Empowering Vulnerable Communities: Faith, Justice, and Early Childhood Development

What role does the church play in supporting vulnerable children and families in marginalized communities? In this episode, Faithful Politics sits down with Rev. Moya Harris, Director of Racial Justice at Sojourners and ordained AME minister, and Rev. Thomas Brackeen Jr., Minister to Youth and Families at Metropolitan AME Church, to discuss their latest report on strengthening early childhood development in Black and Latin faith communities. From access to healthcare to the impact of economic policies, they delve into the systems affecting the youngest and most vulnerable and how faith-based organizations can step up to advocate for justice.

Metropolitan AME Church, founded in 1838, continues to stand against hate and fight for justice. In December 2020, the Proud Boys vandalized the church’s property, tearing down and burning a Black Lives Matter banner. Metropolitan fought back, securing $2.8 million in damages and winning the exclusive rights to the Proud Boys’ trademark — a historic legal victory for a Black institution. Today, the church continues its legacy of advocacy through initiatives such as the Community Justice Fund, food insecurity programs, and the Sankofa Project, which equips families with culturally responsive and biblically grounded resources.

Guest Bios:
Rev. Moya Harris is an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, serving at the historic Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC. She is also the Director of Racial Justice at Sojourners and a retired registered nurse. Rev. Harris is currently pursuing her PhD, focusing on faith, justice, and community development.

Rev. Thomas A. Brackeen Jr. is the Minister to Youth and Families at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC. With over 30 years of experience in youth ministry, he has worked with young people throughout the DC metropolitan area and is committed to advocating for vulnerable children and families through faith-based initiatives.

Resources & Links:

Sojourners: sojo.net
Metropolitan AME Church: metropolitaname.org
Report on Early Childhood Development in Black and

Transcript

0:17

Hi there, faithful politics audience and listeners, if you're joining us on the podcast stream. Viewers, if you're joining us on our YouTube channel, guys, thanks for being here. Like and subscribe, do all the things that hack the algorithm so that we can get this content to more people. I am Josh Bertram. I am your faithful host. And as always, we have our political host, Will. Hi, Will. How's it going Josh? It's going well. It's good to see you, Will. What's next on your little thing? I forgot to pull up my list. I feel like I have to explain this every single time. Every time we open, Josh, in some form or capacity, says, it's good to see you, Will. It's so repeatable that I asked ChatGPT to come up with a list of responses that I would check off. Like every episode, I would check off one of the responses. Today, I forgot to pull up that list. You just instead you get a long explanation of why I didn't pull up the list. Oh, yes, no worries. So, but we are excited today to be able to have. Reverend Moya Harris and Reverend Thomas Brekeen. They are at Sojoiners in Washington uh DC and also ministers. And I'm going to give them a chance to kind of introduce themselves. We could start with you, Reverend Harris. uh Can I call you Moya? So we're going to start with you Moya and just kind of give a brief introduction of yourself and what Sojoiners is and how you guys got involved. You're muted still. Okay, all right. You would think after since 2020, I figured this thing out. I mean, do this every day. I'm Moya Harris. I am an ordained minister in the AME church, African Methodist Episcopal Church. I serve at Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, DC, which is considered the Cathedral of African Methodism, historic church where Frederick Douglass' funeral was held. Um, lot of cool things have been there. It's a very, uh, it's an awesome space. Um, I'm also a director of racial justice at Sojourners. Um, I, um, have been at Sojourners since 2020. I'm also a registered nurse that's retired. I'm also a PhD student who's tired. And, I just, um, I'm glad to be here. Um, I'm just. love everything about justice and faith and just making the world with God intense. I'm looking forward to this conversation. That's awesome. are we go ahead Thomas, we'd love to hear a little bit about you. Sure. I'm Reverend Thomas Brackin and I serve as the minister to youth and families at the historic Metropolitan AME Church where Moia stated so much about the church already, so I'm not going to add any more. I'm actually not with Sojourners, but we've been a benefit of partnering with Sojourners and a part of their research work and having conversations around how to better serve families and their community. And we are happy to be a thought partner through our youth and family ministry to figure out how we can better serve families throughout the DC metropolitan area and beyond. ah A little bit more about me is I I would call myself multi-vocational. uh I work full-time, part-time as the youth and family minister at the church and also own my own business around youth ministry consulting. I've been working with young people for 30 years. That means I've been doing it since I was born, because I look 30. um But I've had the opportunity to work with young people in different ways throughout the DC metropolitan area during that time. That is so cool. I got to my hats off to both of you. Working up in DC with all the traffic and I lived in Northern Virginia and all the craziness there. Just being in DC, it's in the belly of the beast, man. Everything, all the power is there, all the money in some way is flowing in and out of there. It just can be a really challenging space. I appreciate you guys being up there with all the political turmoil we've had. in the last decades here, especially last 10 years. But I love it. And hats off to you, Thomas, for working with youth. I was a youth pastor and I got to say, I didn't really like it. I wasn't really that good. So I'm really glad there are people like you. And you know what? was a youth pastor