A woman has her own children hold down a 4-year-old boy while she beats him to death for soiling his pants. An elderly woman is found dead in her home and a father turns his son in to the authorities, saying that his son didn’t commit the murder but is somehow connected. And these are just the major stories that have made the headlines recently.

I could also talk about school closings, declining enrollments at schools currently open, housing foreclosures, and boarded up buildings on Broadway Ave. These challenges point to why there is such a need for healing and transformation in North Minneapolis.

Before there can be healing and transformation, confession and repentance must take place. Now, there might just be way too much ego and pride (the enemies to confession and repentance) for this to take place, but there can be no healing and transformation without confession and repentance.

You may believe that confession and repentance are the same thing, but there is a subtle difference between the two. Within the area of confession we need to be willing to tell the truth. Sometimes truth telling will lead to the one confessing having to take responsibility for what they’ve confessed—which would lead to repentance.

We need to confess that millions of dollars have been poured into North Minneapolis with very little result. Foundations and corporations have given money to individuals and organizations that haven’t been held accountable for the resources they received. In some cases those giving the resources didn’t hold those receiving the money accountable because they didn’t want to be accused of racism. In some cases there was no accountability because the one giving the resources was too busy to do the hard work of demanding and monitoring results. Who will take responsibility for this and repent?

We need to confess that in North Minneapolis there is a church on just about every corner, and yet the spiritual force of evil is not easily defeated, but rather it has influence in the Church. The Church being divided by denomination, race and class cannot be biblically justified. Only a reconciling Church can truly take on the demons of division and destruction in North Minneapolis and beyond. Who will take responsibility for this and repent?

We need to confess that there are leaders in North Minneapolis, who I have high respect for, but who are unfortunately using Civil Rights and Black Nationalist methods to solve a Post-Civil Rights and Post-Black problem. North Minneapolis is multi-ethnic. North Minneapolis has a growing number of first generation immigrant African and Asian populations.

This is not to take away from the fact that there are pressing issues facing the African-Americans in North Minneapolis, but to raise the issue that some of our methods are outdated and our pride has kept us from empowering the next generation to join older leaders in developing a new movement with new solutions. Who will take responsibility for this and repent?

We need to confess that the government—at the city and state level—has failed North Minneapolis in two ways. At the state level, the government has failed because the governor of this great state has not made North Minneapolis a priority of his administration. He is a professed evangelical Christian. The evangelical community is not lovingly holding him accountable because in Minnesota you only need to be pro-life and pro-marriage to receive the love of evangelicals.

I’m evangelical, pro-life and pro-marriage in terms of that institution being between a man and a woman. But I’m also pro-community development and pro-kingdom advancement in the city.

When it comes to North Minneapolis, too many evangelicals are simply pro-charity and pro-pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps.

The city government has failed North Minneapolis by not being able to admit they’ve run out of creative solutions and therefore only keep recycling old ones. There have been too many political meetings filled with nice sounding rhetoric lacking real solutions that bear fruit to transform North Minneapolis.

We need to confess that parents are not taking full responsibility for what it takes to raise children. Too many young people are committing violent crimes because they learned the characteristics of a gangster lifestyle from their own family members. Who will take responsibility and repent?

This may be a painful process, but there must be confession and repentance first in order for there to be major healing and transformation in North Minneapolis.

I, for one, am willing to repent for any role I’ve played in these confessions. I repent for any territorialism and competition that has found its way into my soul and impacted my decision-making process.

I repent for not being a loving prophet to government officials and elder leaders in North Minneapolis.

I desire to go deep with others into confession and repentance, that there may be healing and transformation in North Minneapolis and beyond.