Empowered to Repair: Becoming People Who Mend Broken Systems and Heal Our Communities

by Brenda Salter McNeil

Political and cultural wars are tearing communities apart. Issues such as immigration, racism, and guns are driving wedges between people and hampering Christians' impact in the world.In Empowered to Repair, Brenda Salter McNeil looks to the biblical story of Nehemiah for answers. There, she finds an action-based model for repairing and rebuilding our communities and transforming broken systems.McNeil goes beyond theories, offering practical tools Christians need for organizing, empowering, and activating people to join in God's work of equality, reparations, and justice. She provides strategies to drive systemic changes that go beyond superficial diversity and teaches the skills needed to engage in this important work long-term, such as organizing people, leveraging resources, and avoiding burnout through rest, prayer, and self-care.Learning from Nehemiah, readers will be emboldened to go out and help build congregations, organizations, and communities where all people can flourish and reach their full, God-given potential.

Genres: Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

Published May 28, 2024

About the author

Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil is a dynamic speaker, author, and trailblazer with over twenty-five years of experience in the ministry of racial, ethnic, and gender reconciliation. She was featured as one of the fifty most influential women to watch by Christianity Today in 2012 and is an associate professor of reconciliation studies in the School of Theology at Seattle Pacific University, where she also directs the Reconciliation Studies program.

Salter McNeil was previously the president and founder of Salter McNeil & Associates, a reconciliation organization that provided speaking, training, and consulting to colleges, churches, and faith-based organizations. She also served on the staff of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship for fourteen years as a Multiethnic Ministries Specialist. She is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church and is on the pastoral staff of Quest Church in Seattle.

Reviews

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

*I pre-ordered this book for myself, and then also received an advance copy to review.

I've had the incredible opportunity to overlap in the workplace with Dr. Brenda for a few years and, over the course of the past few years, frequently heard her updates in meetings about how the writing of her new book was going. I assure you, she put a lot of time, prayer, and deep thought into this book. And it was worth the wait!

Dr. Brenda is known as one of the go-to people in the world of racial reconciliation, especially in church spaces. I've heard her preach on this topic, speak in workshops, and have read earlier. books. But even so, this new book had a ton of material that I hadn't heard before and that really made me think.

It took me a few chapters to get into the book, but by chapter 3, my highlighter was in full use. For some background, I've spent my life attending church and being super involved, and then worked in ministry for the past 7 years. This book is a great resource for me as well as people who are new to reconciliation and ministry and who are trying to get involved. Dr. Brenda goes about presenting her ideas in a very organized and easy-to-follow fashion, first laying out the issues at hand, discussing ideas for how to view things and interpret them, putting ideas into action and, in my opinion most importantly, she deals with issues of opposition and exhaustion, which are far too infrequently discussed in Christian circles, especially in ministry. She's honest about challenges that can be faced in taking on big picture issues of reconciliation and repair, but gives great tips for not burning out and having to walk away completely. This is a very important thing to remember in social work and ministry.

As a white, cis-gender, married, middle class woman, I also really appreciated the chapter on leveraging my voice and my resources. There are places that I can go and be listened to easily, and rather than being ashamed of who and what I am, I was reminded and encouraged to use these opportunities bravely and intentionally.

Overall the book was a pretty fast read, but I definitely will be re-reading it again soon and I am sure I will have a whole new set of paragraphs to highlight. I cannot recommend the book highly enough. Grateful for Dr. Brenda's words and wisdom.

[Katie Schroder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love the author!

[Alanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and learned a lot from Brenda's writing about repairing relationships and working to heal our communities. Using Nehemiah for her template grounds it in biblical principles and relates it to a story most Christians will know if they have been in the church for a while. The situations used in the book deal mainly with the Black communities in the US, as a reader from Canada, I had no trouble transposing the situations to relationships between the white colonizers and the indigenous population. I feel this is an area that the church needs to be focussing on, as the hurts that were caused over years of oppression are at the root of many of the issues that this population struggles with, including mental health and addictions, poor healthcare outcomes, homelessness and poor school performance. I found the writing in this book to be accessible and I hope to reread it to really mine the wisdom that was provided. I especially liked the chapter on faithful exhaustion. This is something that I struggle with already, so reading about it and the permission to rest was really helpful in a season I am currently in.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Netgalley. Opinions are my own.

