Quotes & Thoughts from Rev Damon Lynch

“At some point you wake up and say, obviously servicing people does not make them whole….We didn’t eradicate poverty in Cincinnati, we just moved it. It’s a totally different place. But the poor people are gone.”

“We’ve poured millions and millions of dollars into the emptiness of people’s lives. While we were there providing services, we weren’t making any real change.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, if it has not happened by now it will never happen. This is not a pessimistic or defeatist attitude. It is a challenge to build our own networks of support. As important as equity, diversity and inclusion are, we are tired of being the object of it. Diversity, inclusion and equity are not substitutes for reparations. They are a pacification.”

“I don’t think our voices are loud enough. I don’t think our voices resonate. I don’t think we have a presence in our community as we should.”

“We see ourselves as a community center and want to be the `village well,’…. For us, that’s what church is. Church is community.”

“Regardless of whether displacement is a result from government or private market action, forced displacement is a case of people without the economic and political power to resist being pushed out by people with greater resources and power, people who think they have a “better” use for a certain building, piece of land, or neighborhood. The pushers benefit. The pushees do not.

Displacement doesn’t just happen – and it won’t just stop!”

Faith-based organizations become just another social service agency, not only making some of the same mistakes, but neglecting core Biblical lessons like this one from the New Testament.

“Jesus was preaching one day, and there’s 5,000 or more people there. And the disciples say ‘Hey, they’re hungry, send them away.’ He says, ‘We don’t send people away, we’re gonna feed them.’

“Now he’s Jesus, he could have just said ‘Alright we’re gonna feed them. Father, I need manna from Heaven and quail to fall down, because these people don’t have anything. So if you would just send some stuff we’ll feed everybody.’ Instead, he says, ‘What do we have?’”

“And that has to be the question: What do we have?”