[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to that Makes Total Sense, a podcast dedicated to exploring God's generosity and justice. I'm Alexis Busetti, a Christian aiming to ask good questions and encouraging you to do the same.
Every one of us is wired by God to live out generosity and justice, but the how sometimes eludes us. That makes Total Sense is a way for us to get together, posture ourselves as learners, and challenge one another to practice generosity and justice in a tangible way every day.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: I am really excited. Christelle, I forgot to ask you if it's still morning where you are. I put this on my calendar, but it is a little bit.
Feels a little bit early for me, but I am thrilled to be talking to you today. Thanks for coming on.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Yes, it's mid morning, which is my sweet spot. So you scheduled this just right, so thank you for that.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: That's amazing because it did not feel just right for me. So that's all right. If one of us is in our sweet spot, that is enough. And I'm more thrilled that it's you then that would be me. But I have had a cup and some change of coffee so I think we'll be good this morning.
I'm so excited to welcome you as a part of this series that we're doing with IVP in conjunction with the partnership that IVP and Made for PACS have with four Bible studies that are releasing over the course of several months. And yours is one of them releasing after the new year called Liberated at the Cross, Peace and Reconciliation in God's Kingdom. And that is going to release actually in English and Spanish, which is unique and wonderful.
And I went through this study on my own and I loved it. So first of all, just thank you so much for writing this and for putting this out there.
It was a real joy to go through. So thank you so much.
[00:02:11] Speaker C: Oh, thank you. That means a lot. I'm glad that you gained something from it.
[00:02:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I did.
This is a study that has video aspects as well, which is really fun. And one of the things that I just. I'm grateful for is that as an author I could tell that you just put so much of yourself into this story, you or into this Bible study, you shared a lot of your own story.
And that was particularly meaningful for me as a reader because not only did I get, you know, to learn a little bit more and share info connected to. To the author, to you in this way, but it also helps for people who are going through the Bible study to think about aspects of their own lives that would connect to these different to These different topics that you bring up, and we'll get to those topics in a little bit, because cruciform living, which is the main thrust of this, is tough. It's a lot to wrap our heads around. So maybe that's where I'll ask you to start, is when we see that liberated at the cross and a study that's focused on peace and reconciliation and we look at the cross, I mean, we almost can't help but quote Paul, right? Like, this just doesn't even make any sense. Like something this brutal and this hard and this ancient for us, what does that have anything to do with liberation or peace or reconciliation, by the way, things that are so needed for us today, even still like this, this just doesn't make any sense. So maybe if you could start by just helping us with, with that concept, because it wasn't that long ago that even that word cruciform was new to me.
[00:04:04] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I think we have a God who is just so full of surprises. I think when we, when we look at God's kingdom, it's very much an upside down kingdom. And, you know, it's even the Bible, the last will be first. The first will be last. You're like, hold up, hold up, hold up. You know, like, this doesn't make sense to us in our, in our frameworks. And I remember actually talking about cruciformity. The first time I ever heard anyone use that word was Ann Voskamp. When I went to the, the if gathering of, like, this was years ago. She gave an incredible message. If you've ever heard Ann Voskamp teach, you know, that she is so deliberate and, and intentional with her wording. And she, her entire message was about cruciformity.
And I was enthralled. I started digging in and realized that the term first came from this man named Michael Gorman, who wrote a book about cruciformity. And it's just, gosh, when you look at the cross, when you think about it, like you said, it is brutal. It was, Jesus died the death of a criminal.
Okay, Like, Jesus, who is God, died the death of a criminal alongside two thieves in exchange for another man who actually was a criminal. And, and it just doesn't seem possible that this is how the story ends. And, and we know as Christians that it's not how the story ends. Right. We know that there's the resurrection and the Ascension and, and one day Jesus will come back. But I think it's important to spend time thinking about the cross. Like we want so badly to get to the victory. And to get to like, no, but he's not dead. But hold on. There's a reason we have Good Friday before we have Easter Resurrection Sunday.
And I think when we really grapple with the gravity of the cross and what it means, it changes us because we realize the incredible sacrifice. I think it means that much more when we're able to wrestle with that, that and we see how in God's upside down kingdom, although the cross looks like a failure, it is a victory. The victory is not just in the resurrection. Although, yeah, that's great and incredible. And that's what makes our, our spiritual life unique from other religions.
But there is also victory in the cross.
