic video in 15 minutes that helps us to at least understand some of these issues. That's a, that's, you know, if you just really wanted a quick and easy video, I mean, he does it in a very engaging way.

When it comes to the church, what has been the church's role, specifically the American Evangelical church in the midst of the racialized issues in America? Jamar Tisby has written a pretty decent book called the Color of Compromise.

Admittedly, he's going to come down a little bit harder on the participation in racism that a lot of American evangelicalism did in prior to civil rights era, but also in the midst of the civil rights era. You know, I work at the Billy Graham center, which is an amazing vision that Billy Graham had. But even Dr.

Graham would admit himself that he was slow to support the civil rights cause. He, he actually had segregated crusades early on, and it took him a long time before he actually worked to integrate his crusades.

So Jamar Tisby will unpack some of those things and it's helpful for people. It's. For some, it'll be a tough pill to swallow for Others, I think they're, it's going to be kind of an eye openening thing.

And then thirdly, I mean, depending on the neighborhood that you live in, I'll be honest with you, I mean, you can only be as educated and as immersed in this as the people that are in and out of your homes. And so part of this is just learning to be friends and learning to have authentic relationships with people with different backgrounds.

And again, this is not a white person thing. This is a every person thing. I'm an Asian person. I live in Aurora, my neighborhood, it's predominantly Hispanic.

People that are in and out of my homes are predominantly Hispanic. I might have some Asians every now and then, but my neighborhood is not Asian.

Depending on where you live, I think in some ways if I'm a Jesus follower, I'm going to strive to have my friendships be as diverse as my neighborhood.

Or at least I'm going to try to be literally a good neighbor and know the issues that my neighbor next to me and across from me is dealing with so that I can prayerfully partner with them.

I always tell people that a lot of people love diversity and the idea of diversity, multi ethnicity until their daughter or their son brings somebody home who's of a different background. And that's kind of the test for, for a lot of us.

And I think in some ways the only way to really genuinely prepare for true authentic, multi ethnic ministry is to have a table that's constantly filled with people that are different from you.

How would you recommend? I want to try to break that down because I agree with you. Sitting across people that are different, starting that conversation.

One of the segments that we have on the show or hope to have is called cross culturing. And it's the idea of building relationships with people that look and sound different, but yet going beyond just this tokenism.

I do find some of my white brothers and sisters well meaning, but they say, well, I have black friends. And I'm like, well, just how you quantify that or qualify?

It bothers me as if you're this token person that you now become an expert or you just look at them through that lens and that lens alone. I have friends or I see beyond skin color. And it bothers me because I'm like, you know what? I don't think you should see beyond it.

I understand your intent, but rather than communicating your intent, you're actually making it sound like they're less. Like color doesn't. It's not part of who they are and it is our Colors make up who we are. It helps how we see the world. So what would you say?

Just some concrete ways or maybe some experiences that you found being among American, as you said, raised in the cornfields of Illinois, then into inner city Detroit, Michigan, and then to Texas and back to Toronto, and now in Illinois, in a community that's very Hispanic. What have you found in your personal experience to help build those kind of are different than you.

Something came to mind as you were saying that I want to get it in there is because you mentioned color blindness, the idea that I don't see color. Great book that addresses that is Beyond Racial Gridlock by George Yancey.

He's a Christian sociologist currently at Baylor now, but when he wrote that book, he was at University of North Texas. But that's a great book that addresses colorblindness.

You know, this, you know, Travis, is the part where I was telling you earlier, I think I had to reimagine my immigrant story as God's sovereignty. Like, I. I'm a part of God's missionary force that was sent here to North America as a missionary family. You know, I.

I guess you can kind of say that started with my mom and my dad.

And even though they didn't yet know Christ when they came here, when they did come to know Christ, they very quickly became on mission and raised us as their children to, number one, love God and then, number two, be obedient to his commission. So for me, I think my. My experience is it's hard to project that onto everyone because I'm deeply informed by my experience.

You know, I have had to constantly read rooms, navigate racial dynamics.

Being an Asian American growing up in a predominantly African American community, there's never been a context other than when, you know, I was at home or when I was in my ethnic Hmong church that I ever felt like I was a part of majority culture. So it's hard to project, you know, my. My lessons learned and my intuition onto other people.

But there are some things that, you know, my wife and I do. We would say these are missional rhythms that we build into just everywhere we've lived.

