Building the Beloved Community: an Interview with Dr. Charles Montgomery

In this thought-provoking episode, we explore the “beloved community” with Dr. Charles Montgomery. Framing a theological case for reconciliation, Dr. Montgomery describes the spectrum from denial to polarization to minimization to acceptance to adaptation, in which we move from a monocultural mindset to a Kingdom-oriented interculturalism. This, he asserts, is simply a part of discipleship. Besides being a pastor, spiritual director, and diversity consultant, Dr. Montgomery’s rich background includes a B.A. in Mathematics from Morehouse, a Master of Divinity from Emory University and a PhD in Ethical and Creative Leadership from Union Institute University.

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Transcript

When Christ does this prayer in the book of John, and he says, "I pray that they might be one, Father as you and I are one." But he says, "The reason why I want to do that is that so that the world might believe who Jesus is, and that God has sent Christ into the world to save them." Oftentimes, we ask the Lord to answer our prayers. What does it mean for us to answer one of his? 

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Welcome to the Elemental Leaders Podcast. My name is Paul, and I am here with Charles Montgomery. I'm pretty excited about this. This has been on the calendar for a while. Let me just give you a quick introduction. Dr. Charles Montgomery serves as the Association Strategic Coordinator for Vineyard USA. He's also the teaching pastor at Columbus Vineyard. Love to listen to him preach. He founded a successful multi-ethnic campus. You've been there since 2012. Is that right? Yes, sir. His passion kind of orbits around this idea of beloved communities. We're going to talk about that. It's an idea espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King. It's an idea that Charles has embraced and embodied in his own life and ministry. We're going to talk about the fact that he got a BA in mathematics from Morehouse University, and I'm super curious as to why mathematics. He's got a master's in divinity from Emory University, a PhD in ethical and creative leadership from Union Institute University. He's got several credentials in leadership, diversity training, probably more important than anything. His childhood crush, I'd love to know how this all happened. At some point in history, became his wife. Oh, yes. And then I just hate to mention this because they are so ranked, so much better than Notre Dame University. He's a Buckeye fan. Both he and Kimberly are Buckeye fans. They make their home in Columbus, Ohio. Congratulations to you and an excellent season with the Buckeyes because Notre Dame is struggling. Dr. Charles Montgomery, welcome. You doing good, sir? 

God bless you. It's awesome to be here. And of course, go Bucs. 

Go Bucs. They've been impressive to watch and they did beat Notre Dame. We're not going to say by how much because it's still too painful. I don't want to talk about it. That's not why we're here. Can you just give us a real quick back story? Who was Dr. Charles Montgomery before Dr. Charles Montgomery was who you are? 

Sure. Again, just thanks for having me. It's just a privilege to be here. Charles Montgomery, Jr. is a young man from the streets of Youngstown, Ohio, a steel mill town here where I'm at in the state of Ohio. And Mother and Father Divorce when I was one year old. And my mom moved to Columbus, Ohio, seven years later when I was eight years old. And so I shuttled between Youngstown and Columbus, my entire childhood. I actually did a project in my freshman year of college that pretty much to the week I was like nine years with my mom and nine years with my dad. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Before going to college at Morehouse, which is a Baptist school, grew up in the fundamentalist Baptist Church, Black Baptist Church in Youngstown. And I found another one in Columbus shuttled between those two churches, ran from the call of ministry for as long as I can. I remember in my childhood, it was something I did not want to do at all. Instead, I actually went the opposite direction, not so much morally, but vocationally. I actually went to the sciences. You know, I wanted to pursue, I wanted to get paid, man. I want to do some great, you know, and there was a great, I could do. I wasn't really passionate about it, but I could do sciences pretty well. So I went to college and did a program, a 3-2 program in mathematics and industrial engineering. 

Okay. Yeah. So did that at Morehouse and came out and went to NASA in Los Angeles, California, Pasadena Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It's one of the NASA centers that's known for creating the satellites. Okay. Interesting. And it was in that time, I had a crisis of belief at that point, where I was still struggling with the call. And one day I was sitting in a fundamentalist Baptist Church again. In Pasadena, California. And there was a gentleman that I looked up to that went to Fuller, who had been, I guess, influenced by Vineyard ministry. And he would do some really strange things in this fundamentalist Baptist Church, like call people to the altar and lay hands on them when prey and the deacons didn't like that. But one thing he did do when I was in the service was he pointed me out and he said, "This young man right here, the prophetic anointing upon you, stop running for ministry." Wow. I was a little bit hard headed. And I said, "No, you have to make it crystal clear to me, Lord." And I said, "That wasn't clear enough." And my own myopic worldview, two days later, there was something in Los Angeles, California called an earthquake that may have lasted for about seven seconds. For me, it was an eternity. And it was during that time, I said, "Lord, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe." And so I accepted the call to ministry. And I heard God very clearly saying that I have not called you to launch rockets. I've called you to launch people. Come on now. And when seminary and university got involved in ministry and the rest is history. 