And so that is what I was hoping to do with the study was to help people take time to actually think about the cross, what it means, why God used this particular method, bring about new life, to bring about, you know, the, the, the freedom, the liberation that we have from sin and death and evil and, and what it means to us today, how we now are called to live cruciform lives or cross shaped lives, Lives of sacrifice. Romans 12:1 and 2 calls us to be a living sacrifice. Like when you actually think about what it means to be a living sacrifice, that is not easy. That is not an easy call. But that's what we are called to be. Living sacrifices to live cross shaped lives. And that's why we need to spend time thinking about it, studying it, and letting God change our perspective in it.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm really appreciative of that, Christelle, because I think in part what I'm. When you said, you start off by saying this upside down. Kingdom of the first shall be last. And I think for me growing up, I understood and I was taught that the cross was a big deal. So I'll start there.
I knew that. I got that.
However, the emphasis for me growing up was on what it was a big deal, how much of a big deal it was for me and my personal salvation.
Again, hard stop. It is that is true in my context. We went a step further and there was an evangelism piece. So this is very important for me and also for the people that I would meet. This is a very big deal. But it was a big deal in the same way for their personal salvation.
And what I'm grateful that this study of yours emphasizes is that all of those things are true. And when we as people, renewed by the power of the cross and living as living sacrifices, are going about our everyday lives, hopefully we are making impact through the cross and what it means to the people around us. Yes, evangelism is important. And through these other ways that help provide for liberation, that help provide for peace, that help model and provide for reconciliation across the board. And not like, I would say, publicly, communally and individually and in particular ways.
So I think that, I guess.
Let me, let me back up a minute and say this study is divided up into two different kind of sections that each have three sessions.
So the first is on like, it's called Meaning and Method. And so in the meaning section, we have a session on fulfillment, another one on liberation, another one on solidarity, which were so powerful. And then the method, like, okay, we see this, like, theoretically, this is what we're supposed to be looking at. Then it's the, okay, but how.
What do I, you know, what can I do? And those sections are Self Giving, Nonviolent Resistance and Enemy Love, which are all, all of these sessions are personal and communal. So I'm wondering if you can talk about that a little bit like cruciformity in for our own personhood and then also for the greater community, whatever that looks like for us.
[00:10:31] Speaker C: Yeah, well, this is something that's a big deal for me. So what my day to day job is, I'm the discipleship director at our church. It's called Transformation Church. And it's a, an intentionally multi ethnic, multi generational mission shaped church. That's what our vision says.
And we live in South Carolina, which, if you know anything about South Carolina, this is where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. We have a long standing history of racism, slavery, separate segregation and.
And yet God has been so good to help us in forming this church where diversity is a value, but not uniformity. Okay, so we have this unity within our diversity that we claim that we fight for, that we really strive to protect and to have, but not uniformity. And so over the years, as I've been a part of Transformation Church and then had the opportunity to lead in that space, I've seen how important it is to, to have forgiveness. That's one of the sessions you were, you were talking about and to, and to work towards reconciliation. And it's not an easy thing. Like, it's not a Kumbaya. Okay, we're all together now and this is great. Isn't this lovely? No, it actually takes hard conversations. It takes, you know, being together in spaces that are uncomfortable for the goal of reaching true, true camaraderie. You know, it's not just like, okay, we're all just going to sit here in Kumbaya. No, we're all going to sit here and we're going to talk about hard things and we're going to hash it out and then we're going to come out on the other side of it stronger and more united as a result. And something that we talk a lot about is that unity is actually already ours. Sometimes we think we have to, like, strategize or come up with a formula in order to attain unity. No, Jesus did that on the cross.
We have unity now we just have to learn to walk in it. And so that's something that we, that we really emphasize at our church. And that's something that I've had to learn how to work out even in, in my own life. And I think my experience as a Latina, I grew up in Miami with a Latin American family. My family's from Nicaragua, amongst the city of Latin Americans. And something that is universal across Latin Americans, we have a lot of differences. We're not a monolith. We're very different people from different countries and all of that. But something that you see across the board is this emphasis on family and community.
And so I have always grown up with this sense of, like, it's not just about me. It can't just be about me and my individual salvation or my individual faith or my individual relationship with Jesus. Yes, that is important and we ought to nurture that. But it's really about we.
It's about all of us coming together, encouraging one another, praying for one another, sharing our, our gifts with one another, being generous. And so that's why I think I'm such a church girl, because I don't want to do this faith on my own. And listen, I'm an introvert. I love my alone time. Me and my Bible and my cup of coffee and maybe a little candle lit.
