Living Reconciled
Living Reconciled
EP 57: Pastor Brian Ivey and the Long Journey of Racial Healing
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What happens when a shy pastor's kid overcomes his reluctance and becomes a significant change agent within the local church church? Tune in to this compelling episode of Living Reconciled as we welcome Pastor Brian Ivey, recently retired from Highland Baptist Church in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Pastor Ivey reveals his inspiring journey of personal faith, navigating the complexities of a pastoral career, and his pivotal role in reconciliation efforts. We also delve into the complex journey of racial reconciliation, as Pastor Ivey recounts his experiences from high school racial tensions to integrating the first African-American family into Highland Baptist Church. Through personal anecdotes and reflections, he highlights the importance of building genuine relationships and fostering unity within the church. The conversation underscores the ongoing need for intentionality, endurance, and empathy in creating a more unified community. Join us as we reflect on the progress made and the work that still lies ahead.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Brown Missionary Baptist Church, Christian Life Church, Ms. Doris Powell, Mr. Robert Ward, and Ms. Ann Winters
This is Living Reconciled, a podcast dedicated to giving our communities practical evidence of the gospel message by helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured for us by living with grace across racial lines. Joining us on episode 57 of Living Reconciled. I'm your host, brian Crawford, and I am with good friends today. One such good friend is my co-host, nettie Winters. Sir, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Man, I am blessed beyond measure, I'm excited and I'm really excited about our guest today. Man, I got all my jabs you know lined up and I'm really going to enjoy this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I'm sure you will. I'm sure you will. Before we introduce our guest, I do want to give a quick shout-out and thanks to our sponsors, folks like Nissan, st Dominic's Hospital, atmos Energy, regis Foundation, brown Missionary Baptist Church, christian Life Church, ms Doris Powell, mr Robert Ward, ms Ann Winters. Thank you so much for everything that you do for Living Reconciled in Mission Mississippi. It's because of what you do that we're able to do what we do, and we would love, if you have a desire, to invest in the work of reconciliation. We would love your support. Please go out to missionmississippiorg, click on the donate button at the top of the page and you too can support the work of reconciliation and support great activities like this podcast.
Speaker 1:This podcast today is with a very good friend, and I don't say that lightly. He's a dear friend to both Nettie and myself Pastor Brian Ivey. And Pastor Brian Ivey recently retired from Highland Baptist Church in Vicksburg, mississippi, where he served a long and faithful tenure, and we will have him chat a little bit with you about that. But Pastor Brian Ivey is now a resident of Gluckstadt, mississippi, with his beautiful bride. Pastor Ivey, how are you doing, sir.
Speaker 3:I'm doing great Brian. It's good to see both you and Nettie today. Man, glad to be with y'all.
Speaker 1:So, Pastor, tell us a little bit about your family, Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you came to faith in Christ and also how you ended up at Highland Baptist Church.
Speaker 3:Okay, sure. Well, I'm married to my wife Carla, and we've been married. This August It'll be 43 years and we have two grown sons. Joseph lives here in the Madison area close to us, and my son Dan, and he has a family as well. So all together we have six grandkids.
Speaker 3:And I came to know the Lord in a Christian home. My parents were Christians and actually my dad was a pastor for a long time, and so I knew about Christ from the very earliest memories I have. But I think my parents were saved when I was about three, so I don't remember anything about life, you know, before three. So basically brought up in the church and most of those years as a pastor's kid. But when I was 12, I made my decision. I knew I needed Jesus as my Savior several years before that, but I was always a shy person and just had trouble making a public profession of faith. But when I was 12, I really gave my life to the Lord and surrendered to Him, and then he began to lead me and guide me and I was just a churchgoer.
Speaker 3:You know the rest of my growing up years, but when I was a senior in high school I began to sense God calling me into the ministry. It was the last thing I wanted God to do to me. You know, because I grew up, you know on the inside of looking at that kind of life and, uh right, no, a lot of frustration, a lot of difficulty. And and on the inside of a pastor's home, you know, with watching what your father has to deal with, you know with people in churches and moving around a lot, and you know so, uh, but anyway I, I finally. It took me three years, but when I was a sophomore in college, I surrendered to the ministry and said, yes, lord, I'll do it. I said I can't do it because I don't know why you would pick somebody who's shy and doesn't like to speak in front of people. And I was terrified. I really was, but I knew that's the only thing God wanted for my life and I just realized I need to give my life to him and let him work through me the best he wanted to. You know, and it's been a really wonderful journey ever since that moment.
Speaker 3:My first church was in 1979, and then Highland was my fourth church and so I moved there from Hattiesburg. I pastored at First Baptist Glendale in Hattiesburg and so when I came to Highland, I ended up being the pastor at 37 years of age and stayed till I was almost 67. So 30 years past, years past, actually 29 but if I'd have stayed till my birthday, uh, this august and, you know, next month, it would have been 30 years. But uh, so it was. Uh, it was a, it was a great ministry, it was a great, great time, uh, and it was there that I really, you know, got involved with, uh, racial reconciliation on a much larger scale than I had at any other church.
