Living Reconciled
Living Reconciled, hosted by Mission Mississippi, is a podcast dedicated to exploring reconciliation and the Gospel that enables us to live it out. Mission Mississippi has been leading the way in racial reconciliation in Mississippi for 31 years. Our model is to bring people together to build relationships across racial lines so they can work together to better their communities. Our mission is to encourage and demonstrate grace in the Body of Christ across racial lines so that communities throughout Mississippi can see practical evidence of the gospel message.
Living Reconciled
EP. 76: Speaking Life with Chris Vowell
We would love to hear from you! Send us a text message.
What does it take to bring real change to a city that’s been written off? Pastor Chris Vowell shares how hope is rising in Greenville, Mississippi, through intentional unity across racial and denominational lines. From launching a community feeding ministry with a neighboring Black church to helping shift a city’s mindset from despair to possibility, this episode explores what happens when churches stop competing and start collaborating. Learn how everyday faith and persistent relationship-building are breathing life into the Mississippi Delta—and how you can be part of that movement wherever you are.
Special thanks to our sponsors:
Nissan, St. Dominic's Hospital, Atmos Energy, Regions Foundation, Mississippi College, Anderson United Methodist Church, Grace Temple Church, Mississippi State University, Real Christian 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. Hey, thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Living Reconciled. I'm your host, brian Crawford. Unfortunately, my good friends Nettie Winters, austin Hoyle are not available to join us today, but I do have a really, really good friend with us, a gentleman by the name of Chris Vowell. Chris is the pastor of Emanuel Baptist Church in Greenville, mississippi, and I'm excited to have Chris join us here today. But before we have a conversation with Chris, I just want to give a quick shout out to our sponsors folks like Brown Baptist Church, folks like St Dominic's Hospital, regions Foundation, good friends like Ann Winters, robert Ward Thanks so much for all that you do.
Speaker 1:Doris Powell, thanks so much for all you do. It's because of what you do that we're able to do what we do, and if you would like to join our list of sponsors who make Living Reconciled possible, we would love for you to do that. Here's how you can do it you can go to missionmississippiorg click on the invest button, which is normally at the top right, and you can sow into this work, this ministry, this organization, and by so doing, you are sowing into the work of this podcast, living Reconciled. Again, my guest this morning is Chris Vow. He is the pastor of Emanuel Baptist Church in Greenville, mississippi. He's a husband, he's a father, he's a bridge builder, and I couldn't be more excited and delighted to have him. Chris, how are you doing today, sir?
Speaker 2:Doing well. I'm excited to be on here with you, brian, looking forward to it Awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1:Chris, why don't you start Just tell a little bit about yourself and share a little bit about your story of how you came to faith and how you ended up in ministry serving in the Greenville area?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you slow me down whenever I need to, because, as I get rolling with all this, grew up in Philadelphia, mississippi, and came to Christ at 23. Actually, had grown up, played a lot of ball, worked in the family business, which was the grocery stores that I think kind of laid the foundation, if you will, just for some racial reconciliation. We worked with a lot of, had a lot of Native Americans that worked in the business with us, a lot of African Americans that worked in the business with us, a lot of African Americans, and so just we were thrown in there together. And then also with sports, playing football, basketball and baseball. It was in the locker room with just with all types of people. So I think that kind of prepared me to have a little bit more of a heart. So but when I finished up college at Ole Miss, moved back to run a grocery store in my family in Newton and actually started going to First Baptist Newton there, went off to a Promise Keepers men's rally down in New Orleans and that was around 96.
Speaker 2:Franklin Graham was preaching. It was right after EV Hill.
Speaker 2:Ev Hill had just brought it right before Franklin Graham and this little Methodist guy, because that's what I had grown up in. I had never heard anything like EV Hill. Things started stirring. So that night when Franklin Graham gave the altar call, I came out of the upper deck of the Superdome, really thought I was recommitting. I really felt like man I've been around the church all my life I'm just kind of rededicating my life but actually got born again that night. It was just like a radical deal of the Lord turning the lights on and everything changed. A radical deal of the Lord turning the lights on and everything changed. So I had gotten my business degree at Ole Miss plans just to be in the Vowels marketplace, the grocery business. That's what I was going to do with my life. And over the next five or six months, I guess, the Lord started calling me to ministry and so we were working through. Does that look like staying in the grocery business, being a deacon, or is that stepping into this whole thing? And so I headed to New Orleans Seminary pretty soon after that and I got my master's there and then came back to Philadelphia and ministered there for years, right Before kind of like one of those Macedonian calls we weren't putting resumes out and looking to come to the Delta.