But it's in community that I have experienced the most change and the most, like, meaningful wrestling, you know, in my small group with other women, you know, within my small group of teenage girls with, as a staff team, because we do discipleship even as a staff team at our church. Like, it is such a gift to be able to wrestle with our faith in community, to celebrate in community, to learn in community, to be generous in community. And so I'm really grateful for that aspect of my story that I've been able to grow up in a culture that really emphasizes we over me. And then now to be a part of a church that really wants and desires for all people to come to know Jesus and for all people to be a part of God's family.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: Thank you so much for sharing that.
I think that actually kind of dovetails really well into what I'm hoping that we can do for much of our conversation. And I don't want to give, like, complete spoilers, but I would like to touch on maybe each of these sessions a little bit to just kind of give people a taste of what this study is about, because each piece felt really meaningful to me. And it's like, you can't really miss one when you're talking about this. This cruciform life.
And one of the ways that these PACS studies have is in the format of each of them is to give a myth for each, you know, session.
And. And it, you know, to some, it's like, oh, that may sound weird, but I remember 100 years ago reading in this parenting book, so something like one of, you know, one. You know, because I'm. I was trying everything, right? Like, and I still am, but, you know, it was kind of like, what if you say to your kid the opposite or something that's completely off the wall when you're trying to encourage them and doing a chore or a task or building a habit, and then you tell them something completely off the wall, and that basically makes them give or encourages them to give you the better answer or a better answer, you know, and so you're like, I know what we'll do.
You know, and we'll. We'll go in and we'll take. I don't even know. We'll take all of this finger paint, and we'll just put it all over the walls. It's like, that's not what we're supposed to. You know, we're. We're gonna clean the room. Let's pick up the toys or, you know, something silly like that.
But I think thinking about the myths in these, what it did for me was. It was like, oh, some of these are actually.
Even if we don't say them out loud, are kind of the way that we're. At least for me, I'm like, oh, it's kind of. That's kind of the way I'm bent. You know, Like, I think of this, and then it's like, okay, but actually, what is the actual truth here?
[00:17:09] Speaker C: So you.
[00:17:10] Speaker B: You mentioned it when you were like, we have unity, but we're just not walking in it. And so in the first session, which is on fulfillment, talking about, you know, what. What the cross does in that it's paradoxical, which we've already talked about the myth that is named in that is that peace, which is the main focus of the study. Peace comes from our circumstances, not from the cross. And I'm like, oh, my goodness. Even if I don't say that I live that way so much of the time, like, yeah, of course I can have peace. If I. I can have peace. What? When, Crystal? If things are peaceful.
[00:17:48] Speaker C: Yeah, right. When everything's quiet.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: When everything's quiet. Of course that reason is, like, wrong answer. That's not. You know, that's not it. So, like, I don't know, like, riff on that a little bit. Peace comes from our circumstances. Like, hello.
[00:18:02] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, listen, I get it. Again, I mentioned earlier that I'm an introvert, so I value peace and quiet. You know, I just want to sit in my chair. I have a favorite blanket. Like, I want things to be. I even tell my kids sometimes at night, because they get all riled up, and they come into my bedroom and jump on the bed, and I'm like, this is a peaceful place. Okay. This is a quiet place, you know?
But, yeah, I have f. I think I could name that myth because I've believed it, too. I have fallen into that trap of being like, well, when everything is just so, then I will have peace, and then I can be good. But the fact of the matter is, Jesus is our peace. The Bible says that he's the prince of peace, right? And so as long as we have Jesus, we have peace.
Now, we can learn to operate in that, or we can operate in the mess that's happening around us, because really, life is life. There's always going to be something chaotic happening, especially if you have kids, but there's always going to be something happening around. And look at our world, like war and displacement of people. And gosh, there is so much. Even natural disasters, there is so much that is not peaceful.
And so if we keep looking to the world or looking to our circumstances for peace, we are never going to find it. And we're going to be chaotic and have a storm within, just as there is a storm without. But when we learn to really look to Jesus to be our peace, no matter the storm that surrounds us, we can be steady. We can be at peace. We can be that. That steady presence in the lives of. Of others because we're bringing Jesus to them. And so that's a spiritual discipline, I would say, to learn to do that, but I think it is possible, because, like I said, Jesus gave it to us, and he is our peace, and we have Jesus. And so it is possible to live in that and to keep our eyes on that rather than to put our eyes everywhere else.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, too, to think about the communal and to witness that, you know, like you said in the world, that is not. This is not a peaceful place. But to witness the peace that doesn't come from circumstances can be.