That is fantastic. I've known you a few years now and I haven't really gone deep on that end of your back story. That's really good. Thank you for sharing. And that answers the question. And mathematics, let me just ask kind of a side question on that note. I know that we have a lot of people who are in ministry that wrestle with the idea of calling. Like, how do you know if you're called?

Yeah, I had a mentor of mine that shared with me when I had a case of the I can't help its. When you've tried to do absolutely everything else that you can do, but there is this burning inside of you in such a way that I can't help but do this. And when that sense of passion becomes intersected with purpose in your life, I think that that is definitely something to get to pay attention to in terms of calling with ministry. 

Yeah, that's really good. I heard one person say it this way. They said, if it's one of the only things that you think about after you're done thinking about things, then there's probably something there that you ought to pay attention to. One of the credentials, one of the pathways of training that you were on, you earned several different credentials in diversity training. This is an important part of your life. In one of the bios that I read, there was a link to this idea of beloved community, which I hadn't heard in a long time. I knew what it was, but I don't want to assume that everyone who's listening on the other end of this conversation knows what  beloved community is. Can you just explain what that is and why is your heart wrapped around that idea? 

I need to be very careful in the sense of I can give you my point of view in terms of what beloved community happens to be. But it was a concept that was coined by a gentleman by the name of Josiah Royce. And it was actually picked up and probably popularized by Dr. King. This whole notion of beloved community, and it's not this ethereal esoteric pie in the sky type of ideal in that sense, but it's really practical. For me, beloved community is actually, for me, I would say critical masses of people that are committed to pursuing and practicing the philosophy of reconciliation so that God's kingdom will come and God's will will be done on earth as is in heaven. Now in saying that, it's really centered around this notion of reconciliation. We have to define what reconciliation is. And so for me, even that, it's an ongoing spiritual process of healing and restoration of broken relationships and systems and structures so that the world will be restored to what God intended it to be where all of creation would flourish. And so in that sense, when you're talking about beloved community, you're talking about, when I say critical masses of people, you're talking about people in their contexts that are coming together and are literally saying, "You know what? We are going to practice. We're going to pursue this philosophy in our given context. We are going to pursue reconciliation. We are going to identify where there are broken systems, where there are broken structures, where there are broken relationships. And we're going to work within our means to be able to try to heal those things so that again, everyone around us can be able to flourish. And so for me, that's what beloved community is.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you for the clarity. The question I want to ask is really just kind of where does it get sideways? Because as you were speaking, I would imagine that our listeners, as I was, was just falling in love with this idea saying, "Yes, that's the dream. That's the dream." Reconciliation is a major theme in Scripture, and then it plays itself out in all the different spaces that we inhabit. And so we're shaking our head in agreement, but we recognize that things get sideways. So more specifically, let me ask this question. What specific challenges are you seeing that prevent us from achieving that?

When you're talking about the whole notion of reconciliation, you're talking about brokenness, the reality that we live in a broken world, according to at least the way that the lens in which I personally see the world, that we live in a fallen world, we live where there's a lot of brokenness around this. There's a lot of brokenness in us, in that sense that we are broken people. And so for me, the speed bumps exist when it comes to individuals, the fact that we're broken people, in that sense. And so we always, when you come to reconciliation, have to always take an honest look within ourselves and begin to see where are the areas in which I'm broken, and how do I work on my own healing? You have to look at where are my families broken, where are my relationships broken? I mean, just getting beyond that, just getting to that in that sense makes it no difficult. So it's really individually, I think that in a person with a relationship, as I was saying, in a person is really tough in that sense that a lot of us that are in this world, a matter of fact, I was just talking to someone last night that is a leading authority in terms of reconciliation, they were talking about how difficult they were having some relationships in their family. And just how it was interesting as they were talking about being on the front lines of reconciliation yet in terms of dealing with some things within their family, they had a need for reconciliation themselves. So you've got some things interpersonally, you know, as well, I think that makes it difficult and then institutionally. There are systems, there are structures that are in this world that are designed to really be diametrically opposed to this whole velocity for reconciliation. I mean, the whole notion of selfishness, the whole notion of caste in terms of being able to the person on top, the man and woman on top and being able to stay on top. In that sense, I mean, there are systems and structures of history, histories of that, that are compounded to the point when you're talking about, you know, why are things the way they are? You know, you have institutions and systems that are put in place that actually militate against this whole notion of love and community. And for those of us who are spiritual, in that sense, we recognize that there is another team on the field, you know, we're talking about the purpose of reconciliation so that all of creation could flourish. There is another team on the field. There are demonic forces that militate against us doing that. So again, I would go back to saying individually is a speed bump. Interpersonally we have speed bumps with one another and institutionally in terms of systems and structures that are put in place, some spiritual, some are man made in that sense to militate against this whole notion of love and community. 

