BJ Thompson's Mission to Mold Young Men (Ministry Feature)

This article was published in Faithfully Magazine No. 2 (Summer 2017). BJ Thompson had to be shocked by the system before he could become a shock to the system. The 35-year-old can identify at least two forks in his life’s path. At each, he suffered the deep soul grief that comes with watching unjust structures put their full weight on the throat of Black America. Thompson answered each of these wake-up calls, deciding his story would be told in action verbs and proper nouns, working for change in the lives of specific people. He packed up his education and energy, investing it all in one idea: When just people enter places of cultural power, those places will become just, too. That idea moved Thompson and his family from Memphis to Atlanta, where he planted himself at one of the great seats of Black learning in the United States. At Morehouse College, he has taken up a quiet, methodical, messy form of activism—building relationships. “We’re building a well where people live,” Thompson said of his work with The Navigators, a parachurch organization that has been making disciples for Jesus Christ at college campuses, military bases and prisons for nearly 85 years. The Dallas native grew up in an environment that treated church like a house, not a home. Faith was tied up in sentiment and tradition. It was a moral good, not a spiritual sanctuary. To Thompson, religion was like a divine good-luck charm — “something that’s warding off evil.” “You don’t know what it does. You don’t know the extent of its power,” he said. “All you know is that sometimes you need it when you’re in sticky situations.” As a freshman at the University of North Texas, Thompson’s trinket faith stopped doing its job. Brick by brick, he had constructed a universe with himself at the center, and eventually daylight began pouring through the cracks. When it became painfully clear that he could not supply the power for his own life, Thompson turned to God in genuine faith. That was not the only awakening God had planned for Thompson at North Texas. A freshman sociology class provided language for a sorrow he had always felt, but could not describe. The class pored over case studies and surveyed social theories used to justify the erection of ghettos and the isolation of Blacks. During these lectures, Thompson saw his professor drawing a picture of his community, of real people with real names and faces. “The rest of the class was nodding in agreeance,” he recalled. “I was sitting there, shrinking in my seat with tears in my eyes because I realized for the first time that my life was a byproduct of a social experiment.” He thought of friends lost to violence, others whose spark was extinguished by incarceration. He pictured a father who was not absent, but was not present either. To provide, Thompson’s father worked a backbreaking schedule. A lack of better options was something Thompson’s father, and by extension his family, tangibly felt. That deficit of opportunity was, in part, a function of choices his father made. But school systems that only paid lip service to Brown vs. the Board of Education also bore responsibility. By not taking serious their responsibility and mandate to educate Black students as rigorously as White students, they failed to equip and prepare people like Thompson’s dad for greater opportunities. Pushing through the pain to even closer scrutiny, Thompson noticed gaps in the ways adults had talked to him about systems and injustice. They gave “particular warnings,” he said, about how not to end up in the system: Do not get girls pregnant. Do not hang around gangs. But they never found words to tell him about the cold, calculated nature of systems that, in an almost surgical fashion, worked to choke the life out of people of color. Institutions designed to educate, move the economy and deliver justice were bedrock for some Americans; but, as Thompson saw, these institutions operated in a fashion that provided Blacks far less power than their White counterparts. It was as if these revelations had pulled him from the safety of the beach and thrown him into the ocean. Wave after wave overwhelmed him as Thompson considered the dark truths behind his social condition. He let himself grieve, then vowed to do the hard work of redemption. He wanted to create a new “ecosystem” and release “equalizers” into it, people who would turn these systems upside down or, in truth, make them go right-side up. The timing of Thompson’s rebirth is not lost on him. “If I would have been awakened to those systems prior to being awakened in my soul, I probably would have been awakened to either anger or to manipulation,” he said. [caption id="attachment_63243" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] (Photo: Jason McCoy Photography)[/caption] Now having eyes to see, Thompson gave himself to real places and real people. He and his wife moved to Memphis in 2006 to apply what they had learned in school. Joining them there was college friend Lecrae Moore. Moore would later become known simply as Lecrae, and help pioneer a new age of gospel-motivated hip- hop. Thompson was part of the inner circle that helped launched the Unashamed Movement and Reach Records, an epicenter of artful, faithful rap. He worked as outreach director for ReachLife, which took the music’s message into communities through leadership development, conferences and other activities. The two also made regular trips to a local juvenile facility —Thompson would speak to the young inmates and Moore would rap. But they did not just offer winsome words; they lived distinct lives. Thompson believes the desires for justice and righteousness God has written on his heart must become flesh, and that following Jesus means dwelling among the people he chooses to love. During his years in Memphis, the ideas and ideals that had resonated at North Texas became scuffed and shaped by reality. His house became a haven for high school students who struggled with literacy; his relationship with his wife an example to young men for whom marriage was an unfamiliar concept. During Thompson’s time in Memphis, he also helped found Build A Better Us, an organization that exists to encourage stronger marriages through conferences and resources across multiple media platforms. God was doing