Lisa Yebuah
Jacket and Earrings Provided by: Vert & Vogue
Photography: Jillian Clark
Interview by:
Charman Driver
Lisa Yebuah | Petite Pastor. Social justice advocate. Multi-lingual. Consecrated to God. Human.
“To be empowered is to know that you’re enough. I already have all the gifts I need from the day I was born until the day I take my last breath.”
– Lisa Yebuah
LY: My father named me Lisa because it’s a derivative of Elizabeth, which means “consecrated to God”.
I’m the first person in my family born on American soil. My parents are from Ghana, West Africa. I was born in Nashville, Tennessee, where we were surrounded by a Ghanaian enclave, so there was a lot of inculturation living in close proximity. When I was in the third grade we moved to the low country of Summerville, South Carolina, where I call home.
From an early age, I experienced a sort of “cultural homelessness” having to live between multiple social milieus.
I was raised in predominately black spaces—my neighborhood and in my father’s church, where he was pastor. Black people would always remind me that, "you're not quite like us”. My last name is Yebuah, not Jones. It wasn’t like a bullying or shaming, though. The people in my community loved me and poured into me, but sometimes I didn’t feel black enough because I had parents who grew up in a colonized West African country.
In school and in public space, I was typically in majority white circles. I could speak their language fluently, but they would always remind me that I wasn’t white. I also didn’t have access to certain things my white friends had.
With my Ghanaian family, I sometimes felt I wasn’t Ghanaian enough because I didn’t speak Ga, Twi or Fanti.
I grew up with this idea that I fit in everywhere—to an extent and didn’t fit in everywhere—to an extent. I was always aware of it, even as a young person who didn’t have the language for it. I carried it in my body that I was “almost an almost” for everybody. I wrestled with being this oddball for a long time and thinking others thought of me as odd as well.
I was in grad school when I named this feeling. Today I don’t use the term “cultural homelessness”. I would say that I’m “multi-lingual” and now realize that it was the thing that set me up for having some “giftings” in my life. I often joke and call myself the “white whisperer”. I speak their language fluently, even if they don’t care to learn mine.
My greatest cultural identity is that I am black, with Ghanaian roots that I hold onto, and I can navigate in majority white spaces. I’m ok with that.
CD: As a pastor, how are you affirmed by your community?
LY: I was living in North Raleigh, and had been for a while, when we launched this new church community called Southeast Raleigh Table. I started getting restless about living in N. Raleigh and driving each day to be “in” Southeast Raleigh and the black community.
We live in a world where people applaud you the further away you get from black people. That’s considered success, but something about that was making me feel incredibly uncomfortable and incredibly unfaithful. They don’t need any imported prophets.
I decided I needed to live with black people again and I wanted to live close to Shaw University and St. Augustine’s University. The history of both schools always intrigued me and I wanted to be around the movers and shakers!
Being back in the black community keeps me honest when I sip out of the cup of supremacy. It keeps me honest about the deep-seeded beliefs that others have about me and people who look like me.
Now I feel like I have the right to speak into this community. I wanted to share my gifts with the very people who affirmed my gifts.
Living in SE Raleigh is my way of loving all of Raleigh. The SE Raleigh Table campus has a growing diversity. We still have more white people who worship with us, but they’re aware. It sounds trite, but they make space for people differently.
At SE Raleigh Table, we privilege black culture and the white people know to have a gentle and graceful posture in Southeast. I am not trying to unleash white people to fix black communities. The way we choose to be neighbors impacts so many of our neighbors.
One of our guiding principles is that race is always on the table. It’s not a bait- and- switch type of situation. We have to be honest around privilege and white advantage. I don’t try to make the Sunday space all of these teachable moments—as worship can’t hold all of that—but we do encourage every member who worships with us to go to the Racial Equity Institute (REI). I need them to know what it means when we say things like, “race as a construct” and “racist systems” or “systems of oppression”, but I can’t do that between opening prayer and first Psalms.
In order for us to have authentic relationships with each other, where we don’t harm one another, we have to understand on a macro level how we got here, or our relationships will fall apart.
CD: You’ve really made your mark in your SE Raleigh Parrish. If I asked someone in the community, “What has Lisa done for this community, what would they say?”
