As I’msitting in my little home office, it can be a challenge to understand that the world is much bigger than where I live in Kennesaw, Georgia. Or even the country that I’m proud to call home America, the same country that my father Moses Mwaura migrated to. Yet God calls for us to not only recognize that we’re part of a world representing over seven billion people, but at the same time to love the world. In fact, I would even venture to say that Isaiah 37:16 makes it clear that God made and sees the entire world, which is unlike me. God doesn’t see just one part of the world which is why as Christ Followers we should be praying for our world daily.
Recently on a rare Thursday Evening when many people were done working for the day, I had the privilege of spending a few minutes with United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas Greenfield. During my amazing time with her I learned so much about our world and the reasons that we should see ourselves not only as citizens of America but worldwide citizens. We have been placed here by a God who made and oversees the world. He desires for us to do our part, which in part is praying for the world around us.
During my time with Ambassador Greenfield, she stressed that although she loves the world that the one part of the world that she is concerned about is Haiti. As a man who has lived in Florida, I understand her sentiments. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world and the rate of famine that is plaguing that part of the world is alarming. Although the Haitian people are a resourceful and steadfast people they have been through a lot. “Every two to three years, a national disaster seems to hit Haiti which makes it hard for them to bounce back,” according to Ambassador Greenfield. I can still remember that two years ago their President was assassinated while he slept, and it sent the country into turmoil. As citizens of the world, if we’re to make a difference we should listen to the prompting of the spirit. We should find our part of the world that God may want us to get involved with, pray for it, and even go if we can. If we are to do our part in loving the world we must get out of our personal boxes and get involved.
“We prevented famine in Africa by providing $500 million dollars to confront famine.” In hearing Ambassador Greenfield say this, it brought tears to my eyes. I think at times in our world we can get consumed in thinking that our tax dollars aren’t at work. But they are in cases like these. Luke 4:23 is clear that to much is given much is required. Although we have our problems in America, we have been given a lot. Which is why we should be missional as believers. The Great Commission is clear that we have been called to go into all the world which has never been easier than it is today with modern technology. In the world that we live in today, with just a click of a button, we can have conversations with people that our ancestors would have never dreamed of having. Just by having a conversation with someone in another part of the world we could be making the connection of a lifetime and maybe even bringing peace. I believe that great connections always bring peace. “The United Nations has prevented World Wars and is the only institution that we have worldwide.” This may explain why Ambassador Greenfield loves her job and seemed to be upbeat even after most of us have stopped working for the day. “I’m on a mission”, which for ambassador Greenfield began growing up in a small southern town in Louisiana. During our conversation she was on her way to the airport heading home from a trip to New Orleans. “I loved being back in my home state and the hospitality that they show me…I hope I’m making them proud.”
As citizens of the world my prayer is that when people see us as American Citizens and followers of Jesus, that we are making them proud. We have been given a mandate by God to not only go into all the world, but also tackle issues that the world may be ignoring like climate change. The Ambassador is clear that climate change issues are not only affecting the us globally but also right here in America. To truly see the needs that are around us, we must people that love and recognize the needs around us. The United Nations is in New York City and is known as “The People’s House.” Ambassador Greenfield says, “It’s the peoples house, so anybody can come”. I will be taking her up on that offer because I believe that we are not only called to love our world, but we are also called to participate and engage with the world as world citizens. God doesn’t just love America, but He loves the entire world and there is so much work to be done. It is going to take all of us to pull off the task that He has called for us to do: bringing heaven to earth so that all may experience the kingdom of God.
Jemele Hill became known as a popular journalist in sports, but she is now one of the clearest voices in the country for social justice. She is a woman of faith and at the same time a fierce critic who asks questions and fights for the marginalized.
UrbanFaith contributor Maina Mwaura sat down with Jemele Hill to talk about her new memoir Uphill where she tells her own story with the depth and clarity she has used to tell other people’s stories for decades. The full interview is above, more about the book is below.
Jemele Hill’s world came crashing down when she called President Trump a “white supremacist”; the White House wanted her fired from ESPN, and she was deluged with death threats. But Hill had faced tougher adversaries growing up in Detroit than a tweeting president. Beneath the exterior of one of the most recognizable journalists in America was a need—a calling—to break her family’s cycle of intergenerational trauma.
Born in the middle of a lively routine Friday night Monopoly game to a teen mother and a heroin-addicted father, Hill constantly adjusted to the harsh realities of not only her own childhood but the inherited generational pain of her mother and grandmother. Her escape was writing.
