Reading the River
Discovering hidden truths about your community
I spent the first several years of my ministry as a bi-vocational missions pastor. I had a few different jobs in this time, but my favorite was a fly fishing guide. An important part of fly fishing for trout is knowing where to cast your fly—this requires reading the river. As you approach a river you look for the “fishy” spots, where a trout is most likely to be sitting, waiting for food to flow by. By looking at what the water is doing on the surface, a good fly fisherman can tell what’s happening under the surface.
It has me thinking, what are the things we see on the surface of our communities that can tell us about what’s happening underneath the surface? I’ll share about one that I’ve learned but would love to hear others from you all in the comment section.
Crime Rates
Crime rates are readily available to us as we listen to our community, but what do these statistics tell us? As I built community with people experiencing incarceration in Boone, I started to hear these neighbors’ stories. Many of them disclosed histories of horrific abuse and neglect. In 2019, a social worker in the community interviewed inmates in the jail and found that of 50 habitual offenders, 96% grew up in household dysfunction (a mentally ill parent, parents abusing drugs or alcohol, incarcerated parents, etc), 65 percent grew up in abusive homes, and 57 percent were in a home that was neglectful.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “At least 1 in 7 children have experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year… [Childhood] trauma is a risk factor for nearly all behavioral health and substance use disorders.” It’s a brutal cycle where children are exposed to abuse and neglect, which negatively impacts their physical and mental development, which leads to behavioral problems and substance use disorders which can lead to abuse and neglect for the next generation.
Incarceration rates are often signs of systemic racism as well. Black people are disproportionately incarcerated compared to white people in the United States. The United Nations released a report last year that stated,
“In the United States, racial bias, stereotypes and profiling play a recurrent role in portrayals or perceptions of what or who is ‘dangerous’ and in presumptions of criminality. Systemic racism creates harmful and spurious associations of Blackness with criminality and delinquency. These bias, associations and stereotypes have a direct impact on the interactions of Africans and people of African descent with law enforcement officials and the criminal justice system.”
Statistics like the one below are plentiful and heartbreaking. We have so much work to do.
If we’re to address incarceration rates, we must look holistically at the issue. We must eliminate systemic racism and we must interrupt cycles of trauma by supporting children and their parents.
Under the Surface
It's easy to look at information on the surface of your community listening and make incorrect assumptions. We must learn how to take this information and look below the surface because this is where the important learning is. This is where impactful community engagement ministry will emerge.