too. So were you a youth pastor, Moya? done youth ministry. There you go. All four of us have done youth ministry. So we're all crazy in our own ways. And yes, exactly, dude. So the reason we were having you guys on um is that you, the rejoiners, did a report. And it was a summary of the new research to strengthen early childhood development opportunities in Black and Latin faith communities. And I would love to kind of jump into that. What was this report? And maybe we can start with you, Moya and Thomas, you can fill in anything else at the end of that and answer the question. We can kind of get a little structure. I'm going back and forth to get a rhythm there. But what is this report, Moya, and why is it so important? This report is the culmination of some research that we have done. um We wanted to look at how we could make a difference to the biggest group of people. And um we realized that by taking care of the youngest in the community, the most vulnerable in the community, and the people that care for them, you can make the biggest change in a community. um What we did is we did a survey that surveyed over a thousand people, but we also did focus groups where we went to um congregations, black and Latin congregations to see how they dealt with, how they did ministry for the youngest. um Cause you have youth ministry, but you don't really hear about zero to three. So um we did that work um digging into the community. Some of the communities were predominantly Spanish speaking. so we were able to see what systems affected the least of these. So it was a theological and a sociological endeavor that really showed that churches really do care about the youngest, but they just need help. And that those that are in the community, they want more than just support like, let's have a food bank or whatever, but they need the church to actually address the systems that are causing the problems. They want advocates that go beyond just providing needs. Yeah, I'll jump in and say that, you know, again, we were one of the congregations that were participating as a part of this. And for me, it was a great opportunity to really listen in on what other families were thinking in our community as far as what they needed. I think Metropolitan does a good job of providing space for families who have kids in that zero to three. range, but I also believe just hearing some of the research and it gave perspective to think about some of the opportunities where we could be thinking about how to fill in the gaps moving forward in the years to come. I love this project, I'm getting the sense that perhaps there's kind of a story behind the story in the sense of, don't wake up one day and just start thinking about a particular demographic of people to want to study. can you give us what that story behind the story, like what's the process by which there's... money or funding or researchers and all the smart people you need to talk to you like, like, how did all that kind of come come into play to fulfill what you guys are trying to do? Yeah, it's really interesting because living in DC, when we looked at the black maternal rate in the United States is so high and the neonatal, black neonatal death rate is so high in the District of Columbia, which is like the seat of power that other nations look at. Those death rates are higher. than in some countries in the Middle East that are basically war torn. So we're looking at, okay, there's systems that are affecting the youngest, most vulnerable in our congregations and being a black woman. um being in school, we look at a lot of systems. so like one of the scholars is William Augustus Jones. He wrote the book, God in the Ghetto. And this... This just changed my whole way of looking at the world. Just like our theology informs our anthropology, how we see one another and informs the policy that we create, right? So when in a country where there's policies that, or systems in place that are allowing black women, no matter what their income is, to be at risk, to die when babies are dying, we got to look at what can we make a difference? What is the faith? aspect that could make a difference. And so I, like as a woman, I have a daughter that's grown and I'm a registered nurse. And I remember when I gave birth, I was a new registered nurse and I remember hitting on the call bell cause there was something wrong. It took my best friend to go get a nurse to come and check on me. End up the cord was around my daughter's neck. And if I wouldn't have delivered as quick, might've lost my daughter, right? I was a registered nurse. was there with family. had support there, but I'm not the only one that that kind of stuff has happened. I've had a niece who was the same exact weight as my daughter pass away because the cord was around the neck. The baby died in the womb. You see Serena Williams. So you see this happening with women of color and you see the death of children. And now this was all, we thought about all of this as an organization before. We came into this year with all these policies that are coming up that are hurting people. So the story behind it is like, what kind of world does God intend and how can we make this world a better place for the children? It's just, mean, the church, we care about the little ones. What can we do, especially for the black church, to get back to that center of society, center of community that it used to be? So oh I would say that's... a narrative that would be behind that. Yeah, I really love that. And I'd love to of uh get your thoughts on it as well, uh Reverend Breckin. But it's interesting, as you're talking, I've been writing this series of sub stacks, kind of unintentionally uh dealing with sort of this like Christian persecution narrative, especially in the context of you know, the anti-Christian bias task force, the religious liberty commission. like, I just felt like I had a need to just at least sort of like lay out the facts. And in the first of the series, and this is a terrible sales pitch, but like, in the first, I sort of unpacked this like white evangelical uh Christian viewpoint that they feel persecuted. You know, when you look through Barna and you look at PRI and you look at all their stuff and they're like, What about this group? Like, more