When racial justice comes up in this newsletter, I sense some readers may be asking: Isn’t this out of Renovaré’s wheelhouse? Are you just hopping on the cultural bandwagon? How does this relate to Spiritual Formation?

Perhaps I’m projecting. Maybe something in me is asking those questions. Either way, here’s a response.

Renovaré feels called to engage in conversations about race because we are committed to the renewal of the Church — that’s you and me and the whole people of God.

What needs to be renewed?

Our hearts and our minds. Specifically, our patterns of thinking. We want a ​“mind governed by the Spirit [which] is life and peace” (Rom 8:6).

Renewing old furniture or hardwood floors requires sandpaper. It’s the same with our souls and minds. Layers of build up have to be sanded down, and sometimes the process isn’t pleasant or pretty!

One way to put ourselves on the spiritual sanding table is to listen someone with a different cultural perspective. It helps if they are a safe person, someone who’s allowed their own rough spots to be sanded down. Even so, while listening to them we may find ourselves uncomfortable or defensive. But if we stay with it, if we invite the Holy Spirit to identify the source of our defensiveness, listening in this way can become a space for growth and renewal.

Tina Dyer’s conversation this week with Nathan Foster on the Renovaré Podcast is about as gracious a sanding as one could hope for. Tina shares with honesty and humility her experience of being black, what she wants white people to know, and what her hopes are for the Church and America.

“We need safe people who can create brave spaces,” she says in the conversation, which itself models one of those spaces. This coming week, may you enter and create brave spaces as well, and may your mind and soul be sanded a little more into the image of Jesus.