Speaker 2:God just kind of pointed us here. So we've been here now for three years and you know you'd hear a lot of folks say, well, you know, everybody's moving out of the Delta and there were a lot of people in our church and other places that were just just speaking death over, oh, this area. And so for the first just two or three months of being here we were, we were just kind of coming to that whole let's speak life rather than death and started to see some change in people's hearts and minds, you know, with what they were saying. And so it was kind of fun. God's timing and he's all about just being right on time.
Speaker 2:You know, pretty soon after we got here, chick-fil-a opened. That was kind of a big shot in the arm. That kind of started causing people to say maybe something's going on Right and so. So as as we focused on obviously preaching the gospel and reaching a lot of people, we've also been focused on trying to plug in with government, with business, with even the sportsplex here in town, right, we've been a part of helping to reopen that over the last couple of years. So that's a snapshot. Now, brian, I can go and go and go, you just redirect me, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, absolutely no. That's a great snapshot deal of your intersection with sports, the grocery business and how that relates to your call by God, so to speak, to kind of be a connector and bridging gaps. It just sounds like that's an obvious landing space for you, because sports are in many ways a great uniter in terms of basketball, football, baseball where you got people from all different walks of life not just color but class, culture coming together for just kind of one common goal and that oftentimes has been a very strong testimony in many lives in terms of allowing people to learn out across spaces. Has that served in a similar way for you in terms of sports?
Speaker 2:It really has. And I would even go back one step before my mom and dad. My dad was a high school coach before he got into the grocery business with my grandfather oh wow. And actually the great Marcus Dupree that came out of Philadelphia, right, he was in junior high when my dad was coaching there at Philadelphia High School. But my mom and dad both were in education right, and so they were in public schools and so I just kind of came up in this, even though I was born in 72 after the 60s and civil rights with Philadelphia. But I kind of grew up in a place of really just being wide open to a lot.
Speaker 2:I think my mom one of the stories we've got a team from Emanuel going to Nigeria in about two weeks, I think, and my mom got excited about it. They had this was some of the, I think, foundation work with my parents that was laid for me. They were from Knox of Pater Baptist Church. My mom and dad right Grew up there. They supported a particular missionary to Nigeria. I didn't remember that until the other day when she talked about it, but my mom struggled with how their church her dad was a deacon they supported this mission work in Nigeria but the doors of Knox, of Pater Baptist Church, were not open to African-Americans and so her coming up in that.
Speaker 2:I've heard the story more than once with her, a deal of her saying she really struggled with how do we reach these blacks and sow money and send missionaries to Nigeria. But when we come home to Winston County it was kind of a double deal right. So I think my mom and dad had that in them with coaching. I just saw it in both of them that they just loved people, regardless of color, regardless of how much money. They just met them where they were. So I think they modeled that well. I'm realizing that as I'm talking to you, brian. They really put that in there, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, fantastic man, fantastic. And you talked a little bit about Greenville and kind of this, this middle cloud, if I can put it that way, in terms of people seeing commerce, business opportunities leave and sort of, as a result of that kind of carrying this sort of hopelessness that what good is the work going to do? People are leaving, the town is dying. There's nothing here that creates or generates hope, that generates joy, and you've talked about how you've worked on just trying to create a new story, tell a better story. I guess not necessarily create a new story, but tell a better story and highlight the good, highlight the hope, highlight the hope that exists, highlight the light that exists in the community. Let's, let's peel that back a little bit more. Talk about some of the ways in which, um, you've seen this play out and and not not just in word, but even in, maybe, the posture that that people have taken towards the city and talk about some of the ways in which you see light in Greenville. That encourages you.
Speaker 2:That's good. Our church out here is on about 100 acres. It's kind of a unique deal sitting out here in the Delta. When we got here, even though it had gone through a good bit of decline over years, it was almost large enough that you could just stay on this campus and just do ministry. You could just be in your own little world just doing a manual with taking care of things. But when we got here God pushed me toward getting in the Rotary Club here in town and that was one of the things that started to kind of help me see the whole area a little bit more right.