so than any other group feels like they're the persecuted ones and other minority groups aren't persecuted. ah you know, hearing you talk about, know, these, like, because I'm very aware of like the minority, you know, infant mortality rate stuff, like it's it's bad, you know, like, and, it's just like, where's where's the help? And it sounds like you all are trying to start the first step and, know, bring shining a light on this problem. And I think it's super admirable. And for you, Reverend Burkina, I'm curious, I'm like, how did you get connected to this project? were there relationships that were kind of there already? was there like an application you had to fill out or something like that? how did you get connected to this work? Yeah, I think for Metropolitan and who we are, I think we were one of the congregations that were chosen by sojourners because we are a congregation that does a lot of justice work throughout the DC area and beyond. I think a lot because of our partnerships with the Washington Interfaith Network, our partnerships with Repairers of the Breach, know, former collaborations with Black Lives Matter. I think because of just who we are is a, you know, uh kind of a center of justice in the city. It gave the opportunity for us to kind of partner with Sojourners in this. uh And I am just one who is just all things youth as it pertains to my work in the DC area. You know, in previous contexts, uh I've had the opportunity to just work in congregations who serve lower income communities in the Temple Hills, Maryland area and the Alexandria, Virginia area. And so this is not subject matter that's new to me. And so when Sojourners reached out for the opportunity to really kind of engage in this topic of discussion and also research, it was definitely a yes. And let's see where we can learn from. what Sojourners is doing through Metropolitan. Like I said, we find ourselves doing the work in many ways, but I think through our previous collaborations and partnerships throughout the city, just gives us more opportunity to look at it from the youth and family lens. I have to ask, just given kind of your proximity to everything, like you didn't happen to be down at the Capitol yesterday or the day before with Shane Claiborne, were you? No, okay. I know. They seem to be rounding up religious leaders of a certain variety down there. So was just curious uh if y'all were part of No, we've had our own visuals. We've been doing Faithful Witness Wednesdays that we just ended last week. So we've had um local clergy and clergy from around the nation. And one of the days was focused on youth and children. And we actually had some children out there and we had children write down their prayers of how they would like for Congress to take care of the country. So we did do that a couple, it was probably last month or it might've been in March. So we're doing our own kind of vigils, but we didn't do that one. But I want to lift up about Metropolitan though. um part of it, we, so of course, because I used to be executive minister at the church. um I, knowing even before the pandemic, the youth ministry and the church school, they really took, they take care of the children. Like our church school has, people you think on a Sunday come to church school? uh Somewhere a hundred or more could. yeah, we know. Yeah, and some of them we have a what we call uh Crater Roll. Crater Roll is uh it is a tradition in the black church where the youngest babies are brought to the church school and they start um introducing the Bible and Christian traditions to them until they're old enough to be able to read to at least go to a class. So before the pandemic, you would go into the portion of the, what do you call it, the fellowship hall. And it would be like 30 babies in there with their parents. And they actually have a curriculum. So one of the seniors of the church, they actually created a curriculum for the babies. it was like, there was like this all bullet, all, like, I don't know where all these kids came from, because they didn't go to the church, but they're from the community. So it was like the word on the street, bring your babies here to Metropolitan. and you can introduce them into the tradition. And then they would graduate to the primary, the beginners and the primaries and all of that. But the church is over 180 years old. So we have had like Ida B. Wells and Mary McLeod Bethune used to speak at our church. It's a part of our tradition. that's part of the research is like pulling, it's more than just providing resources, but building up the children and their families, building those connections, community. And we created a toolkit for other churches to be able to do some of this kind of work. We actually have a one-on-one and a two-on-one where you can, people can, churches can evaluate their ministries to see how they can make it better for children, zero to three. But the cradle role, man, that was the place to be. They go there, go to church, then go to brunch and have their little blingies. uh I love that. So one of the things that I love that's coming out in this conversation, in both of your passion for youth, for justice, is that the church plays a really important and vital role to community life, especially in marginalized. communities. I would love for you to kind of talk about that a little bit. How important is the church and what role does the local church play that you've experienced in the black community and in the communities, the Latino community, the communities that you've been able to study, interact with, and connect to? I can jump in here. I think just from the moment when I was younger, the Black church was a part of my identity and faith for me. I grew up in the Temple Hills, Maryland area and just having opportunity to attend similar, we call it a Sunday school back in uh the Baptist church that I grew up in, Cornerstone Community Baptist Church in Temple Hills. And from there, was just, um you know, persons who volunteered who would take their time to just really pour into me as a student. And just in those experiences, which I might not have appreciated it at the time, I probably felt like I was being forced to go to church on a Sunday. But I didn't realize that this was a place