COATESVILLE, Pa. (BRN)—As a white man who grew up and now lives and ministers in predominately Black neighborhoods, where he is a minority, Josh Crans thought he had some understanding of the African American experience.

In fact, he and his co-pastor and former seminary roommate, a Guyanese American man, are planting Providence Church, and together they have served the very urban and poverty-stricken city of Coatesville for the past three years.

Though the old steel town itself is just shy of 14,000 people, it is one of the poorest cities in Pennsylvania—despite being in one of the state’s wealthiest counties—and is predominately comprised of African American and Hispanic residents.

The church has partnered with the Bridge Academy & Community Center, where his wife Jordan serves as executive director and where they intentionally go to serve rather than expect people to come to them. In fact, the heartbeat of the church’s Sunday gatherings are “a celebration of all that God had done throughout the week,” he said.

He also has some older pastors, African American mostly, in the greater Philadelphia region who were pouring into him and influencing him as he planted his church.

But Crans’ understanding began to change when he was invited to join a Baptist Resource Network cohort of African American and Anglo pastors, who were ready to tackle the issue of racial reconciliation.

Joining after it had already started, he felt it was an “honor” and a “privilege” to be asked to be a part of the group, but he “kind of missed the awkwardness of the first few gatherings.”

But it didn’t take long for him to recognize how much he had to learn.

In his first meeting, he immediately sensed the “Oh, here we go again” feelings, Crans said, remembering the Prophet Habakkuk’s words, “How long shall I cry out, Oh Lord, and You will not hear?” So many African American brothers and sisters’ cries have historically fallen on deaf ears, he said.

He felt the tension of “Here’s another thing. Are we going to talk about reconciliation? How many times do we have to talk about it before it bears fruit in each one of our lives?”

There also was the skepticism and nervousness of being open and honest and truthful, he said.

“And man, it was a work that only God could do!” he recounted.

“We saw it unfold and unravel as relationships began to build, as trust began to build,” and there was care, compassion, concern—and repentance.

Crans said one of the greatest things to come out of the experience was a “heart of repentance… and brokenness” that only God could do.

“To where now, here we are three years later. There’s genuine love and relationships and brotherhood, and there’s fruit. I mean, there’s fruit of what God, only God, could do.”

Crans noted the country had already walked through many difficult things, including the Charleston, S.C., church shooting and killing of nine African Americans; the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida; and so many others.

“The list goes on, and so, during the midst of those national tragedies, we’re together in a room, and we’re feeling the heaviness” and “even we, as white pastors, were seeing the burden and the grief and the despair and just the brokenness in our African American brothers” as they were processing and navigating.

For Crans, hearing the “real life stories from people you love and care for” changed him, causing him to want to lean in, to learn, to sit with, and to listen.

“It brings it home and makes it become so real that some of these men—that you serve alongside of, that preach the gospel powerfully, that preach the same Word that you preach, that you know have a passion for the Lord, that have great influence—that many of those men have experienced some of the same things that we were seeing and continue to see across this nation.

“It was real eye-opening and humbling,” he said. “It’s not like you’re reading something and … this happened one time. It’s right there present day.”

Pointing to Lamentations 2 where the Prophet Jeremiah cried out and said, “Lord, let my eyes affect my heart…,” Crans said he likes to use the phrase “heart cry” to describe what was happening to him.

“It’s really given me the ability to let my eyes affect my heart, to allow what I see affect me in such a way that I want to do something about it, that I want to speak out against it. And I want to join with my brothers and sisters in this community of faith, in the Church, and link arms and speak out and cry out to God.”

Crans said after gathering with these men, he would often take what he learned into his context of the church on Sundays, where they would wrestle with the very same issues as a community. He’s taken the reading material and exposed the church members to the content to help them grow in their understanding as well.

These included such resources, he said, as Dhati Lewis’ and J.D. Greear’s Bible study, Undivided, and Michael O. Emerson’s and Christian Smith’s book, Divided by Faith.

Crans also has taken men, of all races, from his church to a local predominantly African American church where they sat and listened as men discussed how to navigate biblically and how to grieve and mourn the current issues.

“I just remember looking around that room and seeing men from our church, white and Black and Hispanic—but a lot of white men, middle-aged men—just sitting there and listening to these men share their hearts and pour their hearts out and to grieve and to be broken. It was really eye-opening,” Crans shared, recounting one particular conversation afterward.

The man said he was “blown away” and that he learned “this is an everyday experience, and I’ll no longer think that these are isolated events.”

Crans said, “And so it was through what I was learning and processing through with these men in the BRN that I was able to implement that even into our own church life.”

He called the whole ongoing experience “super beneficial.”

His church also is excited about the mission effort in Strawberry Mansion, where the 12 pastors are working together to build a community center and eventually a church in one of the Philadelphia areas most affected by systemic racism.

“Our church is looking forward to even getting behind that financially and supporting that as a as a ministry and as a mission,” he said. “I’m hoping more churches get excited about it.”

To learn more about Mansion Hope, visit here.

View the full interview below:

Photo: Josh Crans, pastor of Providence Church in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, prayer with Robert Fontell, pastor of Calvary Christian Church in Philadelphia during a racial reconciliation cohort organized by the Baptist Resource Network. Photo by Shannon Baker