Speaker 2:Because if you're in Washington County and I think the figures are about 70% African-American in the county, about 30% white right In the city, you may even be a little closer to 80-20, right. And so coming in here you'll see a lot of the white churches have just closed and gone right. And so you come in here and just the observation is, wow, how are we just living in two different worlds when the numbers are like that Right? And so with it it was just kind of coming from Philadelphia where I had worked with Nettie, some we had done some Mississippi worked through some things there to help build some bridges. Coming here, it was like, wow, how much more do we need it Now? You kept talking about hope there. Hope deferred, the word says, makes us sick, right, yes, yes, but a longing fulfills a tree of life, and so we've seen a little of that.
Speaker 2:I mentioned Chick-fil-A, but also, right up from our campus, here at the church, we've got the Washington County Sportsplex. Well, I've got a seven-year-old son He'll be eight this summer that we adopted, and so I would drive by. He played in the city league the first year we were here, played a little tee ball and the fields there they just didn't have the space all to handle everything. But the sportsplex had been closed, right, and so I would drive by the sportsplex. See these lights, these fields, all this stuff out there, and I thought this is unbelievable that the fields are just, they're just closed, right.
Speaker 2:So it worked out that the board of supervisors put together a board to try to resurrect it. That would be a good word. Gather aboard to try to resurrect it, that would be a good word. And so here we are in the second season of those fields being back open. I don't know if there are about 400, a little bit more than that kids that are out there this time, but it goes to what you're saying.
Speaker 2:With hope People, it's so easy to just remember the bad and almost just keep cursing it. Well, you know it's going to happen. So here's the thing and I think my dad kind of put this in me when you start seeing a little bit of a winner, you know whether it's the sports flex opening back up, whether it is some business opportunities. There are some that come about. People start saying, well, we may not go back to where Greenville was in the 90s overnight, right, but maybe we can at least move in that direction a little. And so what we've tried to do through the church, we've got that the Shipley Donuts owners are here in our church, right, and so we had done it. It wasn't a big deal, but we reached out to all the public and private schools, city, county, the whole deal. And kind of the back to school deal. We loaded up the teachers with Shipley Donuts, right, just a way of saying we care, we want to build a bridge, right. It's continually been. You know you can't sit back, obviously. You got to. What does it say? Pray like everything's dependent on the Lord and then work like everything's dependent on us. But I think, even like with you coming to town and doing some of the meetings we've had, you just have to keep plugging and plugging and plugging to get some of the momentum. And then I'm a guy that I know sometimes people get a little tired of it, but if I'm in the pulpit I am trying to remind everybody up there of all the winners we've seen everybody up there, of all the winners we've seen, for example, not on a racial side, but First Baptist Florence gave us one of their old vans here the other day. It was in great shape, it was about 20 years old. We just put the new letters on it. But with that, when you start to see the Lord bless and bring encouragement in some ways, one of the big things that you and me didn't talk about it the other day, but downtown the old Salvation Army had been closed, right, it had down on Broadway. It's right there, about a block from Doe's Steakhouse, right. So everybody knows about Doe's but the old Salvation Army was just closed.
Speaker 2:Well, this was a neat piece, that Pastor Tom Morris is it Greater Hines Missionary Baptist Church, right there, he and Elijah Smith, one of his deacons, got together with myself and three guys from our church and we bought that old thing and started a nonprofit called Sacred Space. Well, it has reopened right about two years ago. We're getting kind of close to that two-year spot. Well, we're doing homeless sheltering down there. Why, we're doing transition housing for men on one side of Broadway and then since then we bought an old personal care home on the other side for women, right, wow.
Speaker 2:And then we're feeding the community every Tuesday night. And so with that there's been white churches, black churches. You've had sororities and fraternities come in there, so that's been a place. It's a powerful picture of when you've got some of the homeless from right down on Broadway in there with some of the wealthiest folks in Washington County on a Tuesday night. So that's been another piece, right. So we've tried to focus on the education mountain, if you will. We've tried to get in there on that business and political, but then we've, sure enough, done the church thing right. We've seen a lot of people come to Christ. Obviously that's where some hearts are going to get changed and some minds get renewed, right yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, chris, my goodness, you said a ton of things that really stand out to me.