where I was going to. learn how to serve my community better. was getting poured into as far as black history and education and biblical literacy. uh Also, it just served as a place as I got older to realize it was an epicenter for a place where the community could come to when there was needs, if there was persons who were struggling and needing food in their kitchen. uh for the week, for the month, or there were other resources needed to be pointed to as far as just whatever needs there were at the time. uh And it also, it became just kind of a center of support if somebody lost a loved one or somebody uh fell on hard times, if somebody's house caught on fire. I always saw the Black church or the Black churches that I was a part of as a place where we pulled together resources and made things happen. Even if your family had, you know, uh little to nothing, you would pull in whatever resources to make sure that another family was taken care of. At the time, I thought, you know, being in probably what you would call a middle-class family at the time, probably would be probably more viewed as lower middle class now at this age of the economy. uh But my parents made it look like we had everything. But now I look back, uh we really didn't have a whole lot. uh But that was just a strength in the power of the black family and the black church. Because even when we had little, ah just a little bit. we will make sure that the community was taken care of. And I think even today, being able to be privileged to serve at Metropolitan, we continue to do the same thing in different ways through the programming that we do, through the opportunities to serve the community that we have. It still is the heart of who the Black church is and how that we serve families. I really love that. And em Reverend Harris, you said something earlier that stuck with me that I want to kind of expand a little because you said, and I'm probably going to butcher this, but like your theology informs your anthropology and your anthropology, you know, informs your policy, uh you know, but like I feel like there's a missing piece there, right? Because like the policy is only as good as the politics behind it, right? So like there is kind of a missing link. So I'd love to kind of get your take on like what role does politics kind of play into this? And then to you, Reverend Brekeen is like, how do you take those policies, you know, as a clergy person, like, actually turn them into... something that's meaningful for the community. So I'll let you answer first, Reverend Harris, if you can. Sure, yeah, that whole anthropology of that. So the missing link is, I don't think people realize that everything that we do is theological, right? It's revealing how we see God or the creator or whatever we call the deity. So when we create policies, we create rules, executive orders that limit people's ability to thrive. You're basically reflecting how you see certain groups of people, which you're saying, this is how God is saying that these people should exist or how they are. So I think what it is is almost a reframing of, does this policy, is this going to help people thrive or is it going to help? people, is it going to cause people more harm? I think we look at what's happening to us, but our theology is a communal theology, right? It's not just about what happens to me. It happens. was happening to others. Like you even look in the Hebrew Bible, you is plural. They're, talking about community. They're talking about a collective. So I think underlying it's, it's our morals and our values, what we value the most. Do we care about those whose mouths are empty? Do we care about the babies whose brains are just developing in the first three years and they never get that time back? Like the stress, the PTSD that happens to babies early on affects them for the rest of their lives. Like we don't look at the science behind that because we're just living our lives. But I think if we stop and look, Head Start, Head Start has made a Difference in so many children's lives and it's so it keeps being put on the chopping block. Thankfully, we've had folks people of faith and others fighting this Potential of losing it so that now it's not in the budget Right now the second as of the other day, but it's safe right now, but we got to keep doing that work so I don't know if I answered your question, but it's like that how we see each other and how we treat each other through our policies, our rules. It goes back to how we see God. I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me because it's like the ultimate views we have and the ultimate worldview that we have and the way that we think about what a person is, it dramatically affects how we're going to view their worth, their value, and dramatically affects how we're going to treat them. So it does like philosophy, theology, whatever that ultimate... world, the ultimate thinking is that flows through down into policy, which on an individual level would be action behavior, right? But in a group level and certainly in a governmental, thinking about the politic, the people around, it's going to be a policy level. And the report that you did and the work you guys are doing is discovering some really deep seated issues that minority communities and marginalized communities are facing. What were some of those issues that were brought out uh in this report and what do they say about the current state of these marginalized communities? And real fast before I answer, I wanted to give Reverend Brackin a chance to answer about the policy actions that you guys have developed. How do you sort of implement those as a clergy person? Yeah, I think it's important. One, I think before we even think about implementation, I think it's around education and what I mean by education. And one of the things that we did recently is right now we have a, you know, a project that we've started called San Cofa Parenting through the church, which we are trying to provide resources for families. um from different demographics of community to help serve them with resources that will help oh them serve the needs of their children well. And one of those things we hosted back last October opportunity to have a conversation around faith and politics. As