Tag Archives: leadership

Why I Hate This Cross

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Why I Hate The Starkville Cross Of Christ
Photo Courtesy Of Columbus Dispatch

Someone asked me privately why “I hate this thing” referring to the Starkville Cross of Christ as I mentioned in a previous post.

The ultimate point of that post was not the cross but how those of us in Christ can, by His grace, push past even very strongly held positions to fight toward each other in love.

Notwithstanding, I think it would be helpful to the cause of “fighting toward each other in love” to understand why I disdain this monument.

Despite a lot of responses to the post focusing on it, for me, it is not about the money or what it could have been better spent toward. That’s tertiary, at best.

But as I have written previously, I find the giant cross problematic, “not because of what it is but because of what it was erected in the absence of”.

The absence I’m referring to is love, basically.

Everything else is derivative.

It’s unfortunate that this cross was erected during one of the most divisive times in history, meanwhile:

there is no concerted effort by the Christian community here to address the schisms in the church. Sunday remains the most segregated day of the week.

there is no concerted effort by the church to address schisms in our community. We remain very divided.

and, there are a host of community challenges we, as the church, are well equipped and well resourced to address, yet no concerted effort.

We seem happy with the level of suffering around us, but erect a giant cross to symbolize Christ’s love.

Sigh.

Love is the primary thing.

And, that is what I find absent.

Building shelters, providing food banks, or erecting giant crosses will all be ultimately unprofitable without love.

As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13, I can do all sorts of amazing and even extreme things like selling everything I have to feed the poor or even giving my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

Christ’s love is supernatural because it’s God’s love.

That love will transform our community and us.

That love will engender the response appropriate to meet the specific need of each individual and branches properly to connect them all (to God).

It’s only something that those of us who are called by Christ can do.

Tactics ain’t gonna get it.

At the very most basic application, I can tell you that no one I love is going without anything if I can help it.

The problem is we don’t love each other.

Is there truly a God?

I believe there is.

Prove it.

Love miracuously.

You First

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - You First

Husbands, if you want to see your wife submit, you first.

Show her how it’s done through your submission to Christ.

“To guide on a way especially by going in advance” is the definition of leadership.

Consider Jesus.

#marriage #leadership #submission #youfirst

“So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?

You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am.

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.

Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.”

John 13:12-17

Use It All

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Use It All

One of the greatest gifts given to me was from the Proverbs 31 Woman. It is the removal of the distinction between secular and spiritual -the notion that there are normal things we do (chores, business, etc.) versus things we do for God (church, ministry etc.).

The Proverbs 31 Woman demonstrates that it is the aim (the heart seen in verse Proverbs 31:11-12) that makes something spiritual and therefore it’s all spiritual. We, like she, can use everything we do to serve our Lord.

Why we do it and how we do it can all be used in His service.

It’s all spiritual. Everything can be done as a contribution to the Kingdom.

Use it all.

Biblical Women Who Lead And I Gladly Follow

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Biblical Women Who Lead And I Gladly Follow

Of the people from the Bible who have influenced my life the most, two are women.

The way I aspire to live daily is inspired by the Proverbs 31 Woman who uses everything she has and does to diligently and faithfully serve her Lord’s house.

The way I preach is inspired by the Woman At The Well. “Come meet a Man who told me all things [who I have personally encountered]… Could this be the Christ?”

Their contributions, as with many women in the Bible, demand a respect, value and high view of women –a view which Scripture suggests Jesus held.

52 Weeks of Gratefulness #13 – Mrs. Cunningham

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com Thankful For Mrs. Cunningham (Twitter)

In Week 13 of 52 Weeks of Gratefulness, I give thanks for my 5th grade teacher Mrs. Cunningham.

I only remember three things about Mrs. Cunningham:

The first is that she ate these weird looking apples with red jelly covered seeds that she use to suck on at her desk. I’d later come to learn this fruit was called a pomegranate.

The second is this story that she told us in class about someone in her family who was going so fast on a motorcycle that when he crashed the force of the collision hurled him into a telephone phone, sticking him to it by his ribs. It was at that point I decided never to ride a motorcycle.

The third and most important is something she said to me that changed my life forever.

Throughout my life, black women, especially, have had this superpower of perceiving and projecting the best version of who they believed we were destined to become. In the depths of my soul I know that no other voice besides God’s has greater impact in a young black man’s life than that of an affirming black woman.

This wasn’t some Jedi mind trick or some form of psychological manipulation. I believe they earnestly believed in your potential. They seemed to always approach you in the context of the promising view they held of you. Even when they caught you in the midst of wrongdoing, they would say something like, “Now, Mr. Luckett, I know you’re a gentleman and gentleman don’t act like that.” They conveyed an expectation that you wanted to live up to.

One day, Mrs. Cunningham looked intensely at me, to the point I was embarrassed and thought I was in trouble, and she said to me, “Mr. Luckett, you’re a leader. See me after class.” It was that day that she made me a school crossing guard for G.N. Smith Elementary. I remember her walking me to the Principal’s office and giving me my uniform. It was the old fashioned kind, it wasn’t a vest but sort of a reflective belt with a strap that ran diagonally across your chest. I revered that uniform and felt the weight of its responsibility every time I put it on. It was too big for me but I grew into it. My job was helping people to safely get from one point to another. The profundity of that never left me.

I was a crossing guard 5th grade and 6th grade. I went on to my beloved middle school, Bailey Magnet, looking to serve. I was a class representative to the student government “Knights Of The Roundtable” for 7th grade and 8th grade, class president 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade and student body president 12th grade. I became president of the Metro-Jackson Student Council and the student representative to the Jackson Public School Board. Today, I try to serve wherever I can, largely because my 5th grade teacher said, “You’re a leader.”

She believed it, then so did I. I’m grateful. #52WoG #teachers #education #blackwomen #leadership