[Tone Waters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for early access to this book. Dr. Brenda’s take on Nehemiah is important for those of us engaging in justice-centered work inside and outside of the four walls of the church today. I will come back to this book for its encouragement and authenticity for years to come.

[Josh Olds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reconciliation isn’t enough—or rather, reconciliation without reparation is incomplete. Think of it, to reconcile means to bring two disparate things back together. A connection has been broken and reconciliation reforges the connection. But what if the connection was one that was unjust and inequal already? What if all reconciliation does is retie the tether of relational hierarchy? A reversion to the status quo is not justice because the status quo was not “the good ol’ days” for everyone. Instead, what we need is reparation. The connection must not just be reconnected, but repaired. The unjust must be made just. Inequalities must be made equal. Hierarchies must be dismantled. We must become a people who are Empowered to Repair.

Utilizing the narrative of Nehemiah, Dr. Brenda Salter-McNeil offers readers a biblical blueprint for repairing and rebuilding broken communities. Nehemiah was a member of the Jewish diaspora in Persia, a descendent of those taken by Babylon into captivity. Now, as cupbearer to the king, he uses his position and power to launch the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Step-by-step, Empowered to Repair applies Nehemiah’s work in physically rebuilding a city to our present work in spiritually and relationally bringing about racial reconciliation.

Salter-McNeil starts with an exhortation to identity with the plight of the people and pursue proximity to the problem. As a relatively empowered person with access to the king, Nehemiah could have lived a life of relative ease. However, he responded to the distress of his people, identified with that distress, and used his position as a means to pursue a solution. But he didn’t remain far off! And this is so important. So many times, we are willing to pursue solutions where our work is passive or indirect. We give charitably, we write impassioned social media posts, we read (and review) books just like Empowered to Repair—but it’s much harder to actually leave the authority and safety of privilege and go physically be part of the solution. Salter-McNeil’s call to actually be within the communities we are repairing, because relationship and proximity are key to the healing, is probably the strongest and most important message of this book.

Other lessons include the necessity of a diverse coalition and cultivating a willingness to work together. These lessons really stem out of proximity. Reparation means empowering those disempowering to take the lead in their own healing, of understanding the systemic nature of some injustices and deconstructing systems in order to build more just versions of them. It means actually living in a diverse community where leadership is shared and all gifts are acknowledged and utilized.

Empowered to Repair then concludes with a reminder to bask in rest and prayer. The work of reparation is hard and unending. There are always more battles to fight. Drawing from her own personal experience, Salter-McNeil is clear to activists that it is not just okay, but it is required, to rest. Burnout does nobody any good and this is a long struggle to be won.

Simple, clear, witty, pithy, and grounded in both biblical teaching and McNeil Salter’s lifetime experience in pursuing justice, Empowered to Repair is a passionate call to go beyond a desire for reconciliation and instead ground that desire in the practical and substantive work of repair.

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting tidbit that I did not piece together until reading the "Acknowledgements" at the end... Dr. McNeil is the Associate Pastor Preaching & Reconciliation at Quest Church in Seattle:

https://seattlequest.org/about/leader...

Quest Church is led by Lead Pastor Rev. Gail Song Bantum, whose husband Brian Bantum also serves as Theologian in Residence there. I've been reading a bit of Brian Bantum's work recently due to his connection with "The Duke School" (Willie James Jennings, J. Kameron Carter) so this was an interesting connection to make.

Apparently Quest Church recently "cut ties with its denomination—the Evangelical Covenant Church—because of its hard right turn on LGBTQIA+ inclusion."

https://freedomroad.us/2023/07/rev-ga...

Anyway, interesting context for Dr. McNeil's work.

[Dorothy Greco · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have deep respect for Rev. Brenda Salter McNeil. She is wise, prophetic, and grounded in her faith. This latest book challenges those who consider themselves to be followers of Jesus to act on their beliefs and work toward repair. "As followers of Jesus, we have been entrusted with the work of reconciliation that repairs broken relationships, systems, and structures." (p 30) I found the book both insightful and encouraging. I'd like to buy cases of Empowered to Repair and give them away!

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Helpful and timely, Dr. McNeil has done it again. This is a book borne out of a deep consideration for how the good news of God can bring light and life to today's real concerns, issues, and most importantly, people.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been learning how to do community organizing, and this book gives a very helpful theological basis for it with lots of practical examples. It's also a great commentary on Nehemiah!