Speaker 1:What changed from the time that you started or what most changed to you in pastoral ministry from the time that you started to the time that you retired? What were some of the biggest changes and shifts in leading a church?
Speaker 2:In that process did you overcome your. What did you say? You was terrorized.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know that I overcome it. I'm still not comfortable. You know, nettie's probably been after me for three or four years to appear on camera and be interviewed or radioed or something, and it's not my thing. And it's not my thing now, but because I just always I'm more of a, by the way.
Speaker 2:what did Brian offer you to get you all here?
Speaker 3:Well, he told me you would take me on a nice restaurant. You'd take me to the nicest restaurant around the Jackson area and buy me the most expensive meal on the menu. Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:He told me he would be glad to do that.
Speaker 3:He'd take me up on that any day. Well, I know he's a man of his word too, because it's public now.
Speaker 2:I'll even let you come with me, brian Ivey, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, no, it's, yeah, he, I really. You know people find this hard to believe because, especially when I've told the story in church. But in high school I would take zeros when it was time to do oral book reports. You know it was popular in my day. You know you read a book and you stand up in front of the class and tell about it. I would take a zero every time, which meant my grade point average in high school was not. It did not reflect how smart I really am. You know, wow, wow, but I just couldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. And because you know, taking a zero each semester of English, you know doesn't do good for your overall grade. You know it does, it does.
Speaker 3:You know God just gave me the strength to be able to overcome that. I'm still uncomfortable with it. I still get nervous, you know, speaking in a crowd, but I think for me it was kind of like Paul's thorn in the flesh. It was just like a reminder. God said this will let you know you need me. You can't do this without me. This is not you. You don't want to do it, but I'm going to show you I can do it through you. And so he has and he's blessed, you know, to give me a wonderful 45 years of pastoral ministry, you know.
Speaker 1:Speaking of that 45, what you know, jump back, if we could real quick, because I would love to get your insight and your feedback. Through those 45 years, where have you seen the biggest shifts and biggest change in the world of pastoral ministry? Biggest shifts and biggest change in the world of pastoral ministry?
Speaker 3:I think, the biggest change for me. Of course, there's been a lot of technology changes, a lot of, you know. I never thought when I started preaching that I'd ever have to worry about how to do a PowerPoint presentation or prepare for a podcast or do live streaming, you know, or any you know. So all of that, of course, has been a learning stage, you know, or any you know. So all of that, of course, has been a learning stage. You know, all along the way, but probably for the first number of years I was in the pastorate, very little changed, you know, because most everybody had the same expectation of a pastor, and I guess what changed more than anything was my desire to learn how to lead a church, to be relevant and to grow and reach people. And unfortunately, a lot of that involved not being the pastor that most churches expect, which is more of a chaplain hey, visit us when we're sick, do our funerals when we die, marry our kids when they, you know, get old. And, in addition to all that, let's grow the church and reach a lot of people, you know. And so trying to fight that battle of how to transition myself from being what everybody needed me to be to being a more of a change agent to see what what in the church needs to change. Not that everything needed to change, but we had so many traditions.
Speaker 3:You know that, especially in Baptist life, you could go to another church and you know it'd be most everybody had the same tradition. You know they do the Lord's supper once a month. You know, second second, most everybody had the same tradition. You know they do the Lord's Supper once a month. You know, second Sunday of the month of the quarter. You know there were a lot of those things that were similar and most of the people were the same and most of the problems I encountered were the same. They just had different names. You know, and you always had your problem people, your needy people, the ones, as they say, the squeaky wheel gets the most grease. You know that would 10, 10% of the people would want to occupy 90% of your time and your energy, you know, and uh, so those were some of the struggles, but I really uh, you say those struggles remain the same throughout.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, yeah from beginning to end. Yeah, exactly, but I think the change in how you build bridges to people changed Used to. For years we had weekly visitation nights. We'd get a group of people go visit on Monday night or Tuesday night, knock on doors, try to share their fate, you know, and increasingly that got harder to do for a couple of reasons. First of all, culture. You know the Olympics is coming up and I'll never forget knocking on somebody's door in the 1990s on a Monday night and they screamed from the back of the house in the TV room and said go away, we're watching the Olympics. And so I had hollered. They said who is it? I said I'm Pastor Brian Ivey, holla Baptist Church. Well, go away, we're watching the Olympics. And so a lot of people you know didn't want.
Speaker 2:That's an excellent invitation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, well, go away that's so that people began to not want people to visit, you know, church, you know, and, and the time, and even our own people who became so centered on many other things in the community activities with kids, all the involvement with the recreation activities and you got families, you know, increasingly devoting more of their time at the ballpark than to the work of the Lord and the church.
