In our previous interviews for Black History Month, Karen Campbell and Reverend Dr Israel Olofinjana told us what it costs to lead as a Black person in the Church. This time we asked two more leaders what they have seen, what still needs to change, and what they would say to the next generation. As before, I asked because I love these Churches and want them to flourish. Both interviewees, in different ways, made the same point: leadership doesn’t start with a title.
This is the second of two posts; we hear from Bevan Powell MBE, a Methodist, former Director of Inclusion for the Methodist Church in Britain and a founder of the National Black Police Association, and Revd Wale Hudson-Roberts, Head of Justice for the Baptist Union. Both are also part of The Racial Justice Advocacy Forum, which is an ecumenical Christian entity that seeks to speak prophetically on behalf of Black and Brown Christians to the government on racial injustice challenges and reparative justice.
Leadership is more than a job title
Bevan’s leadership began with his work within the National Black Police Association in which he and his colleagues gave evidence to the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, which examined the police response to Stephen Lawrence’s murder. He believes this helped shape the language of institutional racism. Faith ran through him, and during this period he and his colleagues would pray that the enquiry would lead to change. His pivot towards leadership in the Methodist Church came, as he would say, through the Holy Spirit telling him, ‘Come and look at what is happening in the Church where you worship’. For Bevan, he defines Black leadership as ‘having your voice heard, representation, participation in decision-making, so that you’re shaping it’. His lesson: ‘There is a difference between a role and leadership; you can bring leadership to any role that you occupy’.
For Wale, his calling came earlier from an especially unlikely place. He was raised in a Muslim family, but he knew around the age of ten that he would end up in Christian ministry. ‘Where I got that conviction from, I don’t know’, he said. He never imagined a national role and was ‘extremely content’ as a local pastor. What keeps him going now is small moments. After he preached at a church in Southampton, a young man came up to him. ‘Even though, as Black people, we do not say it to you enough’, he told Wale, ‘the fact that you are a Black leader emboldens us as Black people’. He is candid that the work is demanding because it means pushing against resistance and the challenge is ‘how to hold on to your integrity’ while you do it.
A reflection. Paul writes, ‘We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us’ (Romans 12:6). Bevan’s reminder that ‘Irrespective of the role that you occupy today or tomorrow, you bring you’ is the same point. Leadership for both is a gift to be spent wherever you stand.
When knowing is not enough
Wale used to believe the answer to racial injustice was knowledge: if people understood the concepts and the history, the church would change. Now he thinks understanding matters but is not ‘the be-all and end-all’. ‘It’s about the transformation in the heart,’ he said, ‘a theological conversion where the heart changes and the mind subsequently changes’. Information alone, he warned, can become box-ticking.
Bevan pointed to the Methodist Church’s five-year Justice, Dignity and Solidarity strategy, adopted in 2021, which works on three levels. Attitudinal covers how we see people and our own biases. Cultural covers how we do things and who is left out. Structural covers equality and diversity officers in every district, competencies for ministers, and ‘solidarity circles’ enabling the experience of members to feed into policy. Change at all three levels, he argues, is what makes it stick. Bevan reminded us that the Black community is itself diverse, so a single voice cannot speak for everyone. His gentlest warning: ‘Sometimes it isn’t that the Church doesn’t want to know about racial justice, it’s just not proactive’.
During a recent wave of hostility towards migrants and marginalised communities, he was fearful that Black people in the Church, lay and ordained, were ‘suffering in silence’. Some ministers were changing family routines to keep their families safe, and some members were telling their children not to go to certain places. After his prompting, a team was set up to look at how the church responds to far-right activity. His advice to ministers is to be proactive; don’t wait to be told; go and ask. That is part of why he stays in the The Racial Justice Advocacy Forum, ‘keeping it on the boil’ and helping the church say, ‘look, there’s a different perspective here’.
A reflection. The prophets never treated justice as a private feeling. ‘A new heart I will give you’ (Ezekiel 36:26) is a promise, and Paul asks for transformation ‘by the renewing of your minds’ (Romans 12:2).
For the young person who can’t yet see themselves
Wale sees himself standing on a foundation laid by Black leaders before him, and wants to give the next generation a platform to ‘build upon the foundation that we have laid’. That is why, when asked what he’d say to a young Black person who can’t yet see themselves in leadership, Wale would offer to walk alongside them. He already meets regularly with young Black people, some online, believing ‘if I can do it, they can do it’, and that young people need to see leadership modelled in front of them. Presence over words is what carries.
Bevan would say the leadership is already there: ‘Sometimes we’re frightened of our own gifts,’ and the church needs those gifts today. ‘Every individual can make a difference, every child,’ he said, in their own context, ‘no matter how uncomfortable it feels and what other people have said to you about whether you can or can’t’. Their voices are needed now, he said, and they will hold senior roles, ordained or lay. Nobody has to wait for a title to start doing the work.
A reflection. Paul writes, ‘Let no one despise your youth’ (1 Timothy 4:12). When Philip meets an Ethiopian official who is struggling to understand Isaiah, the man says, ‘How can I, unless someone guides me?’ (Acts 8:31). He then invites Philip up into his chariot. Leadership is often learned when someone climbs in beside you.
Why this month matters
Wale is glad of the space Black History Month gives, but he struggles with the idea that everything Black people do is squeezed into one month. This year, though, he sees a purpose. With racism and the far right rising across Europe and beyond, he hopes it will help Black people mobilise to ‘position our heads above the parapet’ and challenge ‘the principalities and powers,’ starting in October and carrying on after.
Bevan argues that knowing Black history works in two directions. It helps young people see themselves as descended from ‘generations of heroes and heroines’, across the African diaspora, and not be made to feel ‘less than’ by a British identity that leaves them out. It also helps everyone else see through false stories about who is to blame for shortages and pressures.
A reflection. Remembering is a biblical discipline. ‘You shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt’ (Leviticus 19:34). People who remember being strangers are harder to turn against strangers.
Wale is honest that the work is slow, and hopes, ‘The seeds I plant will eventually germinate. Maybe not in my lifetime, but hopefully in yours’.
A reflection. Paul knew that feeling: ‘I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth’ (1 Corinthians 3:6). Paul adds: ‘Let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up’ (Galatians 6:9).
Next steps
Three questions to take to your next church council or trustees’ meeting
- Have we asked the Black ministers and members in our church how they are, and listened to the answer?
- Who is walking beside the young people in our congregation, and who are they walking beside?
- What would it take for a Black leader in our church to be unremarkable?
Together with our first post, ‘It is Our Church Too’, these are four journeys with one shared hope: that the Church will become a place where every member is seen, heard and free to lead.
To Bevan and Wale, thank you.
Resources and further reading
The Sam Sharpe Lecture 2026. The annual lecture explores mission, race, class and injustice in the tradition of Sam Sharpe, the Baptist deacon who led the 1831–32 uprising in Jamaica. This year’s speaker is Revd Merlyn Hyde Riley, General Secretary of the Jamaica Baptist Union, on ‘Subverting Empire: Lessons from Sam Sharpe on Institutional Injustice and Church Responsibility’. The Baptist Union of Great Britain : This year’s Lecture
- Tuesday 27 October, 18:30, House of Commons, London (hosted by Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP)
- Wednesday 28 October, 19:00, City Hall, College Green, Bristol
Justice, Dignity and Solidarity. The Methodist Church’s strategy, adopted in 2021. https://www.methodist.org.uk/for-churches/the-inclusive-methodist-church/strategy-for-justice-dignity-and-solidarity/
