Q&A with Pastor Jason Reynolds

Pastor Jason Reynolds wears many hats in the realm of leadership. In addition to being an educator and leading congregants of Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Jose, CA, Jason is an American Leadership Forum Silicon Valley Senior Fellow and faculty member for ALF Insights. I spoke to Pastor Jason via Zoom about his leadership journey and how his faith informs the work he does with ALFI.

DEMONE: Talk a little bit about how you got involved with the American Leadership Forum and then explain how you got involved with the ALF Insights team.

JASON: The ALF opportunity was brought to me by ALF Senior Fellow Andre Chapman, who recommended (ALF) to me. Andre is just one of those people who has been watching me. I never had a conversation with him prior to being recommended. He had just been watching the work I had been doing and saying this is someone who needs to be plugged into this network.
I think individualized leadership is often a misnomer. We have the individual names of people, but it's never been really because they have done it by themselves. They were always plugged into some level of network. Having the right network allows you to create, do, (and) see the change that you want to see.

And then the ALF Insights opportunity came out of this moment where I was asking myself if I was to go into consulting, what would I want to do? I was an adjunct professor at the time. I could have easily gone after an engineering gig or a tech gig, and resource-wise, that would be more lucrative, but I don't think I would be happy doing that.

So I was intrigued by this idea of building bridges and helping people talk through really difficult conversations. That's something that not a lot of people are able to do. It's an uncomfortable position, but it's a needed one. By virtue of my nature and my training, it was something that just fit perfectly for me.

You have trained both as a faith leader and also a facilitator. Can you talk about how being a faith leader translates when you're going to do an ALFI gig?

I think the gift of being a faith leader is you're constantly surrounded by a community that you know. Although we might have a stated purpose and mission, there's a variety of thought.

I think the healthier faith communities are those that figure out ways to allow that diversity without the negativity that sometimes comes with it. That doesn't mean there isn't tension—because tension isn't always necessarily negative. I don't have to defame or speak ill about somebody just because we disagree. Sitting in that space and not overreacting to somebody's first thought or first statement gives me the space to deal with people and say okay before I run and jump off the first thing they said I ask them to say more. Just being able to pull up those threads, oftentimes we find out that sometimes we're far closer than we think.

Speaking of tension, let's talk about ALFI's work with the City of Los Gatos for a little bit. They are having some difficult conversations about incidents of racism so an ALF alum reached out and got ALFI involved. Can you talk about the work that you've been doing with the city of Los Gatos in some of the early outcomes of that work?

Absolutely. The initial phase that we did was a series of listening sessions. We tried to create opportunities for people to speak and be honest about what they thought the problems were and speak to potential solutions. So we took six to nine months or so and just met with different stakeholders, both small and large groups. We were able to allow people to be relatively vulnerable under the auspices of anonymity. We really heard a lot of things that were positive and a lot of things that still needed work. From there, we were able to create some recommendations.

Sometimes the people that are the most negative are never the folks that show up to meetings like this or participate in groups like these, so we're not directly dealing with, you know, somebody that may have called somebody out in a meeting or whatever. But we are dealing with individuals that are literally pushing to make change already, so that's been a benefit. I think the other part that really helps is giving people the strength to stay the course. One of the challenges when you are dealing with negativity, is it really just wears down good people. I can get tired of fighting and tired of having to deal with this level of animosity, and those who are needed to really hold the line give up. We give people just enough space to kind of let some of that pressure out (and) remind themselves that they're not the only person in the fight because it feels even worse when you feel like you're by yourself.  

 If you are an organization, a municipality, or a group thinking about bringing in ALF Insights, what's the value that we bring as an organization and as a faculty?

First, as an organization, we don't just conduct meetings and facilitate; you can go to a lot of places to get that. The capacity to build relationships sits at the heart of what we do. Everything moves only as well as the relationships that we're able to build. So it's not just a means to an end, but how we get to that end is important. When groups from different places are put into spaces and brought into relationship with each other, even if it's not a deep friendship, there is some level of human relationship. Then all of a sudden, the way in which they proceed moving forward is different.

You have quite a bit on your plate. What does your downtime look like?

My main recreation right now is tennis and then just spending time with my family. I have two growing boys and a wife being able to be with them brings me joy.