{"id":675,"date":"2010-09-29T23:14:48","date_gmt":"2010-09-29T23:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2010\/09\/im-thinking-about-starting-a-leadership-program.html"},"modified":"2010-09-29T23:14:48","modified_gmt":"2010-09-29T23:14:48","slug":"im-thinking-about-starting-a-leadership-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/09\/im-thinking-about-starting-a-leadership-program.html","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;m thinking about starting a leadership program&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>My heart is broken<\/b>&#8230;has been for a long time. &nbsp;Here we are almost fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement and while so many positive things have happened there is still so much to do concerning the African-American community. &nbsp;The list is daunting: &nbsp;Mass Incarceration (African-American&#8217;s make up 43% of the prison population but only 12% of the US population. &nbsp;1 out of every 3 black males born is expected to go to prison)&#8211;fatherlessness&#8211;black women are 5 times more likely to have an abortion than their white counterparts&#8230;that&#8217;s over 1800 abortions per day in the African-American community&#8211;staggeringly low graduation rates&#8211;eight million below the poverty level&#8211;substance abuse&#8211;the list goes on&#8230;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>Many Christians are not equipped to understand AND lead when it comes to these issues. <\/b>&nbsp;What we need are transformative servant leaders! &nbsp;People who like Daniel will sacrifice for the sake of their community and like Nehemiah who are able to read their neighborhood as well as their Bible and then respond by washing the feet of the city.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>I&#8217;m thinking about starting an African-American Leadership Program<\/b>. &nbsp;Imagine fifteen students over eighteen months being mentored, taught and inspired to understand the times and know what to do. &nbsp;I would lead them through an in-depth curriculum of reading, prayer and conversation as to what it means to receive wisdom from God, practice Christianity, understand their calling and cultivate a willingness to sacrifice as people of the cross.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><b>As a pastor, I always have and always will seek to reach all people&#8211;that is my primary calling!<\/b> &nbsp;But the fact is, there is a huge leadership gap that I see &nbsp;and I&#8217;m wondering if God could use me to make a difference.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My heart is broken&#8230;has been for a long time. &nbsp;Here we are almost fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement and while so many positive things have happened there is still so much to do concerning the African-American community. &nbsp;The list is daunting: &nbsp;Mass Incarceration (African-American&#8217;s make up 43% of the prison population but only&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>I&#039;m thinking about starting a leadership program... - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/09\/im-thinking-about-starting-a-leadership-program.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I&#039;m thinking about starting a leadership program... - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My heart is broken&#8230;has been for a long time. &nbsp;Here we are almost fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement and while so many positive things have happened there is still so much to do concerning the African-American community. &nbsp;The list is daunting: &nbsp;Mass Incarceration (African-American&#8217;s make up 43% of the prison population but only&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/09\/im-thinking-about-starting-a-leadership-program.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-09-29T23:14:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I'm thinking about starting a leadership program... - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/09\/im-thinking-about-starting-a-leadership-program.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I'm thinking about starting a leadership program... - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"My heart is broken&#8230;has been for a long time. &nbsp;Here we are almost fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement and while so many positive things have happened there is still so much to do concerning the African-American community. &nbsp;The list is daunting: &nbsp;Mass Incarceration (African-American&#8217;s make up 43% of the prison population but only&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/09\/im-thinking-about-starting-a-leadership-program.html","og_site_name":"The Jazz Theologian","article_published_time":"2010-09-29T23:14:48+00:00","author":"Robert Gelinas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/09\/im-thinking-about-starting-a-leadership-program.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/09\/im-thinking-about-starting-a-leadership-program.html","name":"I'm thinking about starting a leadership program... - 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Robert Gelinas on Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01","name":"Robert Gelinas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","caption":"Robert Gelinas"},"description":"\"For more information visit: Jazztheologian.com Robert Gelinas is Lead-Pastor (and resident Jazz Theologian) of Colorado Community Church\u00e2\u20ac\u201da multi-cultural, interdenominational community of 3000+ followers of Christ in the Denver area. Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys &amp; 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}