Speaker 3:And that's probably the hardest thing I've found, you know, is trying to figure out what do we do with that. You know, what do you do with that? Everybody wants a growing children's ministry, but it takes a lot of people to make that happen. Everybody wants a dynamic, growing youth group, but it takes a lot of support beyond the staff, you know, to make that happen. Everybody wants a dynamic, growing youth group, but it takes a lot of support beyond the staff, you know, to make that happen. And it got to where a lot of people I'd love to do that, I just don't have time. I got this to do and that to do and you know you got work.
Speaker 2:I want to interrupt you just for a moment. You talked about knocking on doors, yes, and how they change because of the culture and, you know, technology and so forth. What do you believe? You know, I remember when we went. I just can't think about the hours and money and labor and time we spent with. What was that? Evangelism explosion, yeah right, and the dead hat when we stopped knocking on doors and doing those kinds of things. And and now it's facebook's and you know, tweet and twits and all of those things. How did that affect people? You know they're falling off of, uh, you know, some of the mainline churches and denominations they had. It's falling off. You think that had something to do with it? You wouldn't stop doing a lot of things in person.
Speaker 3:Uh, in terms of that, that I'm not sure it had much effect on the end result. Uh, because I I think we did a lot of that out of expectations we had of ourselves. This will make us look like good christians if we go to visitation night or we go, we're a part of evangelism explosion, you know, because we I tried all of those programs as a pastor and and they we didn't have significant numbers of people coming to Christ, you know. So when we began to transition, that was part of my my dilemma was to figure out or to want to do something that was fruitful, not just because we've always done it, and so we went more toward outreach events and tried to teach our people. Let's build connections.
Speaker 3:We're going to have a fish fry. You invite your friends who you work with that. Don't go to church, tell them to come. Or we're going to have a fall festival. Or you know, on Halloween night, hey, you get this. Tell the community, all your neighbors come to the. We're having a fun night for kids, you know. And then you know, try to train our people. You build connections with people who come through, you know, get to befriend them. You know, and show some interest. And actually we would have when we started doing that and we had a few diehard visiting. People said you've killed outreach in our church. You're not having Monday night visitation anymore.
Speaker 2:You just took it out and shot it. Man, You're killing it.
Speaker 3:Right, I said. But look, I said we're having more visitors now that we're not knocking on doors, you know than we've ever had, because we're really trying to get to know them where they are, you know right, and to go to them and force them. Hey, sit and talk with me 30 minutes. Let me tell you why you should come to our church. And uh, so it, that was, uh, that was a hard sale, because you had, you had the culture changing around me. You know that, like we got to do different to reach the people. Now, you know, but then you had to battle the church folks who were still steeped in tradition, like, well, we've always done this and you're doing away with some good things we've done.
Speaker 2:You know, brian. I just want to interrupt there and say you know, it's always interesting to me, those diehard folks that says what you're doing. You know. I said to them you know, this is not going to prevent you to continue to do that which you think works.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Go right in and continue to knock on the door, man but they did Right, that's right, yeah, and you know things like.
Speaker 3:You know. When I decided in the year 2000, it was time we could spend our time better on Sunday evenings than just having another worship service, you know. So we quit having Sunday night church Now I'm not knocking anybody who still does that, there are settings, that that's still a good thing, you know. But for us I was preaching to the same people who had been Christians for 40 years and nobody was going to come to know Christ because we had Sunday night worship, you know. And so we went more to groups and try to involve young families and provide activities for their kids, so the parents, you know, could be in a small group, you know. And so that was a, you know, that was a change I never, I just expected, you know, when I was in seminary, one of my seminary professors said you know, guys, you want to know how to be a great pastor, you just love the people, you love your people and God will bless your church. Well, and I admired that seminary professor and I think there was a time he was coming from. That was true, Right, right, but it didn't work for me. I loved them all, but they didn't think I did because I didn't visit them. You know, you've been a pastor three years and you haven't been in my home yet.
Speaker 3:And I used to joke because my wife's grandmother, she used to make fun of her church members. She was a church planter before it was even a term in Panama City, florida and she was always pushing her church. We need to start a church over here, we need to start a mission church over here in this part of the county, and she went out several times and became a church planning team even before home. You know that was. That was before the whole mission board even knew that term, you know, let alone North American Mission Board. But but she said she said these people that say the pastor won't come tell will come visit me.
Speaker 3:She said I just tell him, honey, I invite him over for lunch and he always comes, you know. So she said invite him. But you know she said when I want to talk to him, I invite him over for lunch and he always comes. You know which is. But people, you know, wanted you to. But that's what that seminary professor was saying how you take because he actually got specific, get your membership role, go visit in every home. The first year you're at that church and man, they'll love you and follow you anywhere but and I think in the day that's probably true you know but but they, they wouldn't yell for you to go away, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, they had different year, different eras, different times. Yeah, those were. It was more respect, you know, for church and pastors, you know, in the community. I mean that you know in the community. I mean that was in a day when you know a coach wouldn't dare have a practice or a game on a weeknight or a sunday afternoon, right, stuff like that. So it was a different day. So, just seeing the changes in culture, you ask, the biggest change, you know, is seeing the changes in culture, but also seeing how hard it it was for Christian people to adapt to those changes, to be relevant and fulfill our mission, because the mission's been the same, you know, in commission, and so that's the goal and trying to adapt to the changes both outside the church and inside the church.