Speaker 1:One of the things that you mentioned to me is how people can lose hope based on the pace of progress they can, they can, they can, even if you mention, hey, here's a good thing, that's happening, here's another good thing that's happening. People, oftentimes we, we think back to the, to the, to the heyday, so to speak, and we see one or two good things that are happening now and we say, well, it's nothing like it was in the 90s. It's like okay, okay, well, we didn't get here, we didn't get here in a day from where we were in the 90s. And so, certainly, if we didn't get here where we are today, from the 90s in a day, then also we're not going to get back to any semblance of you know, a heyday, so to speak, in a day. It's going to take slow, methodical, intentional plotting away, taking the steps, like you said, seizing the wins that we get and then building on those wins, because you know we have a oh, go ahead, go ahead, jump in.
Speaker 2:Well, let me just a couple thoughts with that. You know, from Philadelphia we're about two and a half to three hours from Greenville, so I didn't know much about Greenville. I mean it was the third largest city in the state, right. Right, when you back up and look at that you're just like, and so you understand to your point, to go from there to, you know, gradual decline, right. But I think what you were saying is you know, somebody's got to cast the vision that God has, right, because if the vision's gone and we're all sending our kids out of here as soon as they finish, right, and if nobody's.
Speaker 2:But see some of the things the mayor, city council, the Washington County Board of Supervisors they've really been doing a good job. Justin Burch, our economic development director guy, really has a lot of connections and relationships. They're doing some downtown renovation. We've got the new federal courthouse that's getting close to finishing. There there's been big investment. Now there's some discussion on how it's going to play out. The new bypass coming through right. We've got all kinds of construction here with that. So we've had energy has come in. There's a tremendous power plant that's being built here in the near future. There's gas line coming. There's all types of opportunity.
Speaker 2:See my dad who sold out of the grocery business to my uncle. He did that years ago, right, he's in economic community development there in Neshoba, right. So when we moved here and you're saying you've got four lane access through here, you've got airports, they flew in Kamala Harris, flew in Biden, since we've been here, used to have the big military, but you've got the river, you've got the rail, you've got all that that's still here that my dad would love in Philadelphia, neshama County. So I think to your point, how do you kind of reset or recharge and move ahead? And I just, we believe God brought us here and he's what some dry bones are starting to wrap, Not just in the church but throughout the community. Right, it takes some faith there, brian, it's gotta be, you know, really stepping out and believing and walking it out.
Speaker 1:And it's a real. It's a real shift. It's a real shift in mentality, it's a real shift in the heart. Uh, because there's a, there's a pain, there's a, there's a trauma, if you will, that comes with seeing a community go down, and you begin to kind of take that story and it begins to shape any story going forward, that story from the past, that story of watching things kind of erode. It begins to shape everything that you see in front of you. You begin to say to yourself, well, I mean, yeah, that's good, but when is that going to fail? Too? Right, it's like no, it doesn't have to fail, it doesn't have to fail. This could actually go well.
Speaker 2:Right, there you go. And so here one of the big things that I think where the church right, where we've got to be the ones that are different. And that's where I was saying, you know, as a man thinks within himself, so he is. And then we speak life instead of death. If the people that are sitting in a church every Sunday sound the same way that that old boy that was out drunk on Saturday night sounds on Monday, something's wrong with the picture, right? So we've tried to focus in on if we get some people with their minds renewed. Keep casting a vision. Yeah, you're going to have some people laugh at you when you cast the vision. Noah had a few people laugh at him, right, all of that type deal. But you're right, when it's gone down so much, it's hard.
Speaker 2:I sat down with a business owner here in town probably two years ago. He started kind of coming back to the church and we sat down and had lunch one day and he said, chris, he said I hope you're right about some of this stuff you're saying Right, and I was like you know, I really feel like the Lord's given it, let's just speak it out. But his family has been transformed in the last year seeing his children come to Christ. It's been crazy, right. Well, that's where you and me would come from an angle of saying, look, let's get them to Jesus, let's start to let them walk with him, and then I believe that the body of Christ we're the ones that are going to bring. See, I love the verse in Amos that says surely the sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing it to his servants, the prophets, right? So if the Lord's doing something special in Greenville, if we're tuned in to him, he wants to show us Right. And so if he say and look out, out, here, I'm coming right, so we've seen some momentum, there's some good things, but you know back to, I think, the main reason you and me are sitting here doing this today.