often those conversations are not our favorite conversations and sometimes the more difficult conversations. And we need to think about, you know, how to have these conversations within a family, but what does it look like to empower families and their students to participate in being a voice in these conversations as it pertains to policy and politics. uh I can remember, again, going back to my journey growing up, uh is, you know, growing up in the Temple Hills community, we had a civic association called Hillcrest Heights Civic Association. And many of the church members from my church, Cornerstone Baptist Community Church and Hilvers Baptist Church were a part of the organizing of the civic association. Often they were uh advocating for policy in our community and often we would have, you know, local congressmen and senators uh come to these community meetings and I would watch at a very young age as a teenager watch and most very powerful woman named Castor Lett, who is no longer with us and who was a member of my church and was a president of the Civic Association for many years, advocate for the needs of people in our community. And I watched that as a teenager. And then in my own way, being able to help lead a community youth organization that was a part of that Civic Association. uh to be a voice in my community. And so similar, think uh we as a body, we as a church, we have to provide those same type of mechanisms and avenues to one, educate our members and also to give them the opportunity to give voice to policy. And that goes back to our partnerships with the Washington Interfaith Network. That goes back to our partnerships with Repairs of the Breach. And we constantly get calls throughout the year from several different organizations to whether it's to host a meeting and or participate in justice and policy work. And so we give ample opportunities for our congregation to do so. I know there was just a meeting, a rally on Capitol Hill a couple of weeks ago. I was not able to attend. But we were very adamant of how do we get at least 50 of our young adults out there to give them the opportunity to speak to the work of justice um for the advocacy of policy down on the Hill. And so it was important, um one, the education component, but also two, providing those opportunities for advocacy. Yeah, that's really good. I appreciate you bringing all that out. To the question that I had before, I was thinking about how our theology, it drives so much of our behavior, it drives how we see other people, ah it drives our anthropology. Understanding people, are they made in the image of God? Are they of equal value with me? All of that gets flowed through way that we view the world and it's so important to have that. And I think that it's interesting because we can kind of, it's almost like this theme has come up a couple of times that it can be easy to distance ourself from those people in need. It can be easy to dehumanize or to basically make them, and I don't mean, obviously there are people that dehumanize in like a sense that is really, uh you know, abhorrent. But I mean, like dehumanizing that I just don't even think of them as people, their statistics, or it's a news story, or whatever it is, right? It's not like if I was questioned, I would say, yeah, they're not really people or they're not worth the value. No, it's just almost like it can go in one ear and out the other. I got stuff I'm worried about. um And yet there are major issues that these communities are facing, then your report brings that out. And I would love for you to talk through some of these major issues that the report brings out. What are families, the Latin and the Black families, what are they facing right now that your report found out and how the churches can help? Yeah, yeah. A big one is discrimination with the health care system. um The lack of having insurance or not having the money to pay for the co-pays, right? Like, we don't think about if access to the medical system is actually a multi-pronged situation. You got transportation to get to the medical places. Do you have paid time off to take the time off to take the baby to the hospital or take, or even if you're pregnant to get the prenatal care. So there's like layers of how do I get to the healthcare that I don't even can't even pay for, but then how do I get there with the transportation and the time off? those are like multiple prongs of things that families are seeing, uh access to healthy food and food deserts, right? can I get food that's healthy and actually afford it? like talking about like, what are some things that churches can do? Our church has uh a food bank and we actually have a partnership with an organization that brings in actually fresh prey produce that the families can get. And then we take the food, we have drivers that take the food to the people so that because of transportation issues. There are things that like when you cut financial, funding like they said they're gonna they're they're gonna protecting head start right But do we know if they're gonna cut? Some of the people that work there so that less children be able to get it, but we don't cut it. So it's like I know I'm going all over place with this. There's just so many systems that affect the children that we don't think about when we hear on the news, there's another executive order. The Department of Education is cutting this so that they can't get lunches, so that the siblings of the youngest are struggling as well. And that trauma that affects the whole family. um Livable wages, right? If families... are paycheck to paycheck and they're getting salary, not even getting salary, but hourly wages. Oftentimes they don't have benefits. Oftentimes they don't have vacation time, sick time. So all of these things affect the youngest in the family who are in their most vulnerable state. We don't think about what the babies, they can't communicate that. And like we said earlier, their brains are being developed by their environment in the stress that they're feeling from their families. Um, and so we saw that like when, the families, when the, members of the focus groups would come together, they were able to see dang, this system and this system and this system, and it's just making the