There Was Never a Mountain – 9 lessons from 9 years of OneRace

This week, OneRace turns nine.

Nine years ago, I thought we were taking a mountain. I was younger, zealous, and convinced that if we gathered the right people, told the truth clearly enough, prayed faithfully enough, and created the right moments, we could make meaningful progress quickly.

But there was never a mountain.

There was a forest.

What I thought could be climbed was actually rooted in our histories, churches, institutions, imaginations, relationships, and ways of seeing one another. Those roots had been growing long before OneRace arrived.

Nine years later, I understand something I couldn’t have understood then: this work is less about conquering something and more about cultivating something.

Here are nine convictions we are carrying into year ten.

1. God is more invested in reconciliation than we are.

We did not invent this work.

Reconciliation begins with God. Through Christ, God is reconciling people to Himself and creating a new humanity from those who were once divided.

That frees us from believing the future rests on OneRace, I pray it frees you too. We are joining something God was doing before us and will continue long after us.

2. We inherit more than we choose.

None of us chose the world we were born into. We inherit stories, traditions, wounds, opportunities, institutions, and ways of seeing.

We did not plant every root beneath our feet. But once we understand what those roots are producing, we have to decide what we will cultivate next.

3. Know the story. Own the story. Change the story.

This framework has stayed with us from the beginning.

We cannot change what we refuse to know. We cannot repair what we refuse to own.

Eventually, truth must become responsibility, and responsibility must become action.

4. What grows up, also grows down.

Every so often, something breaks the surface: Trayvon. Ahmaud. Breonna. George. Sonya. 

Those moments do not emerge from nowhere. Beneath them are histories, assumptions, fears, habits, systems, and stories that have formed us for generations.

If we only respond to the fruit and never examine the roots, we should not be surprised when the same fruit appears again.

5. People look different up close.

One of OneRace’s greatest gifts to me has been a relationship with the broader body of Christ—different denominations, traditions, cultures, and expressions of faith.

Our political and cultural discourse often reduces people to caricatures that do not survive relationship.

Up close, people are more complicated, more beautiful, and often more open than we imagined. The Church is much bigger than our corner of it.

6. Revival and reconciliation belong together.

From the early days, we said we wanted to stand against racism and dead religion and stand for reconciliation and revival. I still believe it takes a move of the Spirit to help us overcome fear, surrender pride, cross boundaries, and truly see one another.

If revival draws us nearer to God, it should also change how we relate to the people He created.

7. Reconciliation work will cost you more than you’re willing to pay.

Everyone loves reconciliation until reconciliation costs something.

The greatest costs have not been financial. They have been criticism, misunderstanding, thankless seasons, and continuing when people walk away. I still remember a prominent Black preacher writing a scathing critique of OneRace in our early years. There have been other moments like it.

Faithfulness cannot depend on applause nor criticism.

8. We are not the bridegroom.

Year-one Josh wanted to change people. Year-nine Josh knows better.

Our job is to tell the truth, pastor people, encourage them, say hard things, and sometimes be prophetic. But we are gentle guides, not saviors.

Paul says one plants, another waters, but God gives the increase.

So we hold people and outcomes with an open hand. We are faithful with the seed, faithful with the water, faithful with the truth—and Jesus does the changing.

9. The Church should embody the destination.

Revelation 7 gives us a picture of where history is headed: every nation, tribe, people, and language gathered before the throne and before the Lamb.

Difference remains. Yet , Jesus is at the center.

The Church should not merely preach about that destination. We should give the world a preview of it. Nine years ago, I thought we were taking a mountain.

Today, I know we are tending something older, wider, and deeper than any one organization can change in a generation.

So we will keep telling the truth about the roots. We will keep planting. We will keep watering.

And we will trust God for the increase.