Meet Lawrence Richardson

We recently connected with Lawrence Richardson and have shared our conversation below.

Lawrence, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Where do I get my resilience from? I am among the first generation of my family to be born in the Northern US. My grandparents and great-grandparents were sharecroppers, and their parents and grandparents were held captive on plantations in the Southern US after they and their family members were kidnapped or sold from the African continent. I am the sixth generation to be born since the Emancipation Proclamation freed American slaves in 1863. 100 years later, in the 1960s, my grandparents migrated north during the Great Migration to escape the terrors of Jim Crow and to find a better life. I was born in 1981 to teenage parents who inherited a lot of generational trauma and sicknesses. As a result, the environment I grew up in was influenced by violence, abuse, drugs, and a lot of suffering. Everyone did the best they could with the little they had. My parents divorced when I was 6 and my mother struggled with making ends meet alongside raising 3 kids, very little income, and untreated schizophrenia, and for the 3 years that I lived with my mother after my parents’ divorce, I experienced a host of mental, physical, sexual, and emotional trauma before my mother kicked me out of the house at 9 and sent me to live with my paternal grandmother. From ages 9-16, I excelled and did a lot of growing as a result, however, at 17, I was kicked out once again but this time it was for being queer. Navigating the streets at 17 made me realize that I would not meet my goals of graduating high school with honors and being the first person in my family to get a college degree because I didn’t have a stable place to sleep or study, so I made a deal with my grandmother that I would essentially go back into the closet for my senior year if she let me come back to live with her. I did just that, and while the next 10 years of my life would be some of the hardest, I graduated from high school, college, and graduate school all with honors. Other things happened during that decade, including coming out to my entire family, reconciling with my parents and grandmother, the deaths of my parents and grandmother, getting guardianship of my youngest sister and her newborn son, and being called to the ministry. My resilience comes from knowing who my people are and what they went through to get me here, it comes from remembering all that I have made it through, and it comes from knowing that each time I press on or through something, someone else out there, maybe one of my siblings or niblings or family members, is inspired to press on or through something, too.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

Ordained minister, sociologist and executive consultant – With more than one advanced degree, my training in diverse areas allows me to creatively approach my calling which is to be, embody, and express the love of God in the world around me. I love people and I love God, therefore, it is most exhilarating to serve both God and people through my work as an Associate Conference Minister in the Michigan Conference United Church of Christ where my focus is church vitality and transitions. This is also where my training as a sociologist becomes invaluable as the demographic changes in our society give rise to new cultural and religious shifts and practices, and my work is to equip local congregations and their leaders with resources to think critically about how they will be nimble, creative, proactive, and responsive to the needs and opportunities in our communities as these changes take place. I am also excited about my work as an executive consultant because in addition to speaking engagements, teaching courses, and training leaders, I am also collaborating with some very brilliant folks to release faith formation resources and digital content that I hope inspires people. In 2018, I wrote a creative nonfiction book called, I know What Heaven Looks Like as the first installment to my life story. I don’t know how many installments there will be, but the second one is in the works and that is exciting. I am excited about a lot these days!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The three most important qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge I’ve gained thus far in 43 years? Wow, that is a hard one because the state of my life and flourishing is the result of countless lessons, prayers, and efforts. If I were to give advice to another person like me or on a similar path, I’d say, be curious: learn as much as you can knowing you can never know it all, be courageous: stabilize and grow your inner capacity by facing your fears, trusting your gut instinct, and surrounding yourself with that which is life-giving as opposed to that which is life-draining, and be you: learn to fall deeply and madly in love with yourself so that you can love others deeply and madly as the most authentic version of yourself.

All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?

The number one obstacle I am facing right now is that the rights of transgender people are under attack. I am aware that some religious extremists are using religion as an excuse to violate the rights of transgender people or to suggest that transgender people deserve a lower quality of life. I am aware that there are also bigots proposing anti-transgender bills that seek to limit the access and protections of transgender people in our country. As a transgender Christian American, I stand against any attempt to dehumanize any group of people and I stand for the human and civil rights of every person. For more than 2 decades now, I’ve prioritized partnerships with individuals and organizations who wish to advocate for the flourishing of all people by creating programs, resources, and opportunities for development and partnership across gender, racial, social, religious, cultural, economic and ideological lines. Our differences don’t have to be barriers between us. The more connected and united we are, I believe the more grace and understanding we will have for one another and our differences. At the end of the day, I just want to get home alive and I want the same for my trans, black, and queer siblings everywhere.

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