levels of stress even higher. Thinking about how do I get to work? How do I get my groceries? How do I get healthy food for the children? Oh, daycare, their clothes, because my baby has a, has a uh fever, but I don't have sick time. And like all of those things snowball. So the church, one, can provide the resources to support the families, but also like, okay, well, maybe we need to go to the city council and be advocates to change some of these policies that are, you know, like changing minimum wage or affordable housing. Those type of things the church can get involved in. Cause like our church has... When Muriel Bileser sees our pastor walk through the door, she's like, oh no, there's about a hundred people gonna be behind him to advocate for the people in the community. So that's the kind of power that the church can bring both and support, provide the resources, connect them to the services in the community, but also become that prophetic voice in the community showing up so that people know who you are. as clergy because there's a weight that comes with being clergy in the community. That's all. I don't know who would be best answer this question, em and we haven't really talked much about it, but how much of a difference does the language barrier play into young parents, mothers, or kids uh to access the stuff that they need? Then follow on question, there has been some actions within the past couple of months that have that have made English the official language of this country. And I don't know of any sort of major changes that has occurred since then, but we all can sort of predict, like, OK, no more pressing two for, I forgot whatever it is, for Spanish. So talk through whoever thinks that they can kind of answer that or have real life experience. Yeah, I'll jump in first as part of my full-time work centers around DEI. And so the attack of DEI has been made an attack on uh Black and Brown people. But part of when we have this conversation about DEI, we have to talk about accessibility. And so being able to look at accessibility as far as the the language barrier. And when I say language barrier is, you know, we have to be able to provide resources and translate it so that, you know, when we are serving communities that may even have Spanish or Latin speaking families, that um they are able to know where resources are and who can provide these type of resources. um And then you, you know, and not just from that aspect of looking at from, you know, persons who speak another language, but, you know, accessibility goes beyond that, you know. um There's other persons who may have um kids who are dealing with disabilities that are being affected because of this attack on DEI, which includes accessibility. And so, you know, you have kids who may need that access to medications for different reasons. And so it's crippling young families in so many different ways. And again, it just goes back to something that Reverend Moyes said a few moments ago. It's just layers on layers on layers. And it's unfortunate that we could pull out probably 100 different layers. you know, around one issue. But that's just the product of how systems are affecting. And the church can't help it. know, we are certainly going to be there every step of the way, but we can't solve every issue. ah And so there has to be a bit of accountability of how we serve the greater community. You know, even as we think about, and I think about something that Reverend Moyer just said about, you know, childcare, you know, but we don't even think about how that is even the layer of there's not a lot of affordable housing in DC. And so when we think about, you know, the policies that we continue to fight as we're pertaining to affordable housing, you know, we have We've had conversations with young parents who are struggling to find an affordable place to live and be able to, sometimes those affordable places are 35, 40 minutes away from where they need to get to work. And that might be in the opposite direction of where childcare is. And so there's just so many different layers. And then the escalating costs of transit in the area. ah It's just layer upon layer upon layer. uh But we keep creating systems that only benefit the affluent here in DC. You know, I want to just pull on one of those layers for a second, and we can kind of just speak in generalities, because I'm not sure if anybody here is an economist. But I want to talk about one layer, and that's tariffs. Because I know that if COVID taught us anything, it's that um the least of these are the last of these to get face masks, right? Other countries were being shipped face masks before like, you know, my cloth one, you know, my fifth cloth one I made out of an old t-shirt, you know, like was ready to go. So tariffs, you know, is coming. It's here. It's going to, you know, keep people from buying $30 versus two, you know. But like, my guess is that the people that are going to feel it the most are going to be the demographic of folks that you guys are looking at. I'd love for you to make a comment and maybe Reverend Thomas, since you might be closer to it, what are some of your initial concerns about the impact on the community? Absolutely. think that, I mean, from items of basic needs, I think, you know, when we think about just, again, thinking about some of the families that we serve in the zero to three range, um or, you know, some of those families that are even focused on in this report, but we think about just basic needs of, you know, hampers and... you know, wipes and things of that nature. Again, you know, as tariffs are raising the prices on the basic necessities, it then puts families at a more further deficit of I need to figure out how I'm going to pay for this particular item versus maybe putting food on the, you know, on the table this week. And so it's definitely going to be an impact, I think. that we haven't really seen the totality of the impact yet. I think we have seen the continued escalating of grocery prices, but it's definitely having an effect. uh One of the partnerships that we have been talking about um as a partnership with the Youth and Family Ministry at Metropolitan is we're... looking at moving towards a partnership with organization called Young Life