Now, I love the pathway you took in answering that question, Charles, because I think that oftentimes, at least in today's culture, when I ask a question about reconciliation, the answer typically orbits around black and white. I think that sometimes we're missing it, that it's not so much about reconciling between ethnic groups, right? Or ethnic, you know. It's so much larger. It's so much larger. Can you speak to that a little bit?

Well, you know, certainly when we look in, look at the whole notion of brokenness, you have to ask the question, you know, what's broken around us. And so that does include race, that does include ethnicity, it does include gender, it does include financial systems, it does include areas of justice in that sense. If you were any injustice, it's so much larger when we talk about reconciling. We have to define around us and in our context what is broken. And you're right, Paul, that oftentimes people go to this whole notion of race, ethnicity, and that certainly is a part of it. But I am finding that when you step back and you're able to look at the whole notion of brokenness, you begin to start to follow a path in terms of being able to say, "How does my context or what I'm looking at is broken? How do I form that? How do I look at that as a principle?" And once I begin to look at that as a principle, then when you start talking about notions of race and ethnicity and those type of things, you kind of have a common ground where you can begin from, you know, to begin to say, "I'm not just talking about this because, you know, I'm militating against you or because I'm against you or because I'm looking at an injustice. I'm looking at this because in the final analysis, you know, we want to be whole. We want to be in a position in which all of creation can flourish and that there's something in my context that suggests that's not happening." Then I can oftentimes begin to share with somebody that's on the other side of the divide what we're trying to do so that once we go back to the principles in that sense, it can begin to start to help us to form some steps that's going to help all of us to be able to get this notion of reconciliation.

You know, I think about my marriage, right? Yeah, there you go. When I really begin to understand being reconciled to God, understanding my brokenness, understanding how my responses oftentimes come out of my brokenness and oftentimes those responses are directed to the one that we love the most. And then I go for a run and I think, "Why did I respond that way? Where did that come from?" The conversation is... 

And what was the impact? And what was the impact on that? 

100%. Yeah. Oftentimes, my time with God orbits around the business that I need to do with him before I can do business reconciling with her. The idea is so much bigger, although it is very much inclusive of the ethnic divide that is present. Where have you seen this working well in the church? Talk about that a little bit. 

I think that churches that have a sense of clear focus on a few areas have a little bit of an advantage in terms of walking this pathway and that sense of reconciliation. One is that churches that are embracing dependence, you know, only God can bring reconciliation ultimately to fruition. It was an idea in the mind of God. And I'll say this because oftentimes people say that there cannot be any reconciliation until there's conciliation. So they'll say that, for example, "Well, was there ever a time where we experienced reconciliation and always take people back to theologically in the beginning when God created the heaven and the earth that we were experiencing before the fall?" In that sense, we were actually in right relationship with God. And so because it's God's desire to be in right relationship with us and sending Jesus Christ to heal a broken world in that sense, when we're actually saying we're walking this path, we're actually saying, "Lord, this is in your will." And because this is in your will and we're broken people, we have to embrace the dependence upon the spirit of God. I think the churches that look in their context, they look at taking intentional steps towards recognizing that they recognize that we just don't stumble into this. You know, we have to take intentional steps. So churches that are doing that by looking at how do I empower diverse leadership? How am I developing cross-cultural relationships? How are we pursuing cross-cultural competence? How are we promoting a spirit of inclusion? How are we mobilizing for impact? You know, these type of principles, churches that begin to start looking at things like that and beginning to say, "How are we developing strategies?" I think are a little bit further along the pathway. Some of the churches that I've seen and none of us are perfect in trying to get there, some of the churches I've seen, irrespective of what one's doctrine might be in that sense, the people that are really serious about probably West Coast, I'm thinking about churches like Quest Church with Pastor Gail Bantum, that they actually have a reconciliation ministry in which they look at their context and say, "How do we address the brokenness around this?" I think that she's doing that well. There's probably several other churches that can be fellowship. Manrovia, that's out of Manrovia, California. I've been over to Colorado Community Church, Rob Galena, South End Denver. Certainly we took our vineyard pastors a few years ago to see Bridgeway Community Church with Dave Anderson that talks about this notion of gracism, G-R-A-C-I-S-M, if my phonetics are correct, I don't know, sure. But again, these are churches that have literally began to say, "Let's look at our context. Let's look at the brokenness around us and how we're going to look at taking the intentional steps to begin to move towards reconciliation." So those are some of the places I've seen and some of the steps that some of these churches have taken.

