Description

Join Missio Alliance National Director, JR Rozko, and James Talbert, Lead Pastor of Citizens Akron, a Missio Alliance partner church, for an 8-week interactive discussion through this important book.

Issues of race and racism are intimately tied to the gospel. In fact, they posed one of the most fundamental obstacles to the early church. Writing to the church in Ephesus, Paul is speaking to the racial issue of his day – hostility between Jews and Gentiles – when he says,

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Jesus is the great reconciler – in and through him a new humanity is made possible!

But stepping into that reality, allowing the Holy Spirit to bring this new humanity together, is neither simple nor easy. It takes intentionality, patience, and humility to let God expose us to all the ways our culture (which sadly often includes our religious culture) inclines us toward racial bias and prejudice.

This is true for all people, but inasmuch as the landscape of American Christianity has mainly been shaped by white people, there is a special conversation to be had about those realities and challenges.

This book discussion is meant to press into that conversation specifically.

Following the story, insights, and spiritual journey of Daniel Hill, pastor of River City Community Church in Chicago, we want to have a shared conversation about what it means to be white in today’s context and culture. We want to do this for the sake of our own understanding and maturity, but ultimately we want to engage in this conversation for the ways God might use it to advance racial reconciliation and justice as concrete expressions of his good news!

How to Participate

This Roundtable Book Discussion will feature 8 weekly discussions on Thursdays from 2pm-3pm (EST) from January 10 – February 28.

Here’s what to do:

1. Purchase a registration slot.* You’ll immediately be registered for the video calls by Zoom. Make sure you have a computer or mobile device that can run the app.
2. Order you copy of White Awake from our partners at InterVarsity Press.
   Use code AWAKE50 to get 50% off the print or e-book
3. Read the section assigned for each week.
4. Come to meeting prepared to share your questions and insights.
5. Can’t make it to the call? A recording will be made available the week after.

* Registration is limited to the first 25 people. 

Schedule

JR Rozko | JR has spent most of his working life serving simultaneously in local churches as a pastor and in theological education as a program innovator and teacher. His main interests and passions revolve around helping the Western Church develop missional perspectives and instincts, especially through greater awareness of and engagement with Church leaders outside the dominant culture. Helping to create new networks, partnerships, conversations, and resources that embody and advance the good news of God’s mission of reconciliation is at the center of JR’s personal sense of call.

JR has a Doctorate in Missiology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He, his wife Amy, and their three kiddos, Aubrey, Junia, and Aidan live in Canton, OH. JR is an ordained deacon in C4SO, a diocese of the Anglican Church in North America.

James Talbert | James grew up in the Apostolic Church hearing about Jesus his whole life. As a church boy he knew all the right things to say, but that almost never translated into doing the right things. As a teenager at a church camp in Pennsylvania he would hear a word that would forever change his life; grace. From that moment on James has lived a life in love with God who saved him because of his great grace. James and his wife Julia live in Akron with their beautiful daughter Jada, and seek to live out the gospel in tangible ways in their neighborhood. James studied Youth and Education Ministries at Malone University and Theological Studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. James joyfully serves as the Lead Pastor of Citizens Akron Church, in Akron, Ohio.

Thanks to Our Co-Sponsoring Partners