And I mentioned one earlier, and that is, I always make it a priority that we know the immediate neighbors around us. We know their names, we know the names of their children. We bring, you know, bread over there.

You know, we invite them over to parties, you know, barbecues. Like, I just want to know, you know, the six houses that are beside me, across me, behind me, and.

And regardless of who they are, what they look like in their background, that's something very practical.

That's something that in the middle of the pandemic, I was shocked as we were walking pastors through how to do evangelism, that for some congregations, getting to know their neighbor was a missional strategy. Because I'm thinking that's not a missional strategy, that's just being a neighbor.

But I think for, you know, the pace of life, and especially if you live in suburbia, in a bedroom community, a lot of people just don't know the people around them. And so that. That I think in some ways is a basic entry point.

There's a great book called the Art of Neighboring, and that's a book that really can help you think through how do you actually meet the people that live in the community that you're in. And then secondly is, and this is really, again, entry level, easy thing to do.

But be involved civically, be involved in your school, be involved in your municipality, your local church, or your local city government affairs. Most of us can do serve on a school board. You know, in the.

When the schools were starting to open up back in mid August, I called up our vice superintendent in our school district and I just said, hey, Mike, what can we do? You know, what are ways in which we can support parents around us? And that wasn't necessarily me looking to do anything cross culturally.

But naturally, because of the school district we're in, we had to deal with a lot of, you know, households who don't speak English as their primary language. How are they going to get on, you know, zoom? How are they going to do seesaw, those kinds of things.

And so, man, those are two really basic things that I think if most people just put some time in the schedule, they can probably do that pretty easily.

You know, you bring up being engaged civically.

And one of the things that I was reading in Robert Bella's the book Habits of the Heart, which was kind of a book examining commitment in American life. And it was first published in the early 80s and then was revised in the 90s and it's still being printed today.

But it was really examining kind of the thoughts of Americans.

And one of the things that they know notice was there hasn't been a real Protestant mind, meaning that hasn't been one where it's been really civically engaged. Now that seems strange to me, considering we have so many evangelicals talking about politics and getting in one line or another.

But I do find that at the local church level, I find that a lot of churches aren't necessarily civically minded in the white evangelical world. Now I see black evangelical churches are very engaged.

What words of encouragement would you have in just changing that mindset for those who are white? And I don't think it's exclusive to that. I think there are a lot of evangelical churches just across the board that are not engaged civically.

What would you say to them?

Because I know in talking to some of them, the response is you hear about the homosexual agenda, the being co opted with having to deal with issues such as transgenderism and kind of that approach. And I'm hearing of many Christians calling for a greater withdrawal, even like Benedict Option with Rod Dreier.

And he's saying that we're needing to withdraw and yet I know we want to be in the world and not of it. But what are the solutions or words that you might have to those who are really wrestling with this because they want to be in the world, not of it?

They wanted to be engaged, but yet they find that their conscience just is struggling because they feel like participation is an endorsement of things that they believe God has just condemned. How would you respond to that?

Yeah, you know, it probably many would say that they are deeply passionate about pro life issues.

And so I think there are for a lot of churches, evangelical churches, I think they would say that there are certain issues that they're passionate about.

It doesn't mean that they're out there picketing, you know, abortion clinics or, you know, it often doesn't also mean sometimes that they're actually supporting the women that do get abortions. But I think a lot would say that they care about at least one or two particular issues. I.

When it comes down to activism, though, let's talk about that. To me, and I don't know if evangelicals realize this, but like one of the basic core tenets of evangelicalism is activism.

If you think about Benton's quadrilateral, this is kind of nerdy stuff, but he defines evangelicalism as, number one, Biblicism, which means we have a high regard for scripture. Number two, crucicentrism, which means that we believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.

Number three is conversionism, which means that, you know, we believe that people need to be, in a sense, made new, converted to Jesus. And then our fourth. The fourth quadrant of evangelicalism, according to Bebbington, is activism.

The belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in a public forum. And, you know, and that doesn't prescribe anything. But it. What it, what it does mean is that we, by virtue of our.

Our tribe, that we are supposed to be people that are engaged, you know, but it's. What is the kind of engagement that's helpful. And I think that the.