National Organization. And they have a division of the DC oh Young Life group that oh is called Young Lives, which they do programming specific to young mothers oh in the DC area. And so one of the things we're looking at is how do we even look at partnering with Young Lives to help support some of their young single parents in providing gift cards to these families to help offset some of their monthly costs because some of them are trying to figure out, you know, how do I get formula for the baby versus oh what, you know, Reverend Moyer had just mentioned a few moments ago about, you know, a lot of these families live in food deserts, you know, they're trying to figure out how do I get to the grocery store and get groceries and still pay for baby formula. Or because the nearest grocery store may be three to four miles away and they don't have transportation to get there, they're further putting their child in a health deficit because they're going to the carryout that's on the corner or the local corner store that has prepackaged unhealthy foods that they're having to feed off. the offer budget to their families. And so definitely, think, again, going back to these layers, I think the effective tariffs are going to continue to probably affect the cost of items that are basic needs. And we really have to think about how that is going to target and affect our families moving forward. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, Moya. Yeah, I was just thinking about this notion of mutual aid, right? Like going back to our history in the Black church of the community supporting each other, almost like small groups, right? Like we had the class system in the Methodist tradition where you have pods of people who like, okay, I have some rice and you have some meat and we come together and we create a meal. uh I can imagine us going back to that if this economy keeps on doing this. Like, how are we going to take care of each other because the services that the government used to have are no longer there. So it's like, know, and if you notice in our research, we say caregivers, because we have multiple layers of family members taking care of the youngest. You might have some grandparents that are caring for people. There might be some family members that are. the parents are incarcerated, so there's someone else in the family taking care of the baby. So there's just so much of what the church can do by providing services because these tariffs, I am worried. I believe that the church, I hope a lot of churches step up and become really what the church needs to be in this time, because it's not, we cannot say it's a universal thing. But yeah, the mutual aid, caring for one another, being creative, Being adaptive. I keep saying this week, I've been like, we need to be like water, right? Bruce Lee, we need to be able to shape and form into what we need to do and get into the cracks and crevices and heal the pains of the world. And it might be the gift cards with Young Lives. That's, yeah, we have to be creative. What you need to do is use some Jeet Kune Do on the community, because that's a form of martial arts that Bruce Lee practiced. Anyway, that may be too much information. you So, all right, this is my last question. um What do you feel like is the most important thing that you want to make your appeal to this audience that we have? What's the most important thing that this report has surfaced, that your work in the last six months... has surfaced that you want to make sure that people are understanding and they're getting the urgent need here. I'll jump in first. And I think it's part of what Reverend Moyer said. And I was at a conference last week at Princeton Theological Seminary, and we were talking about the subject of kind of radical hospitality and what that looks like. And we're entering into a season where we definitely have to... be thinking more about radical hospitality. And when I say the term of radical hospitality, what I'm saying is how do we make space for the least of these? How do we make space for those who don't look like us, those who may not um have the same uh type of access and privileges that we have? m I'm fortunate to be able to um be in the spaces that I'm in, but I understand that there's some, although, you know, whether it's me personally or whether it's Metropolitan as a whole, we do some great work, but there's so many more gaps to be filled and we have to think about and also even reimagine what that looks like, you know, because I think sometimes we can also get very comfortable in the things that we can do because it's easy. It's, you know, I can just go to the church and help serve at the food bank. But what does radical hospitality looks like into actually stepping into communities and listening to families and making space for them and listening to what maybe the needs are that may be out of our comfort zone and helping to... bring about opportunity. It may be that we need to think about how we're pointing uh families to more accessible housing or how to point families to, you know, job opportunities, whatever that may look like, that may be out of the comfort zone of what our churches normally do. Because I believe this is going to be an ongoing uh uphill battle ah and we have to think more about the least of these in a theological way than we've ever had to before. um And I don't like to be doom and gloom, but it does feel like things are gonna get worse than before it gets better. And I think we have to um accept a bit of that pessimism in the process, understanding that um we have to, and not to stay in pessimism. But except that, you know, even though that things may get worse, that I'm still gonna find a place of hope because that's where I always point back to uh in the midst of my theology is pointing back to hope and pointing back to Christ and be able to help centralize my strategy into helping what God has called me to do for families and helping to teach and educate others to do the same. I I have one last question for for for both of you and Like with a podcast like ours, um we talk a lot about faith and politics, obviously. So we're well named for the topics that we talk about. um And a lot of the times those conversations deal with the intersection of