Can be a really loving, peaceful witness.
The next session is on liberation, and this one, again, it's just.
Things are just going right one into another, because we were just talking about wars, you know, the things that are happening in our world today.
We. In some of the other conversations that I've had in this series about these studies we have mentioned, you and I talked, when we were talking offline, that many of these were written, you know, a few years ago.
They're still very relevant today. I would say even. Probably even more so in many ways, because a lot of the things that we wrote about this, as far as the circumstance, the culture, what's going on around us, have been.
They are elevated. You know, it feels more concentrated in some ways. And so.
And so this. This myth.
It took me a minute on this liberation piece, but it was. Liberation comes through grand acts of military takeover.
And I'm like, I.
Before we hopped on this call this morning, I just did a quick check of the headlines, you know, and a quick check of the headlines overnight increases.
This, like, what I'm seeing of this myth. We just have to. We have to win. And how are we gonna win? You know, aggressively, violently, by grand, as you. As you say, but also kind of chaotic takeover. It's. It's militarism is how Martin Luther King Jr. Named it as one of those three evils.
And we are seeing.
And we are seeing that today just like we were seeing that a few years ago when these were first being penned.
And we say, yes, of course, that is. That's the story of liberation, is that you fight for it.
[00:22:37] Speaker C: Right. Right. Yeah. So this. I remember this really hit home for me because, like I mentioned earlier, my family is from Nicaragua.
Maybe a lot of people don't know about the history of Nicaragua, but in the 1980s, there was a takeover of the government. So the government that was in place was. Was a dictatorship. Okay. And it was. It was a family dynasty that had been in power for many years. And it was a very, Like, a very conservative, like, put. You know, put your fist down, like, kind of government.
So then this group formed. They were called the Sandinistas.
And they were saying, like, hey, we're. We're for education, literacy, you know, women empowerment, indigenous, indigenous group empowerment. Like we, you know, come alongside us so we can overthrow this government and then we're going to be in power and it's going to be great.
And at first my dad actually was convinced that this was the way and he wanted to be a part of this movement to overthrow the government and install this new government.
Well, they eventually did come to power after a brutal war and it turns out that they were kind of all talk and no walk and they did really horrible, violent things that I won't speak of here, but any, anyone could, could search on it and see some of the terrible things that the Sandinistas have done in Nicaragua. And my dad realized the error and he did not want to be a part of that group anymore. And so he publicly, you know, denounced it. And, and they came after him. And my family, my mom, my sister, I was, my mom was pregnant with me at the time.
And that's why we had to leave Nicaragua is because they attempted to take my dad's life and it wasn't safe for us anymore. And so that's why we left.
And so we see that sometimes, like, oh yeah, if we just take over this or if we just install this government, if we. Man, that is not the way. And we see that even in the time of Jesus, because there was a group called the Zealots and they thought, oh yeah, if we just like take over the Romans and overthrow them, like we'll be good. And they would like, you know, shank people in the crowds. And they were like, they were a violent group, you know, and Jesus came and he didn't do that. And the Zealots were like, what, what are you doing? Like, I thought you were the Messiah. I thought the Messiah was going to be this big military figure coming on a horse and instead he rode on a donkey and he, he preached peace and he preached non violence and he preached love of enemy, you know, not just love of neighbor, love of enemy. And so God's way is not, is not the way that the world thinks and it's not about being all powerful. Although God is all powerful in a, in a different way. Right? It's not about being, you know, overthrowing and using violence and weapons, but it's about leading with peace, leading with non violence. And even as you said, Martin Luther King Jr. Like, that's. Where did he get that, that idea of non violence resistance from scripture, from Jesus. So yeah, we think. You think the military, we think, you know, a big takeover is going to fix things. But as, as is the case we've seen over and over again throughout history, that's not necessarily the case.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: No. Thank you for sharing that story about your family and your family's journey. And I think what stands out to me now in all of this is that we, we don't, we don't have to go there. But I'll just throw it out and say that I think that for as, as people who have grown up in the US we have seen those kinds of things. Maybe, I would say maybe we've paid attention to what happened in Nicaragua and what's happening in different parts of the world, even what's currently happening in different parts of the world. And I think, and I just saw another little story on this in the Times this morning, but I think that American exceptionalism seeps in and we say, well, that's what happens in other places in the world.