That that can happen in multiple ways, because I don't think all congregations can engage in the same way or should engage in the same way, and not all congregations can engage on the same issues because there's so many issues out there. But we'll bring it back to this because I know that this happened with the Amar Arbery case down in New Brunswick. You know, there were.

There were a lot of things that were happening at the local political level that was preventing this case from truly, truly receiving justice. It wasn't a state thing. It wasn't a federal thing. It was a. I think it was the city clerk. I don't remember what it was. You know, you know, you. When.

You know, when you go vote and there's all these people on the ballot, and you're like, I don't know what a city clerk does. I don't know what the coroner does, but I'm just gonna check some random person.

In Ahmaud Arbery's case, that's where the bottleneck and that's where the. The racism happened. You know, it was at the local political level.

And so those are the things that I think where Christians we need to be, that's where we can actually apply, you know, our gospel, informed faith in civic issues.

I don't think, you know, I don't think Christians need to, you know, necessarily be on the front lines of protests, although I was in many, but I don't think everybody needs to do that. But I think in some ways, when whites have done that, it has shown African Americans a sense of solidarity.

And so I think that that in itself is not so much a political issue. That's actually saying one portion of the body of Christ is mourning, and I want to mourn with those who mourn. That's just a.

A biblical prescription for. For the body of Christ. So I think there are some really super practical ways that that can happen. And I don't think we need to be afraid of activism.

I think sometimes we think that church and politics is a dirty thing. David Platt just wrote a book, did an interview with him recently.

Hopefully it's okay to plug my podcast in here, but Ed Stetson, I did a podcast with David Platt, which hopefully maybe some of your listeners know, because you're focused on global missions, and David Platt's the global missions guy, and he just recently wrote a book called before you, Seven Questions Christians need to Ask. And a part of this was prompted when, you know, President Trump showed up unannounced at his church in, in Virginia.

He was finishing up, I think it was the third service, it was the last service of the, of the day. And he gets a cue from somebody from backstage, says, President Trump is going to be here in 10 minutes and we need to give him some stage time.

And he used that as a moment to really reflect, hey, what is my role as a local church pastor in helping my congregation think about politics? And I think the questions that he asked in that book, he provides a matrix for how to think through voting. That's a very practical thing.

I don't think it's dirty to talk about the two. And in some ways I think it's healthy. It's unhealthy if we aren't talking about it so well.

That's good. That's really good to hear that and to be encouraged by that and to hear on these issues.

Now, one of the things that I was curious about as you were talking in going back to something you said earlier, where you're mentioning about the African American population making 13%, I believe, of the population of the United States. Is that right? Did I. But it's a greater percentage in the prison population.

So it's not 13% in the prison population, but there's an inordinate amount or an imbalance prison population.

But one of the things I'm curious about, because we've talked a lot about black and white issues within our culture in the last few months, and rightly so.

But one of the things that I've had a curiosity about is that I see that our culture is very diverse in that we have a huge amount of Hispanic Americans. As you mentioned, you're in a Hispanic neighborhood.

We're in a community that has a large Spanish population, as well as if you go to the coast, I know if you go up to east coast, you're seeing Indians having a huge population boom, especially in New Jersey and New York and the coast. And then you're going over to California, and it's also just a huge boom if you're going up and down the West Coast.

But yet I don't feel like you're hearing a lot of that in the news and you're hearing it's always more, more on the black and white issue. Why do you think that those communities as a whole have been either glossed over or have they not had the same traction or Maybe same publicity.

Because I look at that and I go, why aren't we hearing from these voices per se? Maybe we are. Maybe I'm missing that. Maybe I need to expand my own horizons there. But do you have any thoughts on that?

Yeah, I mean, tons. And I would throw into that first nations issues, Native Americans.

The simple answer to that is I noticed some people, I noticed some people that the idea that slavery was abolished, you know, two centuries ago, I know that for some of them, they, they truly believe that the progress is complete.

And so the reason why I think the black white struggle is relevant and in some cases is almost the tip of the spear for other communities is there's kind of an order of operations. And this is just me speaking. Please don't quote and say this is, you know, reality. This is just me alone in my thoughts.

But there's kind of an order of operations.

And this is the reason why I throw in First Nations, Native Americans, that there's a compiling effect that if we don't reconcile the initial sins of the land, they don't go away. They just, they don't.

It's family of origin issues, you know, and there's an interesting order of operations even in scripture when it comes to the Gospel. Paul even says that the gospel came first to the Jew and then to the Gentile.

