New book from Patrick Reyes offers guidance for leaders working with communities of color
by Westminster John Knox Press | Special to Presbyterian News Service
LOUISVILLE — Far too much of the literature on leadership tells the story of heroic individuals creating their success by their own efforts. Such stories fail to recognize the structural obstacles to thriving faced by those in marginalized communities. If young people in these communities are to grow up to lives of purpose, others must help create the conditions to make that happen.
Patrick Reyes saw this gap up close. Growing up in a marginalized Chicano community in central California, Reyes was struck at how his life diverged so greatly from his cousin’s. When his cousin passed away after a long struggle with incarceration and homelessness, Reyes realized his life turned out so differently from his cousin’s due to a matter of conditions. While they grew up in the same community, Reyes found himself surrounded by a host of family, friends and supporters. That network created a different narrative for him than the one the rest of the world had succeeded in imposing on his cousin. In short, they created the conditions in which Reyes could not only survive but thrive. They helped him overcome the purpose gap.
Reyes, now Senior Director of Learning Design at the Forum for Theological Exploration, seeks to provide advice and guidance to pastors, organizational leaders, educators, and others to bridge this gap in his new book, “The Purpose Gap: Empowering Communities of Color to Find Meaning and Thrive.”
“Closing the purpose gap means removing the barriers, generating the resources, building the power, and imagining the future where those who are most marginalized thrive,” Reyes writes in the book’s introduction. “Closing the purpose gap is spirit work.”
“The Purpose Gap” offers advice, including creating safe spaces for failure, nurturing networks that support young people of color, and providing professional guidance for how to implement these strategies in one’s congregation, school or community organization. It also helps churches, schools and nonprofits to counteract the effects of societal neglect and racism on young people of color.
“Reyes has written a 200+ page love letter to future generations of Black and brown people,” says Lakisha Lockhart, assistant professor of practical theology at Chicago Theological Seminary, “by both calling out unjust systems and calling on community to practice abundant life and love together.”
“The Purpose Gap” is now available from Westminster John Knox Press.
Patrick B. Reyes is Senior Director of Learning Design at the Forum for Theological Exploration. He holds a doctorate from Claremont School of Theology.
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