When I first heard about the Sankofa bus trip, I was not quite sure what to expect. It was explained to me that it is a four-day bus trip to various sites in the deep south that were commemorative of the Civil Rights era.

Many times functioning in ministry is like trying to navigate in the middle of a desert. When building a team within your organization, professional and personal capacity should be a guiding principle in bringing on new hires.

I am both a product of the Black Church and Evangelicalism. I am so honored to have been mentored, developed, and empowered by both Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church and Rising Star Missionary Baptist Church of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

What kind of person would I have been during the early 1800s? I would like to think I would have been enlightened enough through my deep walk with the Lord to be ashamed and horrified at the reality of slavery, of one person owning another.

For too many of the poor, marginalized, outcast, and demonized, every day is like Good Friday. They live surrounded by death, judgement, and prejudice.

Recently, my wife, Lisa, and I had the privilege to participate in a cross-racial prayer experience that took us on a four-day bus trip to critical sites of past and present racial injustice.

Many years ago, I sat on the Board of a large international missions organization. At the time, they were struggling with a common problem that still plagues Christian non-profits today: raising enough revenue to continue Kingdom growth.

When I was a student at Minneapolis North High School, Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for President. He even came to our school and had a rally in the gymnasium.

Many of us are familiar with the quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” The women whose legacies have influenced my life, my passions, and my ambitions were not “well-behaved,” as society in their respective times would have defined it.

This week in the news, a predominantly White (or possibly all-White, I don’t know) fraternity at the University of Oklahoma was caught on tape yelling an impassioned, racist chant at the top of their lungs.

Thursday is garbage day where I live and it took the simple act of a garbage pick-up to restore my faith in honesty and leadership development here in America.

Twenty-seven years ago I took a weekend to think about and write down some life goals. I broke them down to ten-year goals, five-year, one-year, and finally down to weekly and daily goals. I committed to pray over these goals every month.