Collide Stands with Our Black Sisters and Brothers

Dear friends,

In light of the recent events, we have decided that we want to be expressly clear about where Collide stands with racism. We are highly aware that there is deep pain, woundedness, violence, injustice, anger, confusion, division and unrest regarding racism in this country. We understand that the events of late are the culmination of hundreds and hundreds of years of injustice, discrimination, inequality and institutional racism that has gone undealt with and still exists today.

We here at Collide have zero tolerance for racism. We say that in humility and confession, knowing that now is our time to learn, listen, confess, repent and pray, being open to what God is inviting us to. As we listen to the deep pain of our brothers and sisters of color and as we collide with our Lord Jesus, we cannot help but feel a deep sense of conviction knowing Jesus is a God who fights for justice, a God who loves all His kids, a God whose greatest commandment calls us to do two things: love Him and love our neighbor. Jesus always fought for the marginalized. He spoke up for those who had lost their voice. He gave dignity back to those who lost theirs. He challenged the powers that oppressed people. He freed those who others enslaved. Jesus even used a man of an ethnicity the religious looked down upon to be the “unexpected” hero in His infamous Good Samaritan story. To the religious peoples’ shock, Jesus over and over again called people who said they loved God, to love the people who were different than they were.

You can’t collide with Jesus and come out thinking you ought only love people just like you. You also can’t collide with Jesus and suppose love is something we just say or feel but not something we must act upon and live out. We are all called to love those who look different than we look, vote differently than we vote, worship differently than we worship and believe differently than we believe. This call to love couldn’t feel any more clear than right now. And we are heeding that call here at Collide but we are also heeding the challenge to teach that call more than we already do.

We are making a very concerted, intentional effort to begin learning how we are playing a part in systemic racism. We are learning, we are re-evaluating and we are asking hard, tough questions about how we have been complicit. We are humbly asking God to examine our own hearts and our own organization. We are leaning into how we can assure that we are creating spaces for our sisters of color to feel they can not only collide with Jesus in all that we do, but we want to assure they have space, representation and a platform to lead and minister using their voices, their giftings and their stories to call others to collide with Jesus.

Without a shadow of a doubt we believe this:

God made people of color.

God loves people of color.

God purposes people of color.

God fights for justice for people of color.

And we want to join that fight. We at Collide want to assure that our brothers and sisters of color can live lives knowing they are deeply loved by God, valued by God, pursued by God, made by God, chosen by God, and purposed and destined by God. We stand with them as children of God believing they ought to have every opportunity to live lives of safety, freedom, and justice, able to experience liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So now we learn, we pray, we lean in with intentionality to Jesus and we seek to know our place in the fight. As we seek, we desire not to just “feel” or be informed but instead to participate in work that creates long lasting change leading to racial reconciliation. We desire to be lifelong learners continuing the conversation of racial equality woven into all our conversations. We desire to wear humility and courage, always postured to move and act and live out the love we not only are called to, but we profess.

May you know today that you are deeply loved and may you live out of that love, fighting to help others know they are too,

Willow Weston

Founder/Director of Collide