Hill’s mother was less than impressed with the brassy and bold free expression of her diary, but Hill never stopped discovering and amplifying her voice. Through hard work and a constant willingness to learn, Hill rose from newspaper reporter to columnist to new heights as the coanchor for ESPN’s revered SportsCenter. Soon, she earned respect and support for her fearless opinions and unshakable confidence, as well as a reputation as a trusted journalist who speaks her mind with truth and conviction.
In Jemele Hill’s journey Uphill, she shares the whole story of her work, the women of her family, and her complicated relationship with God in an unapologetic, character-rich, and eloquent memoir
Have you ever looked at your life and wondered how your needs would be met this week? Have you been in need of advice and not known where to turn? Have you ever wondered what your purpose is? How can you grow in your relationship with God?
The answer to all these questions is prayer. Many of us want to pray, but struggle to figure out how to pray which is the reason why Pastor John Hannah wrote his book: Just Pray: How a Life of Prayer Grows Unshakeable Faith which is now available everywhere and can be found here. UrbanFaith interviewed Pastor John Hannah about his new book Just Pray: How A Life Of Prayer Grows Unshakeable Faith. The full interview is linked above.
Prayer is a foundational part of every Christian’s life, it is literally the way we communicate with God. As we desire to grow in our relationship with God, we must learn how to pray in ways that are powerful and practical. Pastor Hannah leads prayer calls weekly with thousands of people, has spoken and taught on the subject of prayer for decades, and has decided to share his insights on why and how we can grow in our prayer life as foundational to a life of faith through this book.
About Pastor John Hannah
John F. Hannah is the founder and lead pastor of New Life Covenant Church Southeast. A speaker and author, he has impacted thousands of lives through his ministry and dedication to serve. Through his focused desire to teach people how to grow their relationship with God, Pastor Hannah has become renowned for his commitment to prayer. Because of his heart for people, Hannah has traveled the globe speaking in regions of Jiji, Australia, and South Africa and even shared multiple media and conference platforms with acclaimed faith-based leaders Bishop T.D. Jakes and Steve Harvey. He has been married to Anna Hannah for over twenty-five years.
Tabitha Brown is one of the most recognizable people on the planet right now. She is a multifaceted entertainer and entrepreneur producing everything from social media content to TV shows, haircare products to food seasonings, clothes and games. She is also a person of deep faith. UrbanFaith contributor Maina Mwaura had a few minutes with Tabitha to ask how she does what she does and how she feels living into God’s call for her life. The interview is above, more about Tabitha is below.
“Liminal” is defined as the space between. It is the no-longer before, and the not-yet other. It is the space where we find ourselves caught between the light of Juneteenth and the shadow of July 4th. We are caught in the space between. No longer enslaved on plantations, but not yet with a freedom fully realized. It’s an imaginative space; an emergent space; and a space for reflection.
It is in this space that I am reminded of the Statue of Liberty, and the broken chains at her feet. I first learned about the chains in 2017, at a training in Chicago led by Dr. Joy DeGruy. She told the story of how the chains were part of the original vision of the statue, how American financiers insisted that the chains be removed, and how the sculptor still managed to sneak the chains in under Lady Liberty’s garments, lying broken at her feet. She told the story how the National Park Services didn’t talk about the chains unless someone happened to ask. The chains were not part of the Park Services’ narrative about the Statue. In the Statue’s 135-year history, information about the chains have only officially been included in the park service’s literature and website for about the past six years.
Yasmin Sabina Khan goes even deeper in her work, “Enlightening the World: The Creation of the Statue of Liberty.” Conceived in 1865 by Édouard de Laboulaye, sculpted by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi over the course of approximately 20 years, the Statue of Liberty was unveiled at New York’s Ellis Island as “Liberty Enlightening the World” in October of 1886. At the base of the Statue, out of view from anyone looking from ground level, lie the broken chains of slavery. Visible only from helicopter or drone, the chains weren’t spoken of. Laboulaye was an ardent abolitionist. With the end of the US Civil War in 1865, Laboulaye imagined a gift that would embody the significance of the liberation of those who were enslaved. Bartholdi’s original model placed the torch of liberty in one hand, and broken chains in the other. The Statue of Liberty’s entire visual and artistic vocabulary was meant to both celebrate and honor the freedom of those enslaved in America. But financiers balked at the idea of chains placed anywhere on the Statue, and after profuse opposition by Bartholdi, the chains were removed, replaced by a tablet emblazoned with the Roman numerals for July 4, 1776. Since they aren’t easily visible, and since there was no concerted public effort to connect the statue with the narrative of the abolition of chattel slavery, the memory of it’s connections faded. And for the past 135 years, barely anyone remembered the chains.