Speaker 2:To see, you think we've made that transition? Have we made a transition based on how the culture has changed.
Speaker 3:I think some churches have, but I think it's a very small percentage of the churches. I think, you know, used to, there was a statistic used to be quoted and this was even in as late as the late 80s and early 90s. You know, used to, there was a statistic used to be quoted and this was even in as late as the late 80s and early 90s. You know that 80% of our Southern Baptist churches which is the only denomination I'm, you know, was really plugged into with statistics and stuff. 80% were plateaued and dying and only 20% were growing. And then in just a few years beyond that, then it was 85% are plateaued or dying, only 15%, and the numbers kept going up. But you did have a few bright spots along the way of churches did some very different kinds of things not changing the mission but adapting themselves to the culture, so the mission becomes more fruitful, I think. I think there are some churches that have gotten it right and I hope the churches I pastored were a little better at it when I left than when I, when I went there, you know. But that was a hard learning curve for me too. Um, because I had, you know, I went to a lot of conferences and leadership things to try to learn, you know, what, what people were doing that seemed to work. You know a lot of, a lot of. I did a lot of studying and reading books on how do you lead change, how do you become a change agent without getting fired, you know, and that kind of thing. But so that was to me. It was always a struggle to see how can we be better at reaching people for Christ. You know, because there were no easy answers to that. It wasn't like. I think for a long time time at Southern Baptist we had this formula and I got in on the end of the Sunday school craze. You know, you grew through the Sunday school. You multiply and divide classes and you reach new people and you know you could continue to enlarge your structure and you keep your of prospects and you assign that to everybody in the age groups. You reach these they don't go to church anywhere. You reach out to these they don't go to church. And that was a great model for the time and I was a big proponent of it. I was a big Sunday school pastor. Probably three of the churches I pastored out of four. We grew through the Sunday school and adopting that model. But then culture changed where people wanted their classes to be more support groups instead of outreach groups. And there's a place even in small group ministries, you know, to have support groups. But you got to have some way for new people to be assimilated and invited to come to some of those connection times and I think even some of the small group ministry. We tried it, you know, at Highland. You know it was like we started off pretty good but then after a while the groups were content with who was in their group and we forgot the people that we have a reach or the people that may visit on a Sunday, and our first thought was not okay, how can we connect them to one of our groups?
Speaker 3:I think the hardest struggle for me was keeping people focused. Here's why we're here, we exist. First time I heard this. It's been quoted by many leaders through the years. The first time I heard it was from Harry Pylan, who was the director of what was then called the Sunday School Board in Nashville. He said that the main mission of our church is to exist for people who are not yet a part of it. You know, that's why we're here is for people who are not a part of us yet. Wow, you know, wow. And so that always stuck in my mind. But it was hard to watch culture change and then watch people change within our church, and and the models we were still trying to use were, were ineffective, but yet we didn't want to change them. And uh, it was. Uh, you know, I didn't expect that. Uh, you know, I didn't expect that.
Speaker 1:And you didn't expect that and you throw, pastor, one of the things as I think about change and the conversation we're having about change through the decades and shifts through the decades. But on a positive side, one of the things that I think we saw a major shift through the decades that you were pretty instrumental in, a really integral part of, was the shift racially in terms of reconciliation, the emphasis on racial healing. Talk to us a little bit about your time on the front end versus your time on the back end of reconciliation work in the deep south Mississippi.
Speaker 3:Well, part of my first church was an Indian church in South Alabama. It was North Mobile County. Actually, for years the Home Mission Board had appointed a home missionary to work with what they called the Mowah Indians. Mowah meant Mobile County, washington County. There was a segment of people. They were called Cajuns in the local area but they were actually Indians that had mixed in, some with white, some with black, so there were some interracial.
