Here are six assertions I heard from the two keynote speakers at Next Church this week, Tali Hairston and Jennifer Harvey. These are the big insights I will be working on mentally and spiritually over the next several months.
From Tali Hairston’s Keynote
Transformational relationships require people with power to be uncomfortable, otherwise we end up with transactional relationships that sustain marginalization.
Trust is required for transformational relationships.
We need lament more than we need confession. Lament produces empathy. Then you can confess.
From Jennifer Harvey’s Keynote
Hospitality is not a survival strategy, and it certainly isn’t justice.
Reconciliation as a paradigm for race is a problem. It rests on an assumption that celebration and appreciation are all that’s needed. It is morally incoherent.
It is urgent for white people in America to identify with peoples of color as “my people” and to “show up” in spaces where we are not in the majority. Not wanting to intrude is a copout that is mostly about our own discomfort.
YoRocko! 
Hello, Rocky, from lament country. I have felt plenty of empathy at church in my lament, and I will try to carry that forward. Thank you for the reminder.