Speaker 2:Some people will tell you when you go back to the economic decline, right, some people will say, well, it was NAFTA, it was some of the jobs moving. But some people will go back because I just ask questions and listen, I wasn't here. And some will tell you that it did go back to some of the racial divide that some of the factories that were here as they kind of worked through. I don't know if it was just a clash of some of the you know you're not going to tell us to work, or those won't help, or they're not whatever types of dynamics. Some people say that, as there was a clashing of give us those jobs, let's keep these jobs, all of this type stuff. That that's where some of those factories pulled out of the racial tension that was there.
Speaker 2:Some would say it was maybe 20, 25 years ago. But the good news is I've heard some people say that a lot of that has settled since and there has been a lot more. Let's say more. I don't know if I'd say a lot more. There has been more coming together to try to say look, we're all here. I mean Greenville still has what 27,000, 28,000 in the city right now. It used to have what somewhere 40 to 45. And so there's a lot of people that are almost like okay, if we're staying here, and some of our young guys that you've met they're starting to say look, if we're not fixing to take our money and move to Madison, what do we need to do here to turn this thing around? Right, right right.
Speaker 1:You know when I'm on the road, chris, we often basically communicate that there's a lot of reasons to live reconciled. A lot of them are spiritual and the primary reasons are spiritual. Jesus prays for it. Paul tells us this is who we are and we need to walk in that calling, according to Ephesians 2 and Ephesians 4, we need to walk in a manner worthy of that calling. And so it's about obedience, it's about evangelism and missions, because Jesus prays for it. He says by this they'll know that the father sent me and that he loved me and he loved, he loved them or love you by your oneness. That's how the world will know that. And so we hear, we hear all of these examples that we're given, but one if you, if you, if you, if you're not, say you're not a Christian, there's, even if you are not a Christian and never will be a Christian, there's also a reason for you to walk in oneness because it is practical. Flourishing in a community is tied to the ability of a community to actually learn how to get along.
Speaker 2:Amen. That's so well said, brian. Because, like I said, we don't want to come from such a spiritual perspective that we're up in the clouds. We're sitting here saying, if we've got schools that are struggling, see back to Philadelphia. We had Philadelphia.
Speaker 2:Public schools have been working through challenges, right, while in Neshoba Central the county school is just exploding right, tremendous there, right. Well then you come here and you have the private opportunities. Our son actually goes to the public school down at Riverside, down kind of in Western Line District, so a little south of town, right. But when you look at some of the real challenges city and county with schools here you're saying the practical is how are we going to raise up a workforce, ok, how are we going to keep some relationships that are going to be good? So you said it, it's not an overnight deal. You're not going to turn this ship around right off. Watch the corn growing out here. Right now Some seeds have been sown that I would say. We're also seeing a quicker return on our money than you usually do. It's almost like we're harvesting where others have sown you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good Chris. Good Chris, talk to me a little bit about your experience in Philadelphia. Okay, a little bit about your experience in Philadelphia, okay, and and because you spent, obviously, raised there, family you know were grocers there and and and you played sports, played ball, triple, triple, triple athlete. You know baseball, football, basketball, so you got all kinds of experiences there in Philadelphia. Tell me a little bit about the terrain there from your vantage point as it relates to the story of race, the story of reconciliation.
Speaker 2:Okay With Nettie. I got connected with Nettie and I may have shared this with you. There was a big event in Jackson at the stadium right, where they brought the state together and I don't even remember how. Victor Smith was a guy from the Jackson area that we got connected with, my wife and I on a mission trip. We did some Honduras and then also Malawi with him, but I think he was the one who was like Chris, you need to come over to this. I think that's how it started and so ended up there kind of representing the Shoba County right, and they're just our little group that was doing that county thing, and so from that, I think, nettie, we started to build some bridges.
