Sharing Our Stories: Creating Equality

Creating Equality with the love of Jesus Christ
A guest post by Amber Hoopengarner

“So I’m asking you, my friends, that you be joined together in perfect unity—with one heart, one passion, and united in one love. Walk together with one harmonious purpose and you will fill my heart with unbounded joy.” – Philippians 2:2 (TPT)

“I like this church.”

My 12-year-old whispered to me as we listened to the spirit-led worship.

This was our first time visiting a church that was predominantly Caucasian. Usually we attend a church that is mainly filled with African Americans. However, some recent life events led me to explore other churches to see if I could find another place of worship that offered sound Bible based teaching and a children’s program that would allow my kids the opportunity to learn and grow in their faith.

This new church seemed to have all. I enjoyed the praise and worship experience. I felt extremely accepted there. Yet it is not quite “home” where I worshipped with people who look like me and share similar life experiences. I found this feeling of not being home to be strange because of the fact that though people may not look like me here in this White church, I was still worshipping in a church building. So why would it feel different?

As a woman of color, I struggle between loving people the way God has called me to and staying quiet to keep the peace we are to seek. Standing up for those who have been oppressed is what the Bible calls us to do. But, when we decide to actually move in that scripture though, we meet resistance. We are called to love all people, but I realize that for reasons we still have yet to fully know or understand, not everyone will love me or my BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) brothers and sisters the way Jesus Christ has stated in the scripture above.

If the world is going to know and accept Jesus and His free gift of salvation then the church is going to have to unify Black, White, Asian, Indian, Latino and ALL people of color. All of us, regardless of our race, need to be pushing for the same goal: winning souls for Jesus!

We need to be glorifying and adding to the Kingdom of God, teaching people about Jesus, and telling the people in this broken world that there is a Man who is waiting right there to catch them. His name is Jesus Christ.

Let us come together as allies. Let us join hands and walk toward the cross of Christ together, creating equality while bringing along our brothers and sisters as we fight for the cause of Christ. Let us work in unison from our hearts for the kingdom. Let us create equality starting with the love we share of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen?

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Author Bio:

Amber Hoopengarner is a writer and self-published author who is also a Certified Life Coach working with women who suffer from PMADs and children who suffer from mental health disorders.  

She is a Maternal Mental Health Advocate and works to help raise awareness within the church of mental health disorders especially among BIPOC women.

Amber graduated in 2016 from the University of Phoenix with an Associates in Human Services Management and is currently in the process of obtaining her bachelor’s in psychology. She also has certificates in Mental Health Coaching, Bibliotherapy and CBT as well as in Perinatal Mood Anxiety Disorders.

Amber loves God and people! She enjoys making a difference through bringing up issues and challenges that sometimes would not otherwise be addressed. Amber believes that God wants His people to be loved where right where they are while they are working on who He has called them to become.

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Connect with Amber:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/amberwha35/

Sharing Our Stories: Self-control

Striving for Self-Control
A guest post by Marie W. Watts

“For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.”

– 2 Timothy 1:7 ESV

While it sounds simple to deal with others who are different from us in the manner God intended, I continually struggle with this concept.

In the 1990s, while working for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), I had my first contact with a Nigerian. Before this meeting, my slate was clear. I had no opinions—good or bad—about individuals from that country.

Working on his failure to hire complaints was a disaster. He became angry with me because I was not able to prove discrimination. To me, he was rude and sexist.

Sometime later, a friend and I were working on a management training class for a nonprofit. I began to complain about Nigerians, and he said, “Nigerians? Nigerians. I’ve been to their country. They are warm, wonderful people.”

Then it hit me—I was stereotyping! I took everything negative about one individual and piled it on to all who were similar to him. And my job at the EEOC was to stop others from doing the same thing.

Why is it so easy to stereotype even when we intellectually know better and are striving to follow God’s command to love others?

Our brain has a built-in function that allows us to generalize. For instance, this ability is helpful when dealing with a pot of boiling water. Once we learn that we can be burned by the boiling water, we do not have to relearn this fact every time we see a bubbling pot. Just imagine how stressful life would be without our capability to generalize.

We can trip up, however, when dealing with people. Stereotyping keeps us from seeing the individual and all his/her potential. We often handicap that person with stereotypes, never bothering to look further.

Fast forward to the 2000s. The day the AT&T store opened in La Grange, Texas, I was one of the first customers through the door. I was determined to learn all I could about the Galaxy before making the switch from my iPhone.

As I stepped inside, a man I took to be in his 70s approached me with the familiar question, “May I help you?”

My brain began yelling, “Go away, I don’t want to talk to you. You don’t know anything about smartphones! You’re too old.” I caught myself, thank goodness, and realized I was stereotyping.