But those kinds of things, you know, they just can't happen here.
And, and I think, you know, it's not to be some kind of, you know, fear mongering or something, but it is to say we just have to pay attention, you know, to what's happening and witness this, this kind of life here too.
Because, you know, like you said, that was a perfect example to say it is compelling.
It is compelling. And I think it's not a wrong feeling to say, no, it's going to fix, you know, this is going to fix it. These people have it right. You know, it's compelling.
But the violence and all of that, it's just, it's never going to be that way. It's not going to end up with the promises that we, that we might see. And so I really appreciate you sharing that and, and sharing, you know, what your family has been through and, and the witness that you bear to that, that feels really meaningful to me.
Gosh, Solidarity.
Who? This one is a big one.
This scripture that's associated with this is on the sheep and the goats.
And in this you tell again, you tell a story about the 2016 election and immigrant communities who, their response to the 2016 election. But the myth associated with it is that Jesus isn't really concerned with earthly matters. He's mostly concerned with this spiritual ones.
And, and I think you touched on that. Like the disciples kind of thought so too, right? Like, what are you doing? You're here and you're supposed to be changing things for us here.
You're not, you're not supposed to, like, don't you, you don't get It, Right, right. Like you don't, you don't get it. You're talking about these weird parables and you're doing it. You know, what is this? Like you, you don't get what's really happening. We're in occupied lands right now. We're not being treated well.
And yeah, I mean, I had a, I had a lot of notes on that section, but I'd love to hear about that myth that I think, I think we, I think we still hear and see that, and it is still the bent of some of us is that, you know, it's the spiritual stuff that's important. It's not really the earthly concerns.
[00:29:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean that, that scripture from Matthew and when Jesus is talking about the sheep and the goats, something that he says there is that whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me. And whatever you don't do for the least of these, you don't do for me.
And he talks about, you know, clothing people and feeding people and welcoming people.
And it's hard. Something that my pastor said recently actually is that it's hard for people to hear the gospel if their bellies are hungry and rumbling.
And so we have to be willing to meet physical needs to as an expression of God's love. And that's not, I don't want that to sound like it's transactional, like, okay, I'll feed you, but then you have to listen to the gospel. Okay, you gotta sit down and pay attention and accept Jesus. It's not that, but it's that it's like, how can we freely love people and freely meet people's needs so that they can feel loved? And then maybe they'll inquire like, why are you loving me? Like, why are you doing this for me? Because people don't just do this, you know, and then you can maybe have an opportunity to share. Like man, like God freely loved me and so I want to freely love you. And actually I want to, I want to give an example.
This is not in the Bible study, but our church has a market.
It's basically a free grocery store.
And we feed about 500 families a month through this free grocery store. And we are very intentional to have like name brand items. We don't want dented cans, we don't want the stuff that nobody else wants. We have fresh produce that is actually donated to us by some farmers around here.
And we give this food to these families. And something that we're passionate about is affirming the God given dignity that these Families have not for us to judge why they're in this situation. It's not for us to say, well, now you have to come to service. We actually don't say anything about Transformation Church in this. Like, it just functions as the market.
And we. We're not giving out tracks or church invitations or anything like that. We're just saying, yeah, come shop here. They can do an online order, they can come shop in person. And, like, and we just love them and then send them on their way with their food, you know.
But we actually have had families, like, realize that this is a ministry of Transformation Church. And I remember we were in a Newcomers class that we do at our church every month, and I was just kind of asking people like, oh, yeah, you know, what brought you here to tc? And there was a woman who said, well, I. My family has. We have been recipients of the market. And I was just so blown away by this love. And when I found out that that Transformation Church was. That this was their ministry, like, I wanted to come check it out.
And so I was very encouraged that she shared that because people, you know, people don't have to share that. And people don't have to say, like, oh, yeah, I've been down on my luck and I needed. I needed help. You know, that's. That takes a lot of vulnerability and transparency. But the fact that this woman felt like. Like she. That she could share that and that she wanted us to know, like, that's what that's about. It's that we. We just love people. We meet needs and we go where God calls us to go, and we trust that he's going to work it out some way somehow. And so we don't have to be the saviors. We don't have to make sure that people are. Are now following Jesus, but we trust that the Holy Spirit is going to do a work in their hearts and. And whether it's through us or someone else, another church, another ministry, a neighborhood, they're going to hear the gospel and they're going to come to know his love in a deeper, more meaningful way.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's the scripture. There is so important to just remind ourselves, like, this is what Jesus calls us to. Like, he calls us to love in tangible ways.