Speaker 2:We actually, you know, you have Philadelphia and Greenville. There's some similarities. Both have black mayors right, your city population of government. There were some open doors with him and that I could just kind of step through a little faster right. So you've got Leroy Clemens, who's actually running for mayor. He's won on the Democratic side this time and running against a Republican here soon. But he was an NAACP guy that's really been involved in a lot of the civil rights, the history, a lot of the things there.
Speaker 1:So he and I- the Shovel Youth Coalition as well Coalition there you go with Leroy.
Speaker 2:You know him, I figured you did. We actually we did something. My wife and I started a nonprofit called the Mississippi Combine that we had cranked up there in Philadelphia. We were doing some. It was a house of prayer on Tuesday nights, praying kind of over those seven mountains of influence, just kind of those targets right. But we were also praying for the sick, praying for healing there. But we actually had some meetings there with Leroy. I think it was actually sponsored by Kellogg's right. It was kind of a coming together. So we had done some of that. And then my wife and I had planted a Crossway Community Church. Nettie had come in for one of those before we left and so we were doing some of this.
Speaker 2:How do we build it? Let's have the dialogue, have the conversations. And I think one of the things that's excited me about you being here in Greenville over the last few months, I like the model that you kind of see coming forth, that let's do the dialogue, let's keep that steady, let's keep us keep going deeper. Every opportunity, the Holy Spirit, let's keep that steady, let's keep going deeper, Every opportunity. The Holy Spirit kind of takes us there. But as we're doing some work in the community together. I believe that's almost accelerating things.
Speaker 2:So we were doing some of that back in Philadelphia. We were a part of the alliance there that was doing like a big Thanksgiving service and so the races, we would come together over at Jerusalem uh temple Pentecostal church, larger black Pentecostal church but you mentioned it in our meeting this past week people would kind of go home and say, wow, that was great, we had Choctaws there, we had blacks there, we had whites there. And then most people would say, well, we'll see you next year. So we did some of that and I would say because you understand, I'm not being negative right, yeah, absolutely, it was almost like some walls would start coming down. Right, yeah, absolutely, it was almost like some walls would start coming down right, and God in his time is kind of taking us into a little bit more, right.
Speaker 2:So, our church here in Greenville, wide open right On a Sunday morning we may have five to 10% black right and I believe folks that are coming in and out, ours has not become like y'all, brian, 40, 60 or 50, 50, right, but I bring that up to say you know, I believe the white church and the black church, right, we're on time, that the only way we're going to see some real Mississippi change, I believe that's going to last. I mean, I rejoice in some of the education changes. I've seen some of that with the governor, also with economic development, but I believe that there's that coming together. Dutch Sheets is a guy that he actually was in our church there in Philadelphia at one time before we came here, written a book on intercession and intercessory prayer and he's a guy that's shared in Florida about how there is going to be a real move of reconciliation in Mississippi of all places. And so I believe we're making those steps.
Speaker 2:What Mission Mississippi? What? Dolphus Nettie now you as y'all have just kept paving it. Elphys Nettie, now you as y'all have just kept paving it. I believe as we see an outpouring of the Spirit of God, I believe you're going to see harvest and we're going to kind of move into. I'm not one of those pie in the sky that, oh, it's just going to fall in there, but I believe, with what y'all paved the way for, I believe that's where we're headed. I believe when he released that, it was a word from the Lord and that's something we're headed towards. So me growing up in Philadelphia when civil rights murders took place, right.
Speaker 2:But then moving to Greenville where you had the 27 flood, that. So I mean I've read through some of the history there. We actually, on Wednesday mornings, we prayed downtown. There's a hotel that's part of where that property was, that used to be the old levy board. That with the 27 flood, I think the vice president may have come into this area, but you go back and not just with slavery, not just with all the things of plantation life, but when that flood took place there was a major change from this area, racially, right, yeah. And so I'm just saying God, god had me in Philly, he has me in Greenville, and so there's some little things he wants me to see.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, chris, you mentioned this ideal of the coming together the one time a year, and it's good and it's healthy, and I have to always kind of in some ways, I guess, regulate myself and my own you know ambition, so to speak, to want to see unity and oneness in the body of Christ. I want to celebrate those things. I want to say yes and amen. When we get together, when we have these deep conversations and we bring the community together around that, I want to say yes and amen. But oftentimes the tension that I'm faced with is that it feels like that becomes a challenge to wrestle people away from.
