Hi, I'm Jonathan Lehman.

Welcome to this episode of Nine Marks Pastors Talk.

Nine Marks exist to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for building healthy churches learn more at nine marks.org.

Today, I get to have a conversation again with a friend of mine, Mark Vergop, and a couple of fellow pastors and church members of his.

And where I want to take the conversation today is not about recent events regarding George Floyd and protests. We've had a couple of

conversations here at pastors talk on that and preachers talk already. What I want to talk about

instead is where do we go from here? I recall an African American friend of mine said that

sure, all the whites right now are talking about

this white churches are talking about this stuff because of recent events but give it a few

weeks the new cycle will change and everybody will forget and move on to other stuff

until something happens again well that leaves the question of my mind yeah that doesn't sound quite right does it that leaves the question of my mind, yeah, that doesn't

sound quite right, does it? That leaves a question of my mind, what does pastoral care in these

kinds of issues of race, racial reconciliation and justice and so forth mean 365 days a year?

And Mark Forgop has done a fantastic job, as far as I can tell.

He's not a perfect pastor.

He doesn't belong to a perfect church.

But he's done a good job.

He's written about these things.

I've learned from him watching his example on these things.

And so that's why I decided to invite him in for this conversation. And as soon as

Alex Dukes and I, Duke and I invited him, he's like, no, no, no, not just me, but a couple of other

brothers in the church who have been helpful with me and have been part of this whole thing. And so for

...