Not to just say it, not to just hand out a tract, not to, you know, whatever. And that is, you know, that looks. That can look so many different ways. But the basics of that scripture are food, water, hospital, clothing.
[00:34:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: You know, these very basic needs.
But then that ex. But that extends as well to.
To all of. To all of these other places, because we're embodied people and, and we receive our dignity, as you mentioned, from God. And it's like, yes, it's up to us to make sure that that is perpetuated in the people around us.
Yeah. By just reinforcing that.
That goes, that goes into the next thing. Because there are probably people who heard that in their.
Like, that generosity feels weird.
And it can feel, I mean, like, oh, that's great, you probably have a big church or whatever.
But the next piece here in the study is self giving.
And that is. I mean, the tagline of this podcast is acceptable, exploring God's generosity and justice, which I believe go together.
But that, that generosity piece can sometimes be hard because it. Things feel scarce and, you know, and the myth names that, like, if you give, you just. You won't have enough.
But the cruciform life calls us to a different kind of generosity.
[00:35:44] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. You know, Philippians 2, I looked it up right now. Philippians 2, starting in verse 3, says, do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility. Consider others as more important than yourselves.
Everyone should look not to his own interest, but rather to the interests of others. And then it goes on to this beautiful poem about Jesus and how Jesus did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited, but he emptied himself.
Jesus emptied himself. And then he took on the role of a servant.
God took on the role of a servant. He took on our humanity.
And so we, like, if, if our God can do that, like, that's. He's modeling that for us, we ought to take on the role of a servant. We ought to give of ourselves, but also knowing that God is going to sustain us because we have a God of abundance, we don't have a God of scarcity. We have a God who gives us grace upon grace upon grace.
And so that's why we can give of ourselves so much is because it's out of the overflow of what God has already given to us.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. Two more. These were, I think these were ones that honestly hit me most in our current political climate, current cultural climate, and those are nonviolent resistance and enemy love.
Again, Updates, news headlines overnight. We have had attacks on protesters recently in the last, you know, week or two. We've had a couple.
We're recording this in the. In the early summer of 2025.
But this is also just like the temptation, the temptation to resistance by any means necessary is there right now.
I think a lot of Us feel that we can see it in the headlines.
There's anger. You know, a lot of people are angry, angry at different things, angry on opposing sides of issues, you know, all these kinds of things. And. And we want to do something.
And nonviolent resistance feels. Can feel futile. I think it feels like it's not loud enough, maybe.
And enemy love can feel impossible.
Enemy love can feel impossible. I think the phrase that comes to my mind is like, how can you possibly think that? You know, like, people seeing Facebook posts or, you know, whatever it is, or, you know, something on the news station that is not the news station that, you know, you listen to or the. Or the online paper that you read.
And so being called to those two things. And I will say being called to those two things in active ways, it's easy to say, well, I can hear nonviolent resistance, and I can hear enemy love. And then what that translates to in my life is.
Looks more like apathy or looks more.
[00:39:31] Speaker C: Like.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: An absence of action than to actively say, I'm actively. I'm called to actively resist nonviolently, and I am called to actively love my enemies.
In the enemy love, you talk about forgiveness. And in the other one, the myth is peace. Peacekeeping isn't peacemaking.
And in the enemy love, it's that enemies don't deserve our love or our. Or our forgiveness. And so I'm curious for you, maybe both when you penned this study and even now.
[00:40:22] Speaker C: How.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: How do those things.
How do you relate to both of those now? And as a pastor, how do you encourage folks to relate to both of those aspects now?
[00:40:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think when it comes with the peacekeeping versus peacemaking notion, it's so easy, gosh, to just sit back and not say anything. Like, when you. When you see something's not right or when someone hurts your feelings, even, or just. I'll just sweep it under the rug. You got to keep the peace, you know, but that's not real peace, and that's not. I don't know. That doesn't feel fair to me. You know what I mean? And so I try to model this in my own life. And there have been times when it has blown up in my face, believe me. But I try, whenever there is something uncomfy, to go to the person and tell them to their face and say, this is what's happening.