I don't fully understand what he means by that, but I know that he means something by that in that there is a way in which we enter into things and that affects the order in the system of everything.

And so I think there are some things that, as we continue to compile the complexity of North America, which is really what I was trying to get at the beginning of the episode here, we, we find that the things that we still have to tie up the loose ends, if we don't tie up those loose ends, it's still, it's going to have an effect on the way that, you know, subsequent demographics have to deal with. And so, you know, I made mention Gran Torino and that's a perfect example.

Like, you know, I, I don't agree with the meta narrative of Gran Torino, but I think it's a perfect example if your listeners want to go watch the movie of in a Detroit neighborhood of where white Americans used to run the block, but it became predominantly African American.

But now here come the immigrants as well. And there are just things that are perpetuated onto the immigrants as well. And so it's a very social complex narrative.

And I think that you can't address everything all at once. It does have to be nuanced. And so.

But that all is, that is to say I'm also very passionate about, you know, our issues that are happening at the border and these new immigrants. You are correct in that South Asians are actually the greatest number of H1B visas, which means these are professional immigrants coming Christian.

But you know, in the case of South Asians, a lot of them aren't Christian. South Asians are now actually the highest income earners, the wealthiest amongst Americans per capita.

So again, people don't realize that, but that's the shift of demographics. There are implications for the church right now.

The president of the National Association Evangelicals, which is an association that represents 45,000 evangelical churches in America, the president of that is a guy named Walter Kim, he's Korean American. And so we are seeing immigrant leaders become prominent even in the evangelical church. And I think it will have long term effects.

But that doesn't erase the fact that there are long standing issues that we can't ignore.

And you bring that up is I'm seeing this call for an understanding of a day of reckoning. In a way we need to deal with the past, we need to understand it.

But one of the things that I've wrestled with is some of the idea of using modern thoughts on ancient peoples or older peoples now not to try to excuse things, but almost every country had something like that.

I don't know any country that comes pristine and not as a means of justification, but I want to use it as a lens of balance and trying to understand how are we to help contribute in this conversation with some of those issues. Because I know some people are like, well, I wasn't there, I didn't do it.

Because they feel when we talk about these issues, they feel this realm of sudden responsibility and guilt and yet they don't know how to remove it or what it means. And quite honestly, what I've seen in some instances is racism isn't just a one issue, like one people group.

I know it's a majority culture to a minority culture oftentimes. But I've also seen it where people have been on the other sides of it.

I've seen some people in minority cultures and I mean the minority from a population standpoint.

And I'm not just Talking about the United States, I'm talking about worldwide, can also be as guilty in reciprocating racism and perpetuating injustices that have been done to them. So like you said, it's a huge issue, and it's one that can't be just easily done. It takes a lot of conversation, it takes a lot of listening.

And I know that's where you're at. You're at the forefront of that because you're working for the Kingdom of God. You're digesting these issues.

You're working in an environment that enables you to have a voice and hear things that many of us don't get to hear. And just hearing your story and what God has done in you and through you, it's a pretty thorny thing.

But what are some words of encouragement that you could give as we finish up our time here today to all of our listeners? And our listeners are a lot of different ethnic backgrounds. But what do you want to give as a word of encouragement?

Because I know sometimes we hear these issues and we can become downcast and we wonder if there's any hope, but yet we know we have the hope of Jesus Christ and that should help us to have joy. And the joy of the Lord is our strength.

And so what are some words of encouragement that you could give our listeners as we try to understand and sift through these issues and try to find our footing in the midst of this culture as Christ followers?

Yeah, man, I do want to balance that tension of hopefulness with lament. It's right for us to also be intentioned with the lament that we probably should also be feeling. You know, I'll say it this way.

I am a gospel oriented, gospel centric thinker. I like to think of myself in that way. And when I look at Jesus and when I look at what he accomplished on the cross, it was, he did amazing miracles.

He did some amazing healings. He was a fantastic teacher. All of which, if you believed in those things, you could be Muslim. You could.

So because they thought he was an amazing teacher, they thought he was an amazing miracle worker. Some even think he's the Messiah. Some even think he's coming back. You could totally be a Muslim if you believe those things about Jesus.

What makes Jesus unique, at least in the way that we understand him as Christians, is that in the midst of his heroic life, he had a divine nature that he set aside. He had some privileges that he completely put aside so that he can leverage, you know, what we would consider to be his power.

