125 | A Conversation about Justice & Racism with Paul Hurckman
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FATHERS FOR THE FATHERLESS
- Join a team of 100 dads biking 100 miles and raising $100,000 for the fatherless locally and globally.
- OUR MISSION: End fatherlessness globally. Every child with a man they can call father. (Malachi 4:6a “He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents”)
- VISION: We ignite a father’s calling by connecting him body and soul with the cause of the fatherless and the heart of the Father. FATHERS FOR THE FATHERLESS will change your life by forcing you to look past yourself. On the one weekend when it’s easiest to sit home and consume, we’re going to push ourselves, cycling 100 miles, in response to our Heavenly Father’s heart for the Fatherless.
- DATE: Saturday, August 29, 2020
- MORE INFO: http://bit.ly/F4F2020
Paul Hurckman
Paul Hurckman is the Executive Director of Venture, a faith-based justice organization that does “tough things for people in tough places” around the world. Venture allows people to raise money through biking, hiking and running for justice and missions projects like refugee care, human trafficking and extreme poverty. Paul and his wife Candace live in North Minneapolis with their 5 kids.
Conversation Notes
- 6:16 - Paul’s family and foster story.
- 8:28 - Fathers for the Fatherless bike ride http://bit.ly/F4F2020
- 8:57 - Venture (https://venture.org/) - Justice for the unreached - Four focuses: Human trafficking, refugee crisis, extreme poverty and oppression or persecution specifically around the church and in Christianity.
- 11:05 - Being dads who lead on the home front in this topic
- 12:08 - “Can we be dads who have courageous conversations? Because I believe God smiles when he sees dads press into the uneasy.”
- 12:30 - How to explain racism to my 6yr old.
- 13:11 - Should I talk about this? “that very question is a question of privilege. Now when I say privilege, I'm not being condescending for the listeners. I am a white man and I have both white and black children. My wife is both white and Native American so we have layers that we are always considering in the conversation, but when you say, should I? I don't know if there are many communities where they don't get that option of the ideal time to talk about something.”
- 15:42 - “They know clearly where we stand and they know that it's because the Gospel invites us to something different. I will tell you this my kids don't know if we vote red or blue or donkey or elephant they don't know the names of our congressmen, but they know clearly what we believe about dignity equality equity, and when that isn't happening, that mom and dad are going to try to show up so that's the start of the conversation for us.”
- 17:17 - How do we help our kids help our kids understand God's heart for justice?
- 18:16 - “One of the problems why our society and our culture and humanity has a problem is we don't have agreed-upon baseline. As Christ followers we have an agreed-upon baseline, and that's the kingdom as we see in scripture. And so as we have been discipling our kids on the kingdom in scripture, it provides access to how we talk about different things. So justice, I know, can be somewhat polarizing. I get it. It feels like it's co-opted by one side or the other side, or by the urban or by the suburban, or by the red or by the blue, or by the donkey or by the elephant, or by the Evangelical or by the Catholic, or by the this or the that, it's not any of those things. When we, as Christ followers, we're like no this a really clear Kingdom principle. It's talked about 2500 times in Scripture. This is not for some people at some places in time or some ministries in the church, but it's for all of us as Christ followers to understand that because of our relationship with Christ, we are intimately linked to his design and that design was never meant to just be us and Jesus.”
- 19:14 - “The church is supposed to do something when there are systemic problems, you can fight me up and down, but theologically it is airtight. This is part of what we're supposed to be doing.”
- 20:20 - Matthew 7:3 - “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?
- 21:14 - What encouragement would you have to help keep a dad in learning leading versus passive?
- 22:30 - “If we would approach conversations of justice and race in that same way [as having a new baby] not because you have a black or a white child, but because scripture clearly invites us and we cannot disciple our kids without helping them understand race. If we can if we can address this in a way that this is not optional, but it's mission-critical to the kingdom, then what I would say is you're gonna make a mistake.”
- 23:24 - Practice being a person of peace.
- 23:23 - Training our kids to make the changes in the systemic injustice
- 24:08 - Being a person of peace. Being intention about conversations.
- 24:35 - How can we choose to press in?
- 25:35 - “If we wait until we have the answers we'll never engage.”
- 26:45 - Philippians 3 - Equality with God not something to be gained.
- 27:18 - “If you read the text enough and know what Jesus did, you're gonna find the answers to what you're supposed to do with your kids and your kids friends, and if you do it right, all of your kids friends won't look just like them and it's really important that you're ready for that.”
- 30:12 - “Paralysis is from Satan. I know it's tough. I know you feel stuck. I know you want to do it the right way. I know you love your kids and I would assume a majority of people listening do not identify as racist and are trying to root out any of those things, but the moment that you back away because you can, you are complicit in a system that hasn't stood up and had a voice. You have a voice with your kids. You are responsible with your kids. Use that voice. If you don't want to explain to them out of the blue then don't have it be out of the blue. Figure out a life rhythm where you're explaining what you're already doing…”
- 32:06 - “Nothing will change just because you feel bad….If you're not going to have paralysis, then you also have to have grace on yourself and other people. You can be right and you can try to make a point, or you can make a difference. You can spend all of your time being right on social media, or you can leave the digital space and enter into your community and have stories for your kids of what it looks like for mom and dad to be a neighbor.”
- 33:18 - “I don't think Satan wants you to be a racist. I don't think that propels the ideology. I think he wants you to be lukewarm, to feel bad, and do nothing, when the kingdom invites us to be a neighbor.” - Story of the Good Samaritan
- 36:53 - Heb 10:39 - But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
Links:
- Video of this conversation - https://youtu.be/IwxScM_V-u8
- FATHERS FOR THE FATHERLESS bike ride http://bit.ly/F4F2020
- Venture (https://venture.org/