things in Memphis, and in Thompson’s life. And then came the second great awakening. [caption id="attachment_63242" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] (Photo: Zach Thomas)[/caption] Brother's Keeper The summer of 2014 came and went without mercy. The deaths of Eric Garner, and especially Mike Brown, tore at Thompson’s seams. The loss of Black men just like him, Black men who could have been him, left him awake at night, pleading with God. It was not just Dallas or Memphis buckling under the weight of unjust systems. Shed blood was crying out from the ground in all corners of the country. The American brand of injustice spread further and cut deeper than Thompson had dared to recognize. He felt like that college freshman again, getting smaller in his seat as the rest of the world nodded at the way things had always been. He cried out for things to be made right. He cried out for things to make sense. Often he cried out, asking God to raise up workers that would plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of justice and reconciliation. God replied clearly, unmistakably —Thompson was the answer to his own prayers. “What if I am the cavalry?” he started to ask himself. As the need came into focus, he saw the experiences of his life flash before his eyes and collide in a critical mass. There was still work to be done in Memphis, but Thompson’s labor could not be contained there any longer. He wanted to pour into men, then send them to every corner of the country, men with similar hearts and character, men who wanted to be kinsmen- redeemers. To make it clear that He was in this, God dropped an opportunity into Thompson’s life. The Navigators had cast a wide net, hoping to bring the right people to Morehouse College. Someone had supplied Thompson’s name, and The Navigators cold-called him with a proposal. He arrived in Atlanta in 2015, setting foot on a campus distinguished by its history and influence. The all-male school has produced politicians, activists, preachers, professors and culture-makers such as Martin Luther King Jr., Howard Thurman, Julian Bond and Spike Lee. Even today, the Morehouse man is known by the head he holds high and the arms he stretches out to his brothers. [caption id="attachment_63241" align="aligncenter" width="1000"] (Photo: Zach Thomas)[/caption] Beyond that well-cultivated outward image, Thompson looked deeper and saw his former self in the young men he met. Many of these students had much to offer, but were serving themselves. He could see what they could not —a fork in the road that was not far off. They could turn one way and spend all their drive and talent building their own empires. Or they could go the other way, bringing justice and dignity to boardrooms, classrooms, communities and their own homes. Thompson is a voice calling them to a path of service and selfless living. His style of ministry and mentorship finds fulfillment along two sides of the same coin. Thompson meets students where they are. He comes to their turf, leading them through Bible studies and simply just to hang out. He helps them connect dots, exposing them to people with the jobs and lives they aspire to. Thompson also asks these young men to return the favor and meet him where he is. To spend time with his family, to watch, listen, learn and hopefully gain a vision for a whole life lived beyond one’s self- interest. Kyle Colley, a political science major, usually spends Sundays with Thompson and his wife, enjoying the family atmosphere they provide. The Morehouse student met Thompson in a campus Chick-fil-a his junior year. Colley said he was initially drawn to Thompson’s charisma and the genuine interest he showed in him and his friends. He immediately recognized and responded to Thompson’s entrepreneurial spirit. “I’ve had a natural inclination to bring massive change to the world, but being around a like-minded individual like B.J. has really helped cultivate that gift, and has helped me catch blindspots in my character,” he said. Having had his fair share of mentors, Colley believes Thompson’s ability to understand students and speak their language makes him stand out. While he has the long game of justice and equity in mind, Thompson does not project onto the young men he mentors. He seeks to know and love them first, living by the axiom: “We allow people to belong before we ask them to believe.” Like a younger version of himself, many of these men know just enough about the world to know something is not right, according to Thompson. They come with an “ingrained suspicion toward systems without the informed perspective that allows you to specify exactly what it is that you disagree with.” One system they struggle to trust is Christianity. They have witnessed Christians praise their God on Sundays, yet participate in oppressive systems the rest of the week. They have heard Christians speak of free, eternal life, yet witness them deny liberation for others in the here and now. Believing that incarnation beats intellect or ideal every time, and displays the full glories of a just God , Thompson strives to show these young men a Jesus who is for them and can recreate them. God has also been working on Thompson throughout his journey, teaching him more and more to trust in Him and His timing. When ReachLife, the non-profit ministry where he worked with Lecrae Moore, folded in 2015, it redirected its resources to a local school called Peace Preparatory Academy. God provided a place for Vanja, Thompson’s wife, among the faculty at the Atlanta school and community resource center. Convinced that just people can positively impact places of cultural power, Thompson is looking for others to join him on the mission field. He admits that the number of minority missionaries is small, and the number that can truly afford to chase their calling smaller still. But if the church believes God wants to break out among minority communities, they must prioritize minority missionaries. That is the only way Morehouse —and places like it— can become fault lines. Thompson has a living faith and hope that justice will indeed roll down like waters one day; but until that day comes, he will do the work of turning on one faucet after another to watch water flow out and weather the ground around it.

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