For Black people within this liminal march of history, the Statue has long sat as a symbol of hypocrisy—celebrating a freedom that became connected to a honoring of ideals that have yet to be realized. There’s much to unpack about our historical reactions to the unveiling of the Statue, but there’s also much to be said about the loss of memory. The obscuring and loss of communal memory around the presence, history, and meaning of the chains at the feet of the Statue of Liberty is important because it reminds us that memory is important. And not only is memory important, memory is crucial in this liminal space between freedom and freedom. Memory is what helps us imagine. Memory is what helps us create. It’s something we can use to construct and define a new world, a new freedom, a new way of being. We must tap into it.
In his book, “Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance” Ngugi wa Thiong’o writes, “creative imagination is one of the greatest of re-membering practices…” and that “memory is the link between the past and the present, between space and time, and it is the base of our dreams.” Harnessing memory is our work. These broken chains at our feet, the light of Juneteenth, the long shadow of July 4th—this liminal space—all of it is here to remind us that we have worlds to build. We have a freedom to define—to make clear and meaningful. It is within this creative tension where we have the possibility to gain a clear-eyed view of what a full realization of freedom could look like, both collectively as a community and a country, and particularly in the living out of our individual lives and individual situations. But understand, there can be no clear expression of freedom without integrating communal memory into the foundation of work.
If memory is the base of our dreams, what are our dreams of freedom? What if we could transform freedom in the same ways that we’ve always transformed culture? In this liminal space of history, we’ve seen Black creativity, Black genius, Black art, and Black joy shift and drive culture (and economies) around the world. Have we fired that same ingenuity in our definitions of freedom? What would the world look like, if we defined and constructed freedom based on our criteria, our imaginations, our memory? It might look something like a society built on the idea of thriving rather than destruction. It might look something like a society built around dignity—of humans, animals, and the earth. It might look something like systems built to nourish and sustain life rather than profit. Freedom could look like so many different visions of more and better. The dreaming is up to us.
We have work to do. We have worlds to build. We have a freedom to create. And as we go about protesting and advocating for our lives, here in this liminal space between freedom that was and freedom that might yet be, may we remember that the work we have to do, the worlds we are building, and the freedom we are creating, cannot reach their fullest expression without our communal memory.
Let us remember the chains broken at our feet, so that we may creatively continue in our generation’s leg of the journey toward the light of freedom fully realized.
Chris Paul is one of the most accomplished NBA Veterans to have longevity in his career. He is also one of the most pivotal players in history having served as the President of the NBA Players Association during a time when many changes were made inside and outside of the league. But the most important thing to him is not on the court, but on the sidelines: his family and their consistency in his life. UrbanFaith sat down with Chris Paul to talk about his new book Sixty-One telling his story of how his family made him the man he is today. The full interview is above.
As I’msitting in my little home office, it can be a challenge to understand that the world is much bigger than where I live in Kennesaw, Georgia. Or even the country that I’m proud to call home America, the same country that my father Moses Mwaura migrated to. Yet God calls for us to not only recognize that we’re part of a world representing over seven billion people, but at the same time to love the world. In fact, I would even venture to say that Isaiah 37:16 makes it clear that God made and sees the entire world, which is unlike me. God doesn’t see just one part of the world which is why as Christ Followers we should be praying for our world daily.
Recently on a rare Thursday Evening when many people were done working for the day, I had the privilege of spending a few minutes with United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas Greenfield. During my amazing time with her I learned so much about our world and the reasons that we should see ourselves not only as citizens of America but worldwide citizens. We have been placed here by a God who made and oversees the world. He desires for us to do our part, which in part is praying for the world around us.
As citizens of the world my prayer is that when people see us as American Citizens and followers of Jesus, that we are making them proud. We have been given a mandate by God to not only go into all the world, but also tackle issues that the world may be ignoring like climate change. The Ambassador is clear that climate change issues are not only affecting the us globally but also right here in America. To truly see the needs that are around us, we must people that love and recognize the needs around us. The United Nations is in New York City and is known as “The People’s House.” Ambassador Greenfield says, “It’s the peoples house, so anybody can come”. I will be taking her up on that offer because I believe that we are not only called to love our world, but we are also called to participate and engage with the world as world citizens. God doesn’t just love America, but He loves the entire world and there is so much work to be done. It is going to take all of us to pull off the task that He has called for us to do: bringing heaven to earth so that all may experience the kingdom of God.
