(This is part two of that conversation with Chris Cobbler, Nelly Latchman, Kellen Brooks, Josh Bowers and myself).

There is a revolution going on. Down the streets and sidewalks of many cities people have been marching with a cry for justice, freedom and the overthrow of oppressors.

In case you are rolling your eyes and being dismissive of what’s going on, I want to draw attention to one key thing.

The thing we should not overlook is that the cry is real to the ones who are hurting. There are plenty of people that are angry with the way the world is and are crying out for change.

This is not a new cry, but it may one that your ears are picking up in a deeper way.

I was involved in a local conversation shortly after the death of George Floyd under the knee of officer Derek Chauvin. Christopher Cobbler and I gathered a mixed-race panel of pastors from Windsor and Detroit to talk about the black-white divide.

Because Windsor is a border city to Detroit, we likely have an enhanced perspective on America’s history of oppression against black slaves. Border cities are also part of the Underground Railroad where American slaves escaped. Harriet Tubman called Canada ‘The Promised Land’ and at that time, it was an escape from slavery’s tyranny.

That does not mean that Canada has not had its own struggles with racial tension; that is an unfortunate part of human nature that surfaces in every nation and every generation.

Most of us in this conversation are Pentecostals and it’s fascinating to think about the Pentecostal revival that began on Azuza Street in Los Angeles from 1906-1915. Pastor William Seymour was a one-eyed black man that had suffered a life of humiliating racism and oppression and yet his cry was not for vengeance, but for God’s Spirit to be poured out on all flesh. That’s what the Good Book prophesied would happen in the last days and just like that first Upper Room outpouring, multiple nations were unified by the Spirit. There was a supernatural ability to talk in a life-giving way to all nations at Pentecost and a coming together of multiple nationalities at Azuza Street.

As we ponder the answer to racial tensions, let’s be like William Seymour and pray that God would have his way with us. The cry for justice on the sidewalk is the angry cry of the oppressed. God hears that cry. Do you?

Let’s look at our own city and be looking and praying for every opportunity to build a bridge of reconciliation.

Consider The Prayer of St. Francis.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is offense, let me bring forgiveness.
Where there is discord, let me bring union.
Where there is error, let me bring truth.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.
O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love,
for it is in giving that one receives,
it is in self-forgetting that one finds,
it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,
it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

Amen to that.