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| A Seat at the Table on the 4th floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with other pastors. [Photo courtesy of Ethics Daily.] |
On Tuesday, I traveled to Washington DC with Barbara's words in my mind to participate in a Baptist Clergy Briefing at the White House. What an incredible honor and responsibility to represent First Baptist Cornelia and Habersham County. I traveled with little knowledge about the content of the experience - and as such had few expectations (My daughters had more, I learned. After I got home, my 10 year old asked: "So, did you meet Sasha or Malia? That guy - Biden? What about Bo - the dog? Well, who did you meet famous? No one? Then why did you go?")
Since I've returned home, I have struggled with how to frame this experience both for me and my congregation to best explain what took place. Tonight, I will give a Powerpoint report to them - filled with lots of fun pictures of Pastor Eric around Washington. The heart of this report - relates back to my learnings from Barbara before I left. What did I see, hear, feel, touch, smell. I'll try to outline this here. For more blog postings from this event - Bill Shiell, Pastor of FBC, Knoxville, Alan Rudnick, ABC pastor in NY, or this article.
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| Paul Monteiro, Office of Public Engagement, Coordinates Baptist Clergy Briefing [Photo courtesy of Ethics Daily.] |
- Smart, diverse, young, energetic people of faith working in the government
- Individuals passionate to make a difference in their areas of service (Human trafficking, consumer protection, immigration, business development).
- The power of the United States
- The scale of the federal government
What did I hear?
® National Education and Awareness Campaign to fight Human Trafficking.
® The biggest hopes for Latino citizens: education, jobs/economy, immigration, health care.
® The common goals for immigration reform.
® The work to protect consumers from predatory lenders.
® The challenges on individual borrowers in today’s market.
® The challenges on individual borrowers in today’s market.
® The work of FEMA to establish faith-based partnerships to work in disaster communities.
® The challenges to recover in disaster struck communities (Tuscaloosa).
® How many communities are impacted by immigration – this is not one state or community’s challenge.
® Office of Public Engagement –
® 50 Constituencies.
® Connecting outside experts with inside experts.
® “part of my job is to break the churches out of the silos that they’ve been put in.”
® There is a working group within the administration – across agencies – working on domestic human trafficking.
® President is briefed every day on energy/commodity prices (gas).
® 99 disasters were declared federal disasters in 2011 – most ever.
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| Baptist Delegation on the steps of the EEOB [Photo courtesy of Ethics Daily.] |
What Did I NOT Hear?
® Health care, foreign policy, economy, education
® Partisan politics – nothing asked of us when we return.
What did I learn?
® The federal government is a complicated, enormous system.
® Change does not come easily or without much work.
® The necessity of collaboration among people of goodwill across the ideological perspective.
® "These conversations were not liberal, conservative, Republican, or Democrat...rather faith responses to moral concerns" (David Washburn)
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| Yes! I was there. |
What are my biggest Takeaways?
® Connections
To Baptist around the country.
To the federal government.
® How difficult the polarization of our political world has made getting things – especially the things upon
which we agree - done.
® “Real prophets are never court prophets or partisan priests or representatives of a political party at prayer.” R. Parham
At some point, I hope to do a better job of describing this experience with words - but for now, these are the thoughts that have stayed with me.
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