As a young kid you could have called me racist. I didn’t like white people. I didn’t trust white people. I didn’t want to be around white people. And I was an angry young man. But when Christ came into my life, my whole world changed…”
—Charles Ware, President of Crossroads Bible College
If you had the opportunity to meet with Charles Ware, eminent Christian leader, educator, and national speaker in the area of race relations, you’d soon figure out that he is maybe the furthest thing from a racist. It is over for him. It’s just that Ware, like New Testament Paul pushes on to what is ahead, and does not look back.
For Ware, what is ahead is world without racism. Without discrimination. Without bias. He and other members of the panel UNITE INDY assembled to discuss race relations in our city, work toward that goal every day.
If you want to feel really great about the city you live in watch the video of this panel discussion. What was uncovered shows the heart of Indianapolis, and it is so much bigger than you might have thought.
Phillip Burton, is the downtown Commander of the Indianapolis Police Department. With 27 years of law enforcement under his belt, he could be a bad guy to run into if you run afoul of the law. But Burton is a champion of efforts to teach, mentor and lead disadvantaged youths away from negative influences and into good life choices and practical job experiences. Through Commander Burton, you’ll see a side of our IMPD officers that might surprise you and will certainly make you proud.
The revelation is that the biggest inner-city problems are born not of race, but of generational poverty. Cindy Palmer, who mentors and provides housing for women with children through Heart Change Ministry and Covenant Community Housing confronts this reality every day.
She says that all too often children who have grown up in generational poverty do not have an opportunity to learn the soft skills that employers look for in a job applicant, they grow to adulthood knowing little about how to support the young families they often produce. Their value in God’s eyes is unknown to them, and her mission is to help them recover these and other skills that can improve their lives and the lives of their children.
As pastor of Light of the World Christian Church as well as Deputy Mayor of Indianapolis, David Hampton, like Commander Burton, sees the need for positive male role models and works tirelessly to secure summer jobs for inner city kids. Says Hampton, “…anytime there’s a breakdown in the family structure in terms of a father not being in the home…there are adverse effects on the children—regardless of race.”
Toby Miller, who is president of the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee’s Race & Cultural Relations Leadership Network, is a linebacker on the team of creating positive relations between diverse groups. He’s a guy who works in the crises if he has to, but getting to the source of problems is his most heartfelt commitment. At a summer camp recently he overheard some young black children saying, “We may be black, but we can be successful.” His heart broke. Said Miller, “As if blackness is a liability they have to overcome.”
The problem is that even if YOU don’t think that way—THEY think that way. And if THEY think that way, the world is giving them that message—somehow it is. We need to get together. We have terrific leaders. But there is so much more to be done. People of good will, people who love God, each of us must start this conversation on a personal level with someone who needs our help.
Watch this video. I promise you’ll love it and learn so much. Go to the volunteer section of the UNITE INDY web site and sign up for a project. Get your church involved. Move! We have to move. We cannot afford to lose the brains, the energy or the potential of another generation. We too can change someone’s whole world through the Christ who changed Charles Ware. It happens every day.
—Nancy
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