Let's talk it out, you know, rather than just sweep things under the rug and let me. Like I said, it has blown up in my face at times, or people have chosen to Believe things about me that aren't true because they were put off by what I was saying and no longer wish to engage, which is there. Right?
And then created a narrative in which now I'm this terrible person, which that's fine, you know.
And so that is just a. A word of caution for people. Like, yeah, it's not going to be easy. It might blow up in your face. People might get mad at you. People might not want to be your friend anymore. People might create a narrative in their head that isn't true.
But you, you keep going because it's not. That's not. The point isn't to, like, please everyone.
The point is to be true to who God is and who God has made you to be and to do your best. And we're gonna mess up sometimes there's been times where I've done it the wrong way. You know, I don't do this perfectly at all, but I think it's important to walk with courage in the direction that God has called you to walk, knowing that you might be misunderstood, but.
But at least you're being obedient to what God is calling you to.
Look at Jesus, like, his friends turned on him. You know, people said, like, he was this fake messiah or this fake king, and they mocked him, but he walked in obedience in the direction that God called him to walk.
And so I think that's important.
And then when it comes to enemy, love man, yeah, it's not easy, but that's what God calls. I mean, Jesus says, I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
I didn't write about this in the study because I had this realization later. But I started school. I'm doing the Doctor of Ministry program at Wheaton.
And in my first class, I wrote about the 16th century missions. And I wrote about how, you know, Europeans, Spaniards came to Latin America and they did terrible things, you know, to the indigenous community that was there. And it was brutal to read about.
But then I had this realization that in my bloodline I have both indigenous and European and African American.
I did my ancestor DNA and I got all those three in my DNA. And so I carry the blood of the oppressor and the oppressed.
And something about that realization made me just grow in compassion.
Because the oppressor needs Jesus just as much as the oppressed. Like they're oppressed in their own way because they're oppressed by sin. We're all oppressed by sin.
And so it's almost. I wonder if sometimes, if the oppressor feels like they have to do this. They have to be brutal, they have to be vindictive. They have to do this because they have to retain their power.
And that in itself is an oppression because they think that this power is going to save them, and it's not. It's only going to warp their souls.
And so every person who is alive is oppressed by sin and needs. Jesus needs the gospel in order to achieve true liberation, true freedom, true peace.
And so I think when I made that realization, it just made me grow in compassion. And I think if we all took the time to really think about the hard things that we all walk in, the fact that we're all human, the fact that we're all in need, the fact that we all need grace, I think that will. That will help us in loving our enemies.
[00:45:34] Speaker B: Thank you. Christel. I've got one last question for you, and that is, what is your personal hope for people who would pick up this Bible study? Whether they're, whether they choose to do it as an individual, or if they do this in community, with friends or at church or something else, what is your hope for people who would pick up and engage with Liberated at the Cross?
[00:46:09] Speaker C: I hope that people would fall more in love with Jesus first and foremost, that they would see the sacrifice that he made out of love, not out of obligation, but out of love for them, that they would just fall more in love with Jesus and that they would fix their eyes on Him.
And I also would pray that people would live in true freedom.
That's something that I have felt very burdened about lately, is that even Christians who, who know the Gospel, who have accepted new life in Christ, who have accepted God's forgiveness in a lot of ways, I see a lot of Christians still not living in, in that true freedom, in that true abundance that is available to us.
And I would hope that this would be another step that they can take in shedding old thought patterns, shedding old names or labels people have tried to give them, or maybe they've given themselves, shedding of.
Of attachments that, that we don't need, that don't serve us, and walking in the true freedom, the true liberation that is available to us in Jesus.
[00:47:22] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much.
Again, this is.
The study is called Liberated at the Cross, Peace and Reconciliation in God's Kingdom. It is available in English and in Spanish.
It's up for pre orders right now. There's a video component like all of the other studies in this made for pacs, ibp, Partnership it is visually beautiful, it is thoughtful, it is for everyone, but it is intended, written by and for bipoc Christians and focusing on these perspectives.
And I'm so grateful for it and grateful for this time that you spent with me today. Thank you so much. Christel.
[00:48:13] Speaker C: Thank you for having me. This has been really fun.
[00:48:17] Speaker A: The links for all the resources mentioned in today's episode can be found in the show Notes, music and podcast production by Seth Buscetti. Be sure to get give us a review on itunes and subscribe at your favorite podcast listening app. You can also Visit
[email protected].
[00:48:51] Speaker B: Sam.