LY: I hope they would say, “she really sees us”. I drive down Tarboro Road and I don’t associate it with deficit. I see great matriarchs and patriarchs. I see historic homes and I see people’s giftings. I see broken dreams—not just people who make mistakes. I think my neighbors love me because I really see them.
I think people will say that I’ve shown them another way to live in Raleigh. I try to have a gentle and gracious posture in my neighborhood. I didn’t grow up in College Park, so I know when I need to shut up, because I don’t have the right to speak. I also know when I need to be a bulldog for my neighborhood.
CD: If someone wants to get to know SE Raleigh better, how should they go about it?
LY: I value being over doing. Just show up. If you’re going to get season tickets to NC State games and you didn’t even go to State, why not get them to Shaw and St. Augustine games as well? Go to the Raleigh Classic when Shaw and St. Aug’s play—and tailgate. Decide to run through those campuses if you’re a runner. Just show up and love all of Raleigh. All of a sudden, it becomes your place.
CD: I believe that in order for women to do the important work in our communities, we must start the work from within. I call it building a NEST (nourish, empower, shape and transform).
For you, what is it to be Nourished?
LY: I think it is very irresponsible for us not to show up for ourselves and then try to show up for others. I was listening to an Ian Cron (Enneagram teacher) podcast where he was saying holiness is not so much about jumping through moral holy hoops, but that holiness is about us choosing to be our healthiest selves.
I believe self-care practices equate to self-preservation. When you preserve self, you preserve who God intended you to be. To be nourished is to ask oneself if what I’m doing is life-giving or life-draining? Do those around me use their words to curse or to bless? I treat myself as if I’m lovable.
CD: How do you do it?
LY: I don’t treat my body like it’s a garbage can. I don’t put a lot of trash in it. I did a Daniel fast for 21 days and my skin glowed like no other, I slept like a champ and my pee smelled like roses!
I had no idea how much shifting my diet could make such a difference. I realized everything we need can be supplied on a plate. I also stopped thinking about food as a reward. I’m not a dog, where I get a treat to eat bad things. Who told us that lie?
CD: How do you empower others?
LY: There is a scripture in Genesis that says, “When God looked at all that God created, God said it was very good.” A gift of mine is to always see the very good in people. And your very good, doesn’t threaten my very good. You’re not a threat because you are a God-bearer. You taking in air is not lack of air for me.
As a pastor, neighbor, daughter or friend, I forever want people to be unleashed in their very good. When someone is unleashing their very good, it actually makes my life better.
CD: What is it to be empowered?
LY: To be empowered is to know that you’re enough. I already have all the gifts I need from the day I was born until the day I take my last breath.
CD: Now that’s an empowering statement!
LY: Oftentimes, as black women, there are so many “other” voices that will add caveats and footnotes at the bottom of our narratives. I feel it’s incredibly important to have people in your life that co-sign, affirm, and confirm what we already know ourselves. Having mentors is great as well.
CD: How do you shape your body?
LY: I do think it’s important that I don’t slip when it comes to how I care for myself. In the Methodist Church, we are challenged a little if, as pastors, we don’t have good self-care practices. I can’t be talking about the body of Christ and looking like I don’t care.
I’ve always loved working out. Right now, CrossFit is my jam. I like it because I don’t have to be an expert at it and it’s a humbling physical activity where you have to show up for yourself. I walked in thinking I wouldn’t be able to finish it—but I did.
CD: What is it to be transformed?
LY: To be transformed is to live with the belief that we never arrive. It’s to believe that something can still be changed and shaped and worked on. If you live with this idea that you’ve arrived, then you miss out on stretching and growing. I live in a state of humility. There’s still more to learn and to be honed. There are still people who can teach me something. I can never live with the idea that I’ve arrived. I haven’t arrived. We are always in the process of holiness or being made more.
Spiritual practice, like prayer, is transformative. For me feeling love is knowing that God loves me and God did not create me for any other reason, but to love. God’s love is a steadfast constant in my life.
CD: I could listen to you for hours! What does the rest of your day look like?
LY: I’m on the way to the Wake County Detention center to a vigil for the undocumented immigrant, Samuel Oliver Bruno, who faces deportation —and then on to the gynecologist.
CD: Wow, ok then. I guess I’ll let you go, Pastor. Another day in the life of @petite_pastor…