Speaker 3:But that was my first church and there were probably more darker people in my congregation. It was only 15 people when I went there but there were more darker-skinned people than light-skinned people. In that that was a great experience. In many ways that was. The greatest time of my ministry was the six years I spent there, because we grew from about 15 to about 60 in six years, which percentage-wise, it looks good on paper but it's still only 60. But it was a good place for me to learn and so we actually joined. I led them to join the Mobile Baptist Association and I had some pastor friends of mine from. This was a college pastorate, but I had some other friends you know in the ministry said do you know what you're doing? You're going to lead that church to join the association and you know some of our churches may not like that, you know, because there's some darker skin people in that community, you know, and these were kind of outplayed from everybody else and I hadn't even thought of that, I thought, never even crossed my mind. But I remember, and one of the darkest skin guys, who was one of my lay leaders, accompanied me and a little old white haired retired school teacher. They were the two leaders of a church. They accompanied me to that associational meeting and all of the uh messengers. And these were back when messenger, when associational meetings were a big deal, you know and you would, and in the mobile baptist association a lot of churches, you know too. And when the recommendation was made after we'd gone through the credentials committee and did all the application process, they overwhelmingly adopted us into the association and I'll never forget watching it. The whole crowd stood up and gave that vote a standing ovation and me standing there with a little old white-skinned lady with gray hair, never been married, a schoolteacher but yet had some Indian blood in her ancestry, and then a really dark-skinned guy who was a recipient of an in-black mixture race. So that was a good start. You know that. I mean I, I didn't have any racial problems there and and cause the community was kind of isolated to itself. So but they loved me and respected me and man, I, I had, I endured that. So then I remember my next church I pastored.
Speaker 3:I got a call from a deacon one time one day and he said hey, pastor, brother, I need to ask you a question. I said I need you to show me in the Bible. He had three teenage daughters. He said I need you to help me find in the Bible where it says that my daughters don't need to date any black guys. So I kind of went silent for a minute, you know, because I'd never been asked that before, never expected to be asked that, right, right, and I said I took the easy way out at first. I said well, let me get back to you on that. Let me do a little studying, get my scriptures in mind, let me get back to you. So I called.
Speaker 3:At that time the Christian Action Commission director was Paul Jones, in Mississippi Baptist. I said Dr Jones, I need some help, man. I said y'all got any stuff on race relations? He said yeah, we do. There's some pamphlets, there's some things. You know, there's some things. I said well, I got this deacon that. Well, we're in the Bible, there's not supposed to be marriage between the races. I said I know what the answer is, but I just need to know some good ways to present it. He said you're right, there's no biblical admonition against that. You know. So, anyway, we.
Speaker 3:So in that church, you know, we didn't have, we didn't have any confrontations or issues with any families. There was not any. This was a rural church. I don't think we even had many African-Americans living in our community. You know, we never had anything go on there. You know, thing anything go on there. You know, and uh, but it was uh, but teaching, teaching him and, of course, the rest of the church, that there is nothing in the bible. Here's what the bible says, you know, and those scriptures that were used years ago or were not even talking about black white issue, you know, Right, right, it was uh. So anyway, we. So that I started the education like teach, here's what the Bible really says about race, everybody.
Speaker 1:Okay, so did that? I guess that encounter? Yeah, it opened a door or an opportunity. It sounds like for you to actually begin to teach Right. Okay, right, opportunity. It sounds like for you to actually begin the team Right.
Speaker 2:Okay Right, oh yeah, go, continue. Right, we got to call Paul Neal to print that brochure and publish it about dismissing the myth about crossing races and things that they had misinterpreted in the Old Testament.
Speaker 3:That could have been. I don't know, that may have already been written, but you know. But yeah, he was very helpful, but that was the see I'd never. Up until that time, I would never have thought about, I never thought about. You know, let me do a, let me do a series about race, race relationship, you know, you know, I think I just part of it was how I grew up.
Speaker 3:I grew up I really feel like I was taught, you know, everybody's important and I had black friends in school. Uh, grandma, even in the first grade. You know, that was the early, uh, early sixties, 60, the, yeah, probably 63, 64, 65. And, uh, you know, but I never thought, why is there only one or two black kids in my class? You know it just. But I was friends with them and we would do things together at school and, uh, then in, uh, later grammar years, you know, I was good friends. I remember writing. We went to a school fair and, uh, we had a couple of black guys in our class in about the fifth grade and so we all rode the Ferris wheel together. I was in the middle and each of them were on the other side of me, but I don't ever remember our class having an issue with that, but I never thought why is there only two? There's a lot more black people live in this city.
Speaker 3:But when I got to high school it was a whole different thing. I went to a large high school, harrison Central High School, north of Gulfport, and we had a lot of racial tension there. There was a lot of fighting, a lot of, and I was not used to that. I was not. I had not ever been around that, wasn't really aware that it was a problem. You know, we just were taught you love everybody, you care about everybody, and you know, and we played for kids, with kids in the neighborhood. We just lived in neighborhoods where there were no black kids and didn't really think about it being. It's not because we don't want them, it's just they're not here. You know we didn't really think about it being it's not because we don't want them, it's just they're not here. You know we didn't, we didn't think about that, you know. But I was. But I always, I always had.
Speaker 3:I remember boo, boo and uh when I was in junior high. He was, he was one of my best friends and lonnie taylor was his actual name, and uh but uh. So we always had a great relationship one-on-one. But when I started encountering other people who were very, uh, anti being friends with other races, that was uh, that was difficult because got the peer pressure thing that he you know. So when I came to highland, uh, it came to a head when we had our first black family, african-american family, and I would have said up until that point, you know, our church welcomes everybody and we did, we. We welcomed them to visit, but when they joined it did something to a handful of people. I went through a lot of struggles with a few those one did you sell to terry?