So let me do a little case study here. I didn't go to a seminary. I went to college, a regular state college, and I just learned ministry along the way over the last 25 years. So I'm a senior pastor in a church. This is the case study, and you've got a couple of minutes to just build out a framework for me. Let's talk about ethnic diversity. I see the value in it. I get it. I'm shaking my head in affirmation. I want to make it happen. How would you coach me if you had the next three minutes? 

Next three minutes to do that. Wow. Yeah, I think it's important to any time we're talking about this whole notion of ethnic diversity that you have to build in your mind that it is a function of discipleship. That when Christ talks about the whole notion of great commission, go you there for and teach all nations, baptizing the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to do everything I've commanded to you, and lo I am with you always and even to the end of the age, that this whole notion of going there for and teaching all nations, this Greek word is ethnos in that sense. And so when we're looking at this, we're literally talking about being on mission, joining Christ on Christ mission in terms of reaching increasingly more amounts of people with the love of Christ. And so how do you disciple people towards that? I think that's super important that this is not an ad hoc. This is not a elective, if you will, in Christ school of discipleship, that this is really the main in the plain. And that says, I think that's something that's super important in terms of doing that for the church in and of itself. I think that it's going to be very important to disciple people to move from what's called a monocultural mindset to an intercultural mindset, monocultural in the sense that I'm just thinking and looking at my own culture, my own upbringing in that sense and moving them to an intercultural mindset in that sense where people have the skills, the passion, the wherewithal to be able to interact with different cultures, different ethnicities around them. 

So in terms of a framework, it's not actually mine, but actually the Intercultural Development Institute has a really cool framework that I really commend to leaders in that sense. And it's really moving people from monoculturalism to interculturalism. And so it starts off in that sense of being able to recognize and identify where you might be on that continuum. So you might be somebody that is in denial. You just feel like there are no differences. We all just love Jesus and there's no notion or differences between it. They just deny things. And you've got people that are more so along the continuum. They're dealing with polarization. They're polarized. You know that there are differences. And so you judge the differences. It's us against them. Then you have people that deal with something called minimization where you are de-emphasizing the differences where you are saying, "Okay, we know that there are differences, but Jesus will fix everything after all." So kumbaya when the kingdom comes. So you've got minimization. You've got acceptance where you're saying that, "You know what? There are differences. I recognize what they are. And so therefore I'm going to be committed to do something about it." And then you've got adaptation where persons are literally becoming equipped to say, "I'm going to continue to do what I can in my context to make a difference." So for me, what I would do from a framework is I would say, "How do you move people from denial, through polarization, through minimization, through acceptance, and through adaptation?" It's beginning to actually take critical steps to move along that framework so that when you get the adaptation, you form an intercultural mindset where people are actually becoming equipped to move and work between different cultures. When your church is able to get to that point, your leaders are able to get to that point. I think that's when you begin to yield the fruit that people are desiring to have.

No, that's good. And bro, I think that was probably three minutes. So well played. I'm striving, brother. I'm striving. What's the name of the organization or the site that you're referring to? 

Yeah. So I believe that it's the Intercultural Development Institute. So if you would Google the Intercultural Development Inventory, this continuum should pop right up. And the reason, Paul, why I'm thinking that this is great is because, again, when we talk about reconciliation, we're looking at, in beloved community, we're looking at you developing that within your context. And so it's important to be able to look at where I happen to be as a person, where my leadership is at, where my church happens to be. And I think that this is an excellent step in terms of not just identifying that, but then also beginning to say, what are the critical steps I need to take to move from step to step along the continuum? 

