Hello!
My name is Dan Crain and I am the beloved of God, who is loved by God and whom He is well pleased with!
I am married to an amazing woman of God, have four brilliant children, and we live in Atlanta, GA in Historic South Atlanta since 2011.
I have been in vocational ministry since Jesus drastically changed me in a dorm room in college in 1998. I have worked in large mega-churches, was a youth pastor for 2 1/2 years, and spent 7 years journeying to the depth of my darkness while in Seminary while doing years of counseling. For the last ten years I have been involved in reconciliation work across color, class and culture with Polis Institute, REMERGE and now I currently I work for the One Race Movement as their Director of Groups and Mobilization.
Here’s the problem and where Loving Freely comes from; I have a false self in me that I have struggled with greatly over the years. This false self has led me down paths of depression, thoughts of taking my own life, dwelling on deep shame that I carry, a deep self-hatred I have for myself and many other manifestations that will come out in this resource.
But here’s the good news. None of those struggles are who I really am. I am the beloved child of the good Father, whom he loves and whom he speaks words of peace over. As Paul says in Philippians 3, “I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him.” I believe as Henri Nouwen says that God holds those who are in Christ in an “eternal embrace”, and this is my fundamental identity in Christ.
It’s taken me years to discover and own this truth; that I am loved by God simply because I am His child and nothing I can do will make him love me more. I am His and He is mine. The Heavenly Father is well pleased with Dan Crain and ultimately with you as well.
This page is dedicated to sharing the story of Loving Freely and will ultimately become the book I am writing on my journey.
The Lament
I lament because we live divided lives internally and this manifests itself in a world that is divided relationally, racially, culturally and socio-economically. I lament because the reason the world is divided is because the division lies in us. The division in our own lives does not allow us to face the brokenness of our past, that many times we are living someone else’s lives, and that we cannot be honest and name what’s happening inside of us or in the world. We are conditioned to avoid pain and it’s killing us. The reality is that the past is always playing out in the present, both in the deep interior parts of our lives and the isms plaguing the church.
The Antidote
Loving Freely is committed to the work of Christ’s reconciliation internally and externally. We cannot live into Christ’s ministry of reconciliation externally if we are not willing to allow Christ to enter deeply internally into the pain of our divided lives. A huge problem in the body of Christ is that we are trying love others when we are not even aware of God’s deep love for us. We cannot love the other if God’s love has not been made true in the deep interior parts of our lives. We cannot be reconciled to each other if we are not first reconciled internally.
The Loving Freely resource has developed out of years of struggling with Christ as He has made me aware of my true self as His beloved. I have poured over the scriptures, wrestled through my own brokenness and failures, particularly in my struggle with codependency, and with the community God has allowed me to walk with. This community has been pastors and ministry leaders that are different from me racially, culturally and socio-economically. It’s been our friend and neighbors that live on the streets that Christ has worked through to bless and change me.
Emotional Health in the work of reconciliation and justice is a neglected element in broken and divided world. Many people whom Christ has called to the ministry of reconciliation and justice struggle with compassion fatigue and are on the verge of burn out. Working against unjust structures that are based on institutional racism and generational poverty is exhausting, which led to my burn out five years ago. Desire Street Ministries discovered that, “Studies show that a vast percentage of the leaders of urban ministries last less than five years in their work. The pressures are tremendous, and the discouragement that accompanies it can be devastating.” The same is true for those whom and are at home right now wrestling through depression and thoughts of harming themselves.
This Resource
One antidote to the divided lives we live is this resource, Loving Freely. There are many great resources that the people of God have developed on emotional health. The Loving Freely resource is my attempt at giving voice to the struggles of leaders in the helping field. But it has a particular emphasis on ministry leaders and pastors that are committed to the work of reconciliation and justice.
Loving Freely is based primarily on the way Jesus modeled loving others freely in the gospel of Mark, Howard Thurman’s phrase of developing an “Island of Peace” within one’s own soul, the writing and influence of Martin Luther King Jr., and the concept of a dignified interdependent relationship from Dignity Serves developed by Phil Hissom, while combining the thoughts of scholars like Henri Nouwen, Pete Scazzero, Parker Palmer, and Christina Cleveland.