the two. We heavily talk about Christian nationalism, kind of all of it sort of adjacent elements and what have you. So I say a lot to say that If people were looking to get more information about the Christian faith to make a decision on whether or not they should, you like start going to church, like this would be a terrible podcast for that because they are hearing just all the terrible stuff, you know, like storming capitals, you know, doing all this other kind of stuff. And like we do we do have a little bit more rosier picture on our Thursday podcast, the Faith Roundtable, which is led by Pastor Josh. But what I want to do is have you all paint a picture for us, a picture different than probably what most people have heard or have seen about Christianity. Because I think that the work you both are doing is really, really at the core of what Jesus wants us to do. He really wants us to help the least of these. And it sounds like the work you're doing is doing that. You're making an impact. So. Paint a picture of each of you 10 years from now. You get all the funding you need. Tariffs make zero impact. God has just rained down riches on you in your ministries, each of your ministries, in ways that you could not predict. What would your communities look like? You can go first, Reverend Thomas, if you want. The community to me will look like a place of equity. It would and to further not just use that as a broad term, but you know, the access to healthcare, the access to uh affordable housing, a community that uh has no issue in sharing resources, uh a community that doesn't look down upon each other based on ethnicity and language and appearance. I believe it's the opposite of so much that we've said today, know, access, and education and persons just... being able to just rest knowing that um their basic needs are met. And not just their basic needs are met, but we live in a world where there's abundance and we live in a world where there's more than enough and there's no reason that we should have the issues that we have here in our society. In a world where we talk about you know, no matter, you know, where you fall on a political line, how bad the homelessness is and how bad crime is. And but we continue to perpetuate things that increases those things. You know, when we, you know, talk about health care, but we slash, you know, health care left and right in so many different aspects. And, you know. I want to live in a world 10 years from now where we can tear down those barriers and that uh we can all live in a place where uh we have more than just our basic needs being met. Because I believe for a country that proclaims it's the greatest country or the country that proclaims it's a Christian nation. um I want us to actually be a representation of what that Jesus looks like. uh And I'm not talking about a Jesus of power, ah but a Jesus of justice. And that's what I would love to see 10 years from now um in our community. a preach. Bring us home, Reverend Moya, because Josh needs to take some notes for his message this Sunday. Well, one, did ask if I had one thing for people to remember is that um advocating for the least of these advocacy is basically moving systems towards justice. So. Think about the cries of the babies and what can we do to comfort those that don't even have a voice to be able to, they don't have words yet. And the church is the place to do it. And those that are in policy work, think about what is your policy doing to these babies. ah 10 years from now, see, this is right up my alley. Cause when I do interviews, I ask people like, if you were God, what would you make the community look like? How could you change it? There you go. want to see what their imagination. like for me, I did a piece that was on our soljow.net website um that I see the community as a block party, right? I see music and joy and laughter and kids running around laughing and not worrying about getting hit by a car and they're all healthy and there's barbecue. And there's healthy barbecue. not for high blood pressure. I see access to health care. that is unlimited. I see blue skies, but then there's also raining so that there's flowers. Like everything is in order. People are thriving. um I see it's like a version of Pentecost and Jubilee. I often channel the great theologian Chuck D. I've got so much trouble on my mind, refuse to lose. That's the trouble and the grace. Like I've got trouble, but I refuse to lose. So if you want to, if you use that for your sermon, you just, just bring it back to me. But, um the Enemy Strikes Black? Because I think I have that album. So I'm saying. yes. That's welcome to the territory. So yeah. Yeah. So look, I use public enemies sometimes to get ready to preach. That's, that's the kind of preacher I am. There's no separation between sacred and secular. It's all one thing. And like, Aubrey Hendricks would say, we're supposed to be treating people's needs as if they're holy. So if we do that. especially thinking about the babies and the mothers and the fathers and the grandparents are taking care of these babies, everything will refuse to lose. yeah, everyone will thrive. That is absolutely phenomenal. I love that I got to nerd out on Public Enemy a little bit at the end. You know, the very first CDs I ever was uh given by my parents was like, uh was the, I think it was the Enemy Strikes Black and the House Party 2 soundtrack. Come on, kid and play were the jam back in the day. I don't know what kind of music y'all grew up to. I was in college during the golden age of hip hop. So I know exactly what you're talking about. Yes. Well, thank you both for coming to our show. This has been uh absolutely phenomenal. We are going to make sure that we put the links to all of your uh research report, all the different things that you all are doing in the world and to just make it a better place. We just appreciate ah what you're doing. You're making Earth as it is in heaven and I think that is really commendable. Thank you both. So and to our listeners and viewers, thanks for stopping by again. Make sure you like, subscribe, do all that stuff that we're told you're supposed to do. And as always, keep your conversations not right or left, up, and we'll see you next time. Take care. See you.