Speaker 3:I tried, yeah but you know I, so I had to get my notes out from the bible and race and that I did all that. You know we had to go through a Wednesday night Bible study. It got it and I'm very thankful. It was a very small group of people and we ended up losing some people over there and actually we had some. I asked to leave because of that and uh, but uh, but I was really thankful it was very small number, but, but that, that kind of opened my eyes.
Speaker 3:We haven't done, I had not done much to prevent, to prevent that before it came to a hit, you know, and uh. So then you know, as I began to preach more sermons on race and you know when I would come to the passages where you could really jump off on racial reconciliation, you know, then I made, I was more intentional and about that time Nettie Winters, uh, kept coming over to Vicksburg wanting to meet with pastors and bug the stew out of us to start some kind of weekly with pastors and bug the stew out of us to start some kind of weekly. So thank God for Nettie doing that, cause that that's what helped us, have the desire to. Okay, we do need to work on this. We do need to meet together. And and, uh, and those guys, uh, you know, uh, it's been a number of years, you know, but those are some of my best friends. They all, you know, came and you were at the little going away supper we had, you know, brian, yeah, yeah, but those are some of my best friends, I mean, and the ones that couldn't come to that they would.
Speaker 3:Linda Sweezer came by and, you know, called me and said can I just have some time with you? I'm not going to get to make the going away supper, you know, but we had the best visit and just reminisced, you know, through the years, and if I said, you know, we accomplished a whole lot, I don't know that we saw a lot of the fruit that we wanted to, when we would have the event and try the day of dialogues and the true picnics and and even the joint worship services and, uh, you know, but I think we made a start in the minds of some people, but it was hard. I mean, it was hard. It's not that our people seem to be against it, but they just didn't take their time to come, the ones, the lot of them that I wanted to come, you know. So, uh, but that was uh, that was the beginnings of me understanding a lot about race that I'd never thought about before. Uh, you know, uh know, we had a lot of good discussions and to help me understand it then it helped me to help my congregation and it is. They would hear me talk and of course, they knew my friends. You know my friends from Mississippi because we'd talk about them so much. They'd see them. They saw them in my pulpit several times, see them, they saw them in my pool pit several times. So we uh, but it was a, it was a very rewarding experience and, uh, but I do think that was the key was getting the pastors to know each other first, and there were a lot of pastors that would come and go and you could tell they weren't quite ready. I don't know if we want to know each other too much yet, because, if I know you, I may have to change some ways.
Speaker 3:I think you know, and because, in a lot of ways, what I learned from those pastors and we had some we met in Port Gibson and Randy Burge invited a few of his congregation to come to the pastor meeting and they began to share some of their feelings of what they felt growing up and how they were just little subtle things we as white pastors never even considered, you know, like how they were treated in the stores with a white clerk, or how they even how the change. They wouldn't put the change in their hand, they would throw it on the counter because they didn't, they didn't, you know, they didn't want to take a chance on touching each other's hand. I mean things like that. I, my, my, my eyes were open to a lot of understanding. I didn't, I didn't know, you know, and I didn't think about. And so I think the information and education is still needed. You know it's still needed.
Speaker 3:We got a lot of folks that in my church would say no, I'm not prejudiced. In my church would say no, I'm not prejudiced. But then there's things they don't know about what makes the other person feel that they've been through, and some of what's been through needs to be reconciled and moved. And there's people on both sides of any relationship that can't do that, can't let it go, and that's a shame. That's the only way you can come to Christ and be reconciled to God. You got to let it go, yeah and uh, but it it was, uh, it was a very it's very enriching part of my ministry the years I spent with those pastors in mission Mississippi. You know we wish we'd have done a lot more and accomplished a lot more, but it does take a lot of effort, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, pastor, even as you were describing your experience, one of the things that really resonated with me was how you talked about Nettie and his, first of all, his resiliency and just, you know, constantly kind of getting at you guys and encouraging y'all to gather and to meet and to do something together, right, and that resiliency being necessary yeah, kind of meeting opportunity in the sense that he's being resilient, but also there's some things that's happening in your church that raises the alarm, so to speak, in your mind that this matters and that we need to take some steps and some actions to make sure that we speak to this. And so I think that I think that is how reconciliation works in general. Yeah, because a lot of times when we're, when we're just kind of living our day-to-day lives, we're like, man, I got things going on, I got things to do. Um, why, why? Why do you know who needs another gathering, who needs another conversation, this, that and the other, right, but then there's something that'll happen. We saw that. We saw that in, really in 2020 with, uh, george floyd and ahmad arbery, and, and then, all of a sudden, it was like the church was really jarred into action. We need to do something we need to. We need to talk about this, we need to have conversation.