Speaker 1:In this sense, we oftentimes confuse progress with completion, and so oftentimes what we will do is there will be a moment, a signature moment, that we celebrate. Hey, look at that, we came together, we had breakfast together, we had lunch together, we had dinner together, we had a dialogue, and that dialogue was really rich and we learned some things about one another that we had never learned concerning one another, and so that's great. And so then, when we come back and we ask the question, have we arrived? A lot of times people will say, well, yeah, I mean, I think we're there. I mean, you know, because we had that thing last year, remember that thing last year that we did and it's like no, don't confuse progress with completion. There's still a tremendous amount of work for us yeah.
Speaker 2:And let me ask you this real honest question with that yeah, do you feel like that response usually comes from the white side, saying oh, we've really come a long way, or would you say it equally comes from both sides?
Speaker 1:Yeah, come a long way, or would you say it equally comes from both sides?
Speaker 1:Yeah, based on and this is, you know, this is not empirical data, so don't so this is more anecdotal, this is just my work across the state.
Speaker 1:I would definitely say that I hear a lot of majority culture thinking in those terms than I do minority culture thinking in those terms, and I think it has a lot to do with positioning. So, for example, when you think about minority culture, there's always not always there's typically a journey towards something being seen, recognized, acknowledged, opportunities being made available. There's a journey towards it. There's a reaching, so to speak, right. And so, because there's a reaching, then they sense that the progress is still on goal right Versus the majority culture. They are in position and there is typically a giving, a sharing of that position, right, and so the minority culture is trying to move towards a position. The majority culture is in position and yielding space for other people to reach that position. And so oftentimes I think again, this is not empirically, this is just anecdotally. I think that's why you hear what you hear some of the some of the time, as it relates to minority versus majority culture.
Speaker 2:That's what I would kind of think. That's why I was asking it that way. And as you're talking through some of that, you know I remember with with Nettie and I guess there's a little tension that because when you're saying, ok, we're, we're not there yet, because when you're saying, okay, we're not there yet we are making progress. There's also a tension in how much time do we spend diving deeper in the relationship, having some dinners together, getting together as families. But also to your other point earlier that we're working together on some community events, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, there's even got to be that balance there right. Yes yes, Because we do want. I mean, the relationships are getting better and getting deeper. Yes, but to bring transformation to a community you've got to be out there casting that vision too. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we put it in three boxes, chris. That's intercession. A family that prays together stays together, and I believe that's not just simply your nuclear family, but I believe that's your extended family and your community families. So families that pray together stay together. So intercession is at the root of all essential and significant movements that we're going to see in the body of Christ and in communities that have their anchors in the church.
Speaker 1:But then information, and that's education, training, coaching, equipping people to do to get along. We say it all the time that the problem is not simply that we don't get along across ethnic lines, cultural lines, political lines. The problem is we don't get along and the ethnicities, cultures and politics just drive those divisions deeper. But there's a relationship, there's a relational deficiency that shapes the divides, and so we have to work on that deficiency. So the information piece is about working on that deficiency and building better capacity and fluency as it relates to how we do relationships. But then the third piece is intervention intervening into local churches, intervening into homes, intervening into communities, and that includes the intercession that we've been doing, the information component of building new relationships and building new networks. It includes going deeper in those relationships, and so all of that we feel like is essential in reconciliation movements. Right, and that's when we talk about the local movements, whether it be in Greenville, which, by God's grace, you know the Lord, is breathing new air, new life.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, New life in the work in Greenville or whether it's other places that we're working. It's all about trying to really, really really nail down those three components of intervention, or intercession, rather information, and then intervention, if that makes sense. Hey, Chris man, this has been a great, great podcast. In fact, we've gone longer than we anticipated.
Speaker 2:I hadn't even been able to keep up with how long we've been going. I knew we were still just getting in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, absolutely. So we may have to bring you on somewhere down the road, for a second podcast. Yeah, let me land the plane by asking you this Okay, you're a second podcast. Yeah, let me let me land the plane by asking you this Okay, what, what? You're a hopeful man. What is really, really really bringing you hope in the city of Greenville, the community of Washington County? What's really really really uh, stirring the flames of hope for you right now?