Loving Freely focuses on the spiritual formation that happens we we are in relationship with the “other”. The other are those that God has placed in our lives that are different from us. At times this is racial, cultural or socio-economic. Other times it will be our spouse, best friend or someone at work we don’t get along with. The hope is to focus on what Christ is doing in us as we love and serve others, as Carl Yung says, “What bothers us about others will lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.”
As Christ is in the process of reconciling all things, Loving Freely is my attempt at reconciling the worlds of emotional health and justice. I’ve always been drawn to reading about the deeply spiritual formational worlds of Thurman, Palmer, Nouwen and King. I’ve also been drawn into educating myself about racial-reconciliation and asset based community development among our neighbors in distressed communities. Loving Freely comes out of trying to reconcile these two worlds. It’s an attempt to model the argument Paul is making in Ephesians 2 when Christ is reconciling the Jews and the Gentiles, thus creating the new humanity. The new humanity comes out of joining two very diverse parties.
We cannot live into the ministry of reconciliation if you are not being reconciled internally. The reality is that we cannot truly love others well until we learn what it means for Christ’s love to be made true in our own inner world. We cannot love our spouses or children well if we have not learned to discover that God really loves and delights in us. Again, the reality is this, the reason the world is divided is because the division lies within ourselves.
In order to break free from the sin and struggle of the now, we must be willing to face the sin and struggle of the past. Maya Angelou famously said about facing the sin of racism, “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be un-lived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” This is true about the deep interior parts of our lives and the ways in which we’ve been wounded in the past in our family of origin and it’s also true in the work of racial reconciliation. As Pete Scazzero in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality says, “we allow Jesus into the inner closets of old hurts, sealed-off infections, fear, and shame this new relational tension may touch inside us.”
This is really how God began to heal me of my codependent false self, he opened up the wounds of my past and began to speak to me through friends and neighbors that were living on the margins. Some were friends that were experiencing homelessness, some were young black men from our neighborhood, Historic South Atlanta, and others were from voices that the church and society has pushed to the margins. The journey has been similar to Henri Nouwen’s journey into the L’Arch community towards the end of his life and ministry to live with mentally handicapped people, “God said, “Go and live among the poor in spirit, and they will heal you.”
As a result of journeying through the process of Loving Freely I want you to be able to sit with a friend or neighbor that is experiencing homelessness, look into their eyes, and say “Can you pray for me?” This is what happened to me ten years ago and this experience changed me drastically. I want those that come from the majority culture to listen and enter into the deep pain of our friends in the minority community and seek to be changed by what God is doing in the work of racial-reconciliation. I want those who are committed to the hard work of racial-conciliation and justice to rest in knowing that this is God’s work, not ours.
I hope that Christ so deeply transforms you in the deep interior parts of your life that maybe for the first time in a while, you walk across the street and engage your neighbor as the beloved child of God. I hope you see the joy in receiving from those that are different from you racially, culturally and socio-economically.
I fully believe with all of my heart that something beautiful happens when we allow Christ to serve us and change us through those that are different than us. I am more like Jesus because I’ve had the privilege of being discipled and mentored by people who are not like me. It’s given me a different perspective on what it means to not worry, to fully trust on God’s provision, and a glimpse into the world of those with their “backs agains the wall”, as Howard Thurman describes the marginalized. I’ve had a friend that’s lived on the street pray for me while we watched my mom die. I’ve also had young men in our neighborhood speak deeply into my life and show me what it’s like to really persevere in life and never give up despite the obstacle one faces.
In its fulness, Loving Freely is a part of Christ reconciling all things back to what was lost in the garden of Eden. Welcome to the journey to Loving Freely. I hope you experience the joy of Christ serving you as His beloved as you discover the joy of loving others freely. This resource is a gift from God as He’s helped me discover my true self in him.
May Christ be praised as you learn to love others freely as His beloved!