So that others would be made equal to him. It's a conundrum in my head that Paul would say that Christians and those who follow Jesus are considered co heirs with him.

That was only possible because he laid down his own power and privilege to make sinners like you and I co heirs with him. Paul. Paul uses this as the paradigm for his ministry. He writes about it in Philippians chapter two.

He actually says that we should consider others higher or think of others more highly than ourselves.

And then he goes into the Christ hymn about how Jesus, you know, became a servant, a slave, didn't consider his equality with God something to be grasped. This is gospel language for how we actually move forward through these times.

When we are in Christ, we are called to live a life where we empty ourselves on the behalf of other people. And I think that's the only way forward, I think.

But that for some of us, I will say that it means that we have been afforded certain rights and privileges and leverages in society that we have to use for the other.

And then for others who feel like they don't have the same, you also, in some ways, can't think so lowly of yourself that you feel embittered towards those who have power and privilege. I think the Gospel helps us to defend against both mindsets. And that really, I think, is the way forward through all of this.

I don't think we will fix all of society's issues, you know, anytime soon. But I think what our charge is as the church is to provide glimpses, colonies, communities, a shadow of the things to come.

That's why we have always been people of hope. We've always prayed for Jesus to return quickly because we know we're not good enough to model that.

But as we wait for Jesus to come back, our mandate has been to be a colony of the kingdom so that people have enough evidence to keep coming to Jesus. And so that would be my exhortation as we close here.

Well, that is a great exhortation, and I totally agree with you. There needs to be lament. And lament is balanced with hope as we do go that and we do mourn.

I think that's something that we as evangelicals have really lost sight of, is how to lament. And yet it's something that the scripture demonstrates for us time and time again.

And I think that's something that our brothers and sisters that are coming from other countries that are reaching us have to show us how to lament, how to seek for justice, how to also celebrate in the midst of it. How to really mourn and be the community and we can all learn from one another.

I just wanted to thank you so much for coming on the show and offering just pretty, just a naked view of things, of how things are going on and being so forthright and honest and yet communicating the hope of Jesus Christ. And how can people learn more about what you're doing and follow you? You mentioned your podcast.

You want to tell that to our listeners so that they can tune in and perhaps subscribe to your podcast?

Sure. Yep. Absolutely. Well, the work that we do with church planning is the Send S E N D institute.org podcast with Ed Setzer, Setzer Leadership Podcast.

And then some of the work that we're doing locally here in the Chicagoland area is the prodigal.net well, thank you very much, Daniel.

And I want to again encourage you to go over to the SEND and see what he's doing, listen to him and Ed online. I guarantee you're going to be continuing to drink from a fire hose because those guys got a lot of information.

They have their fingers on the pulse of what's going on in the world and what God is doing and encourage them in their work as they continue to seek his kingdom that Christ's name might be proclaimed around the world. So, again, want to thank you, Daniel, and have a great rest of your day.

Thanks, Travis.

I don't know about you, but that was challenging to me to hear so much about what God's doing in the world.

It's a little bit overwhelming to hear all of the things that are flying around all of these very complex issues, and yet God's kingdom is going forth. I was specifically challenged by the knowledge that God is bringing missionaries now here.

And I've often been one that has said exactly what Daniel said, that God has brought the nations to us, that we might reach them. But the reality is, is that they are now reaching the United States with the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.

And for that I marvel and I give all praise to God.

It's encouraging to know that God's plan is going forth and that people are being wonderful, the faith, and that churches are being established and lives are being transformed.

And I loved hearing Daniel's story and how God transformed his life and the life of his family and set them on a trajectory to reach so many different people. I would encourage you to go over to the SEND Institute to check out and learn more about what they're doing as well as the Prodigal Network.

And I hope and pray that you enjoyed this podcast, and if you want to become a subscriber subscriber to this podcast, please do so and also go to our Facebook page or go to our website, ApolloSWater.org Throw us a like send us a question, tell us what you liked and didn't like, or perhaps a guest you'd like to hear more from or more about, or a subject you'd like us to talk about.

And we will do our best to check that out and create something for you to help you so that you can saturate your world with the good news of Jesus Christ. Well, that's it for today's episode, everyone.

Look forward to seeing you next week.

Stay watered, everybody.