“We’re not always going to get it right.
“But when we get it wrong, call it out,” said Casey Merrifield at the Midwest Leadership Summit in Springfield Jan. 21-23. “Own it.”
Merrifield, a leadership consultant and Lifeway Women’s trainer, encouraged Midwest leaders to be advocates for racial reconciliation in increasingly divided times.
“This is an area where we can really hurt one another,” she said, encouraging breakout attenders to avoid problematic behaviors when engaging in the race conversation, including withdrawing, escalating, and invalidating another person’s experience or feelings.
Instead, Merrifield said, let’s walk in humility and love, preserving the unity of the Spirit referenced in Ephesians 4:3. She urged leaders to seek to understand others, not hesitating to seek forgiveness when it’s needed. God hasn’t called us to be colorblind, she said, but to value the experiences of other people.
“We are tearing down the church when we don’t see our differences. But we have to view them under the lens of the gospel.”
See more from the Midwest Leadership Summit at mwadvance.org.