Speaker 2:I tell you that the three or four pieces and this would kind of, I mentioned sacred space to you, Some whites and blacks coming together from two separate churches, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That kicked in some momentum. The ministerial alliance here that you met, pastor Yates yes, I think I'm the only white guy. That's a part of that white guy, that's a part of that. But there's been a good bridge built with our church with so many of the men and women in that alliance, right as we've done had the tent meeting with Mississippi Mass Choir. We've had two of those events, one down on Broadway at Sacred Space, one out at the mall. But with that alliance, some of those ministers who've been faithful, that intercession side, the first time I went to their meeting they were crying out and praying. It was like an old black spiritual song.
Speaker 2:And I told them. I said, folks, what we're seeing God begin to do, I believe, is directly connected to those prayers. Right, and so now some of those folks who were in the background praying. They're coming on out into the forefront, whether it's feeding down at Sacred Space as an alliance, whether it's helping with these community events or I'd shared with you. We get to host their Bible Institute out here on campus, one of our cottages on a Monday night On that 100 acres.
Speaker 1:Out here on that 100 acres.
Speaker 2:They've been blessed, we've been blessed. They have somewhere from 20 to 30 that they're educating the church, raising the church up to go get it done. So those pieces. But I would also say here now this is compared to Philadelphia, philadelphia being a red county, over there in Neshoba being blue, over here in Greenville, in Washington County, the schools and the government here, I believe, because of some of the black church roots is what I would say they seem to be more open to the church, bringing the influence right.
Speaker 2:You know where the white communities have kind of been. Well, there's that church and state separation. There's all that discussion, right, you know where the white communities have kind of been. Well, there's that church and state separation. There's all that discussion right Over here. It's been like a green light to say if y'all as the church want to bring some money, bring some. So there's an open door. There's some adversaries, right, like the word says. So those are the things. There's almost like a favor on some church leaders, white and black, to say because of that, let's go back, because of the hope that had been lost. They're saying, maybe the church has the answer, brian, how about that? And so they're. Really those would be the pieces right there and then I throw in the sportsplex. I think, as we watch that down the road, it's going to be a neat piece of bringing people together out there in a good, healthy spot, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Chris man, I am so incredibly grateful that God has placed you and your family in Greenville. You are an absolute light to that community and a connector and network in ways. That's bringing a lot of pieces to the puzzle together in one room to navigate through the challenges with hope and with optimism and with light man. And so we are incredibly grateful for the work that the Lord is doing through you. And how can people keep up with Chris Vow and Emanuel Baptist Church? You got websites, social media.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can check us out on Facebook. We do a good bit there with our Emanuel Baptist Greenville. We actually just got on the local radio on Sunday mornings. We were kind of excited about that little piece, and we've got a brand new website that's coming up here in about the next week, right that we've been working on some things. So, emmanuel Baptist Greenville, god's doing some good things in the Delta, you know. One last piece let me throw in there. We're a part of the Mid-Delta Baptist Association and up at Parchman, about an hour from us, god's doing a lot on the campus at Parchman. There's a new chapel that's been built with some private funds. There's the New Orleans Seminary that's equipping some of these guys in there, right. So I just say, man, there's just, there's a new thing that God's doing, and so I guess we all need to choose to either speak life or keep, or keep cursing it all with death, because there's some stuff, good things, coming, amen.
Speaker 1:Amen. Well, I appreciate you continuing to speak, life, brother, and I will join you in doing the same. Join you in doing the same. It's been a pleasure to have my friend and brother, Chris Vowell, on this podcast episode of Living Reconciled. If you need to keep up with what's going on with Living Reconciled, you can do so by going to any podcast app, any podcast site Spotify, Amazon, Google, any of those sites. Click on new subscription or new podcast type in Living Reconciled in the search engine and you will more than likely find us Living Reconciled by Mission Mississippi.
Speaker 1:Again, it's been a pleasure and a privilege to host my friend, Chris Vowell on this episode and we look forward to having our co-host, Nettie Winters and Austin Hoyle back with us. But until then, this is Brian Crawford signing off saying God bless. Thank you, sir. 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 missionmississippiorg or call us at 601-353-6477. Thanks again for listening. Thank you.