Speaker 1:It's always opportunities that raise the alarms and that push people into this Right, but what keeps people in this is intentionality and endurance. Right, and a commitment that this is what the Lord desires from his church. Right For us to be united and for us to be one. That's what keeps people in it. So for you, you know it may have been what started. You know the have been. It may have been what started. You know the opportunity and then netty's resilience may have been what started it right, but obviously what kept you there was a burden and um and the friendships and the relationship right that that the lord gifted you with along the way is that was that accurate.
Speaker 3:That is, that's that's right on, you know. And, uh, when I began to hear these guys that I had built a relationship with, talk about their feelings, about things, that I was listening as a friend, that makes a whole lot of difference. You know, we can still not agree on things, but I'm here in my friend and I'll never forget some of the injustice one of our pastors shared even in the church softball league. You know, a black church playing a white church and some things that were said and done on the field.
Speaker 3:Well, if you'd have told me that five years ago, I would have not been surprised at it. It wouldn't have moved me to care about it. I would just understand they shouldn't be like that. What a Christian. But then, when that story was told and it affected a friend of mine, I had tears in my eyes when he was telling it. Right, that makes you want to hey, hey, let me tell you we got to make sure that changes, you know, and that Christians are really Christians. You know, because I've had a lot of churches, had softball teams, and you wonder where all these guys are, except during softball season and they show up.
Speaker 2:You don't see them the rest of the time They'd count man for everybody's season.
Speaker 3:They'd count man, they'd trade and count. But that did the most for me is getting to friends and then hearing their stories. And then you know, like the flag, when the Mississippi State flag, you know, was the issue, I never looked at the rebel flag as like a thing that was race related. It was just history. We lived in the south and we fought the north, and you know, that's all I'd heard all my life, you know. But then when I heard a friend tell me when I moved from detroit down to the South and Mississippi and I would see a rebel flag on the back of a pickup truck, you know I would, we would get indoors and I thought I can't, I can't believe that. It's just thoughts I never had about that flag.
Speaker 3:So that made me think more about the flag issue, cause I, you know, I mean I, I mean I, I'm not a flag guy anyway, you know, yeah, whatever, you know we gotta, but they, they changed the flag and that upset a lot of people and so I try, okay, but look, I've heard, well, they don't mean that. It don't mean that it don't, you know, I said, but it does mean that to at least half of our society. And and I said, the way I read the Bible is we're supposed to care if something offends my brother, even if I don't think it's an offense. If they think it's an offense, I need to be. You know, the book of Romans tells us, you know, don't eat meat if it offends your brother. You know that's been bought in the pagan temples. You know, left for each. You know.
Speaker 3:But I thought, you know, I tried to explain that to a lot of our folks, that's kind of like the flag man that offends some friends of mine, and so that's why I'm okay with it. Let's get a new flag and put that past behind us. You know, now, I think radicals on the other side too, that won't let that go either. You know, now, I think radicals on the other side too, that won't let that go either. You know, right, right because. But anyway, I just thought that's the christian response. You know, to know somebody enough that their feelings matter, right and and that that you love them. And if that bothers them and hurts them or brings back bad memories, then it's not a big deal to me, it's right, it's, it's not, it's not, that's not something I want to.
Speaker 3:You know, discount fellowship with somebody because of, because of our we have a difference of political, uh, views, you know, and there's a lot of difference in politics, you, you know, and so, but having those conversations with people who had become friends was so, so enlightening, it was so meaningful and, uh, you know. So I treasure those times and I, you know, I want to, you know, continue to have those times when I get through this transition, this transition, you know, I know there's that I'll be able to plug back into, you know, but, but those were, those were meaningful, and it's the kind of fruit. Well, it's kind of like seeds being planted. You may not see the fruit from it, but eventually it's having a change in hearts and minds and through conversations with people over the course of time, things do change, you know, and uh, so I think, uh, you know, and I know, I know Mississippi is a lot different than it used to be, but we're still needs to be a lot better. You know, still some work to be done. Yeah, exactly right, exactly right.
Speaker 2:I can't get Brian Hope man. He got job security.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do. I do, lenny, I do have some job security.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do have some job security. You solve that issue.
Speaker 1:You got to find another job, that's right, that's right, and hopefully, prayerfully, one day I'll work myself out of it. Hopefully I'll work myself out of it by God's grace. Hey, let me ask you this last kind of question to turn Okay, shift a little bit towards your current life now, or the current season of Brian Ivey, as you transition out of pastoral ministry. You know you're, you're, you're not, you're not in that role, but the call to, to be one is, as Christ and the father of one remains the same. Yeah, right, what does, what does reconciliation look like on the second end of Brian Ivey's?
