At 9 a.m. on September 30th, about 200 people will run or walk a 5k through Tower Grove Park to promote the St. Louis Reconciliation Network, a nonprofit dedicated to healing the racial divides in our city.
Those 200 participants–a massive jump from last year’s race, which counted about 50 runners and walkers–will be supporting the continued work of the 5-year-old Reconciliation Network.
“Our mission is to heal the broken race relations of the St. Louis region by harnessing the potential collective power of its diverse faith communities,” explained Dave Gustafson, president of the Reconciliation Network. Their main project is a training program that has now been brought to hundreds of churches across the St. Louis area.
“We teach people to live what we call the ‘multi-ethnic life,’ said Gustafson. “Christians, who spend too much of their time in very segregated churches, learning that that’s not the way that we should be living our lives, that we are called to lead multi-ethnic lives with a diverse circle of friends. The continuing pattern of behavior of the church–that is, to be very segregated, especially on Sundays – is actually a huge contributing factor in the problems that we face here, not just in St. Louis but across the country.”
Brandon Wilkes, the Training and Education director of the Reconciliation Network, knows the power of multi-ethnic churches. His home church, in Cincinnati, “went from being 99% white to being a truly multi-ethnic, diverse church,” according to Gustafson. After the shooting of Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati in 2001, that church was motivated to change how it was structured and take deliberate action to create a diverse worship space.
Then, Wilkes’ church sent him to St. Louis to replicate that here. “St. Louis was actually on our radar because in Cincinnati we had heard about the Delmar Divide,” Wilkes said. “And when we heard about that, and when we started thinking about a place to plant a church, St. Louis was like, ‘They could use that here.’ So we got here, and then Ferguson happened.”
Wilkes and Gustafson met in the immediate aftermath of the shooting of Mike Brown. “Dave and I, actually, out of coincidence, sat next to each other in the meeting about what pastors and the church can do to heal this divide,” explained Wilkes. “And that’s how we became friends, and then Dave told me about the St. Louis Reconciliation Network, and I told him – almost immediately – yeah, I’m happy to partner with you.”
Now, they’ve taken their racial reconciliation training program to several churches, and brought their work to thousands of St. Louisans. And their program works, Gustafson said: “Well over half of the participants in our classes have really changed their patterns of behavior as a result of the information they learned during the class.” And some, he added have truly become “Activists in our communities, you know, really pushing for the elimination of racism, and bringing issues of biblical justice to our community.”
Their next project? Bringing their work to the schools. Gustafson referenced the students who were recently expelled from MICDS for their use of racial slurs.
“That’s right around the corner from my house,” he said. “And at my daughter’s high school, there was a very recent graduate of Ladue High who was photographed as one of the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, so this stuff is hitting pretty close to home.”
Wilkes and Gustafson hope their program could help ease tensions in the schools. “I think there’s a huge need for this in our school system, and I think it’s an unmet need for training in this area,” Gustafson said.
The Race for Reconciliation this upcoming Saturday fits in with the rest of the Reconciliation Council programs both by serving as a publicity tool– “It’s just making people aware that there’s an organization out here that’s really caring and compassionate about bringing racial healing to the city,” Wilkes said–and by starting conversations among those running the race.
“So we’re hoping that people come out, that they enjoy the race, and be a part of it and hear about what we’re doing,” Wilkes said. “And then, some people may invite us to actually continue the conversation.”
Participants in the Race for Reconciliation can sign up at stlrn.org.