You're familiar with the context that I was in for several years, beautiful church doing really, really good things. We were super busy and we were a very diverse church. I think we had like 52 different nations represented in our church. So diversity was there. But what we knew on our journey was that we needed to go from diversity to racially reconciled. One of the things we say all the time on this podcast is, you are not alone. In fact, you don't have to figure this out alone. There are resources out there. There are people out there to open this dialogue. So I just encourage you to Google that, jump into it and see what they have. Let's talk a little bit about dialogue. How important, this may seem like an obvious question, but how important is dialogue and why don't we give a lot of time to dialogue? Let's talk about the difference. Let's talk about the tension. 

I think that it's important for us to, first of all, see difference as a doorway to dialogue when someone comes into your orbit. To be able to ask the Holy Spirit to begin to say, "Okay, this could be a doorway for me to have that level of conversation with them." Sometimes that takes some courage and sometimes it takes some risk in terms of being awkward, but really it's a doorway. So the minute that you come across difference in that sense, the dialogue is going to be so essential because comprehension begins with conversation. It's going to be very difficult to begin to understand what are the steps that I need to take if I don't really understand the person that's with me. I think of this African proverb that I'll never forget. When I saw somebody from afar, I thought they were a monster, but when I began to get close to them, I saw that they were my brother or my sister. And so what you begin to do with that dialogue is you begin to see that person and know that that person has made the image of God just like you are. And when you begin to close that cycle of social space, when you begin to, through dialogue, it begins to form something that's almost spiritual in that sense, where it's really hard to describe, where you begin to start to understand who that person is. They begin to understand a little bit more of who you are. And I won't say by osmosis, but I will say from a spiritual perspective because of the fact that Christ wants us to be reconciled, those conversations begin to be, submit some concrete type of relationships by which you'll surprise yourself by you taking that step.

My heart starts to pound when I'm intentional to open up those conversations and I get a little bit nervous. But 100% of the time I come out of those conversations feeling like I'm just a better version of who I believe God wants me to be and I feel good about those conversations. And I think the reason why I feel good is because the conversation was in alignment with God's will. As you said, I mean, this is where God wanted us to be. But entering into those conversations, it takes some courage. One last question that I would have for you. You do have a whole lot of leaders that are listening right now. If you could just speak a word of encouragement, a word of challenge and just do your thing and then we'll just wrap this thing up.

Thanks so much for having me. We've talked a lot about this whole notion of reconciliation. And I've shared that it is an idea in the mind of God. The thing that I always go back to is when Christ does this prayer in the book of John and he says, "I pray that they might be one. My father, as you and I are one." And a lot of times we stop there. But he says, "The reason why I want to do that is that so that the world might believe who Jesus is and that God has sent Christ into the world to save them." And so I always think about that in the sense that this is really one of the Lord's prayers. And oftentimes we ask the Lord to answer our prayers. What does it mean for us to answer one of his? And so I would actually encourage you as you think about reconciliation, as you think about dialoguing with people that are different than you, as you think about this whole notion of addressing the brokenness around you, it is a very hard path. It is a path in that sense, which is quite long. But the very fact that you are actually answering Christ's prayer to me is worth living for. And because it's worth living for, it's worth getting up to in the morning. It's something that makes God smile. And I believe it's something that is going to make you smile at the end of the day because you're walking the path in which you're answering God's prayer and you're moving creation to the point that is in alignment with what Jesus wants. And I think it's one of the things in what you'll hear at the end, "Well done, my good and faithful servant. You've been faithful because you've been faithful, not perfect but faithful." You'll begin to experience the joy that's waiting for you, not just on the other side, but a joy that you'll experience day by day.

Dr. Charles Montgomery, thank you for making space. I know that your week has been insane and you made space for us. So we're super honored. We're super privileged. I appreciate your friendship and ministry partnership. Thanks for being here, man. 

Thank you so much. God bless you. 

This is a great example of how the Kingdom of God works because a Buckeye fan can be friends with an Irish Notre Dame fan. That's how it works. Only God. So for all of you that are out there. We're so glad that you joined us. Just to remind you, we work with churches and faith-based number off is just like yours. To get a little bit healthier, a little bit more aligned, a little bit more effective, we really are here for you. We want to serve you in that way. You are not alone, so please don't do it alone. There are resources out there. You can go to ElementalGroup.org. We love you all. We're cheering for you. We'll see you next time. 

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