Speaker 3:life. Well, I'll tell you what it's done. My antenna is raised a lot higher now on the race. Even visiting church, I told you we were people on your heights and I looked around and I saw some diversity there. So I immediately look around the crowd, okay, and see who's there. Well, yeah, got any different colors of skin or language, yeah, but but even in my new neighborhood I've noticed and, uh, there are some people I want to meet and maybe pull together. We got got races in our neighborhood and uh, so it's, it's.
Speaker 3:It's made me think, because I know god wants me to do something. I'll either, you know, once we get our house sold and land in a church, you know, I either want to lead groups or just and I might even try a neighborhood group here just to block parties, say're going to have a neighborhood cookout and try to intentionally bring some people together, sure, and just have some conversations. But I don't know yet what God would have me to do. I still want to preach and eat on a supply base, something like that, but I don't know. God may open up a door, I know he will when the time is right and so, but I still want to be effective in building the kingdom, helping God, which is why, you know, we've visited some of the larger churches, but my heart is more drawn I told you about the church plant yeah, my heart may be drawn more to someplace like that where I might, could help a pastor who you know the feeling you never have enough help. You know you wish you had some staff, but you can't afford them. And you know, look, man, here's my background, here's what I can do. What, what could, what could I do to help you? You know, be more effective. I can teach people, train people, you know whatever. So I feel like, uh, when, I, when, when my name gets out there, and maybe what god wants for me, he'll show me the right door, and uh, but I.
Speaker 3:But on the other hand, you know, uh, it's hard to adjust to retirement because it's like for 45 years I've been needed by a lot of people. Now, some of them. I didn't want them to feel like they needed me, you know, but, and now it's kind of like my wife needs me, but that's about it and maybe why it needs me, you know but, but you know, it's like I'm going through that. I don't want to lose my significance of making a difference here. You know I don't. I don't plan to just enjoy the retirement and that's over. My ministry is over, you know. I know it's not. It's just going to be a new season, but I'm not sure what it'll look like yet.
Speaker 3:I just have various interests. I love meeting with groups of men and just doing a men's group. I had a good group in Highland I met with every Tuesday morning at 6 am, about the only time we could get that group together. They wouldn't come to most of our other Bible study offerings but they'd agree to meet in the morning before they go to work. And so I like that kind of thing, you know, but I don't know I do, but I have, you know, one of the first things I look at when we're visiting churches what's the congregation makeup? You know, yeah, and it may be one of these churches you know might need somebody. They haven't found somebody to spearhead an intentional reconciliation ministry, you right, so they may be, they may be needing the right person to come along. I may be that person, body, I don't know, uh, but I'm just praying that the lord will show me the the right opportunity, that I can be a help in some way and I know he will, he will.
Speaker 1:It's kind of open and prayerfully considering you know God to open the doors for me to see what I can do next. You know, amen, amen, yeah, pastor, I tell you you're already off to a great start, because this was a great podcast, just gleaning from your wisdom and your years of experience and comparing, comparing notes from the from the past to the present, and, and and I think very much that that that we need that kind of wisdom in our ears, in this, in this continued journey and living out the reconciliation we have in Christ. Right, I think you're on the right path and I'm sure the Lord will continue to make it clear as you continue on. Thank you so much for joining us on today's podcast.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for inviting me and thank you for your friendship for these last several years. Nettie, thank you, you've meant so much. We probably never told you how much you meant to our Vicksburg group, but you know you were just. Nettie had the best attitude. He was the perfect person to come and spearhead that Vicksburg group. You know he's just always had the great attitude cheerful, happy, but very serious about what he was trying to get us to see the need for in Vicksburg.
Speaker 3:So I appreciate you, nettie, for all those times you came and you were faithful to come and show up and our folks, the ones that got to know you in Georgia, had you preach in our church and everybody loved that. I mean, both of y'all did a great job preaching, so that helped our church have a greater desire to more. You know, like you know, so that's. But I think the pastor's modeling it know and they, when they would see me having lunch with Dexter or Reginald in a restaurant, you know that was the MC and hey, he's not just talking it, he's trying to. You know they're really friends, they're having lunch, they're going to stuff like that. So I think I think that makes a difference. You just wish you could see a lot of the differences being made quicker. You know they're in there.
Speaker 1:Thank you man, thank you brother, and thank you guys those who are listening in for joining us on this episode of Living Reconciled. We would love for you to share this episode, but also just share the podcast. So feel free to go out to any podcast app like subscribe, but also share with your family, friends, church members as we continue on in this journey of reconciliation, having the kind of conversations and dialogue that helps us move the needle of reconciliation in our state. Again, it's been a great pleasure to be with our guest, brian Ivey, and my co-host, nettie Winters. On behalf of those two, this is Brian Crawford signing off saying God bless, god bless. Thanks for joining Living Reconciled. If you would like more information on how you can be a part of the ongoing work of helping Christians learn how to live in the reconciliation that Jesus has already secured, please visit us online at mission Mississippiorg or call us at 601-353-6477. Thanks again for listening.