Turns out, the man who approached me was an AT&T executive in town for the grand opening. He quickly turned me over to a younger individual who came from an out-of-town store to help for the day. I bought the Galaxy and spent some time exploring the features.

Several weeks later, I went back to the store to ask questions. The out-of-towners were gone, and the regular staff (Millennials and Gen-Xs) were there. I found out I knew more about the Galaxy than they did. (By the way, I am in my 60s.) Go figure.

The bottom line: In order to deal lovingly with others, we must continually monitor our tendency to lose self-control.

So, the next time you interact with someone different and began to experience negativity, stop and do a gut check. Has this individual actually done anything to elicit that emotion? Or, is stereotyping controlling your reaction? Only then can you make a conscious choice to act lovingly.

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Author Bio:

Marie W. Watts is a former employment discrimination investigator and human resource consultant with over twenty-five years of experience. In pursuit of justice in the workplace, she’s been from jails to corporate boardrooms seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly of humans at work. 

Her on-the-job observations came in handy when she co-authored a textbook about how to behave at work, Human Relations 4th ed. Additionally, her work has been published in the Texas Bar Journal and the Houston Business Journal as well as featured on Issues Today syndicated to 119 radio stations, NBC San Antonio, Texas, and TAMU-TV in College Station, Texas.

A popular diversity and employment discrimination trainer, Marie has trained thousands of employees to recognize their own biases and prejudices and avoid discriminating against others in the workplace. She has brought her experiences to life in the trilogy Warriors For Equal Rights about the struggles of ordinary people who work at the little-known federal agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

She and her husband live on a ranch in central Texas. In her spare time, she supports a historic house and hangs out with her grandsons. For more information about Marie and her stories about life, visit www.mariewatts.com.

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Connect with Marie:
Bookbub - https://www.bookbub.com/profile/marie-w-watts
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/mariewattsbooks
Twitter - https://twitter.com/MarieWattsBooks
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/mariewattswriter/
Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/marie-w-watts-5b2a2b/

Sharing Our Stories: Introducing the writers

Introducing Roseanna M. White, in her words:

I love to explore ideas. 

Having come out of a college that focuses on philosophy and conversation and the foundational writings of Western civilization, I spend a lot of time thinking about the big questions (some might say too much time, ha ha). I’ve always thought “equality” was important…and that because I wanted it, that meant it was a finished process. I always assumed, in some part of my mind, that the work had been done and we could just walk in it, if only we’d stop focusing on our differences. 

In the last year or so, though, I’ve begun to see that the process of equality is far from complete, and that wanting a thing doesn’t make it so. We have to do the work—continually, tirelessly, without fail, day in and day out. I’ve come to see that it’s not enough to not be something bad—a racist or a bigot or judgmental—we have to actively work against racism or bigotry or prejudice.

I come from an interesting part of the country. West Virginia exists as a state because it remained in the Union (or rejoined it, actually) when Virginia seceded with the Confederacy. But this decision was more political—and the seizing of a loophole that would allow for statehood—than cultural or moral. We’re an interesting jumble of Northern and Southern sentiments and traditions. And we have a bit of a reputation of our own. 

Let’s be honest—when most people hear “West Virginia,” they make a few snap judgments about hillbillies and rednecks and twangs and family feuds. I’ve found, however, that these are judgments I can overcome easily by speaking in a certain way, dressing in a certain way, and behaving in a certain way.

It took me a long time to realize that not all prejudice is equal. Because it can’t all be overcome so easily.

It took me a long time to realize that trying to be “color blind” isn’t in fact helpful, because it doesn’t acknowledge the very real experiences of my neighbors.

My heart was, I think, in the right place. But I regret that, by not seeing the scope of the problem, I may have played into it. That’s the last thing I ever wanted to do. And so, now I’m trying to put aside the mere philosophy and live out the action of actually loving my neighbors, in all our differences. Of walking beside people in their experiences, in their pain, in their joys.

I don’t pretend to have the answers. But I’m eager to be on the journey toward a God-inspired reconciliation. Between different races, different cultures, different churches, all made in the image of God. And when we focus on Him, I have a feeling He’ll show us things about ourselves and each other that we never could have dreamed.

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Author Bio:

Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award nominated author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. 

When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing for WhiteFire Publishing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. 

Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary. 

You can learn more about her and her stories at www.RoseannaMWhite.com.

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Connect with Roseanna:
Blog: https://roseannamwhite.com/blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoseannaMWhite/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/roseannamwhite/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/roseannamwhite/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RoseannaMWhite
Website: https://www.roseannamwhite.com