Why the Black Voices Collection? | Chauncey Allmond

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Why is the Black Voices Collection an important addition to Logos? In this episode of Logos Live, Kirk E. Miller and Chauncey Allmond explore the significance of highlighting Black theological voices and the challenges faced in curating this collection.

While all believers are united in Christ, cultural backgrounds shape perspectives, experiences, and expressions of faith. They discuss why this resource isn’t just for Black Christians but for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the rich diversity within the church.

Plus, hear about upcoming Logos Digital Events designed to equip and inspire believers.

Follow the show on YouTube, Spotify, and more.

Episode transcript

Introduction

Kirk E. Miller: Hey, everyone. You are listening to an episode of Logos Live, a show presented to you by Logos, bringing you engaging conversations.

My name is Kirk Miller, your your host today, and I am joined by our very own Chauncey Allmond. Welcome to Logos Live, Chauncey.

Chauncey Allmond: Hey, thank you, Kirk. Glad to be here.

KM: Today we are going to be discussing what is the Black Voices Collection. This is a resource that we have available that we want to highlight for you.

But before we get into that too quickly, first, Chauncey, would you mind introducing yourself to us, telling us a little about yourself, what your role is at Logos, how long you’ve been here?

CA: Yeah, absolutely. So I have been with Logos for seven years. The whole time of those seven years has been as a national presenter. And for those who may not know, a national presenter is an employee of Logos who speaks at conferences across the country giving Logos demonstrations—typically pretty quick, you know, ten, fifteen minutes tops and getting people excited about—not just Logos—but studying the Bible.

So again, I just hit my seventh year in December. However, as of January of 2025, I am now in the marketing department. And so I’ll still be speaking, but not just giving Logos demos. I’ll be, hosting a series of digital events that talk about various topics, speaking to various people from pastors to lay people and so on.

I live here in Frisco, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas. I’ve been here since 2006. I’m married to my lovely wife, Takeia, and we have five kids—yes, five. That’s a whole lot. Feel free to borrow some if you would love to. I’d be more than happy to oblige. So that’s a little bit about me.

KM: I don’t think I’ve introduced myself, but my name is Kirk Miller. I’m one of the editors of our Word by Word blog as well as the host of our show, What in the Word? And Chauncey and I actually are on the same team working together.

You’re, as you said, around Dallas. I’m in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and we’re getting hit with a ton of snow right now. So I’m a bit jealous of your weather at this time of the year. I am assuming it’s a little bit warmer there.

CA: Just a little bit, not much right now. We get some tough weather maybe twice a year and we’re in the middle of that. So I think tonight’s supposed to be in the twenties, so we’ll be pretty close to you guys.

KM: Alright. Well, in Milwaukee we love the summers here. But we just have to endure the winters to get there.

What is the Black Voices Collection?

KM: To our topic today, we’re talking about the Black Voices Collection. And it is Black History Month (February), and so it’s a timely time to be having this conversation. Let me begin by just asking you, Chauncey, for those who aren’t familiar, what is the Black Voices Collection?

CA: Yeah, great question. And I think that, before I get into specifically what the Black Voices Collection is, I also want to point out that at Logos we have hundreds of resources by and about African Americans or the Black voices. And the Black Voices Collection is just that: it’s a collection of those resources bundled together. And as you’re showing there on the screen, for Black History Month we have a collection of those resources there where you can also find this specific collection bundled together.

Every year we have a Black History Month page at Logos dedicated to these authors that have offered invaluable information about the gospel. And we, every year, take a moment to highlight those authors and topics. But we’ve now expanded that beyond just Black History Month. So moving forward, you’ll be able to get those resources in one concise location on the website for those who are interested in hearing the Black voices in theology.

KM: So, as you were mentioning, currently I can go under our deals section in the menu and go to Black History Month. That brings me to this page where we have loads of different resources by Black authors. But also this Black Voices Collection is what we’re talking about specifically here, and that brings us to a collection of resources.

Tell us a little bit about this collection then. What is the Black Voices Collection?

CA: Yeah, so it is a collection of devotional type materials, theological books, commentaries. And we are so excited that we have some really smart folks and some great names who have contributed to this to the tune of

And so this is where you can go to learn about—whether or not it’s different preaching styles, whether or not it’s, again, commentaries. We also have the Tony Evans commentary included in there as well. So it’s a place to go where you’re going to hear different voices talking about the gospel and theological topics and evangelism and discipleship, etc. from authors that contribute with their Black voices.

Why have a specific library of Black voices?

KM: And some may wonder, just even approaching this conversation, why have a group of resources separated out, as if needed? Why is it important to have a library specifically dedicated to Black voices, Chauncey?

CA: Thank you for asking that question, Kirk. That’s a great question. And I get that a lot. You know, there’s one gospel; there’s one Bible. So why separate that out?

Well, I’ll answer that this way: Although as believers, we are one in Christ and there’s only one gospel of Jesus, there’s certain aspects of people’s lives that are inherently different. I mean, we come from different back backgrounds, different geographies, different cultures, and we may even have different theological views. But with the Black Voices Collection, we’re celebrating and recognizing these differences in the voices of Black people.

I’ll give you an analogy. So let’s say you look at middle school and high school students, right? The middle school and high school student faces challenges that as adults we don’t face necessarily. As a middle schooler they may be dealing with being bullied or what college should I attend, if you’re a high schooler. These are things that are important to them. Their struggles are different than we may have as an adult.

And so, yes, the gospel is the same no matter what, but depending on a person’s circumstances or background or cultural differences, I think it’s important to try to understand the differences of people so that we can relate better and we can become more educated.

When the Black Voices Collection was advertised on—I think it was on— Facebook, and I looked at some of the comments, there was a bit of an uproar about what you just asked: why we should have a separate collection. And actually I think that’s kind of puzzling to me. And I say that because, as a fellow believer,, I would think that we would want to be interested in the unique experiences of people who may be different than I, who may have different experiences from I.

My thought is, my belief is, that once a person understands where a person is coming from in terms of the challenges that they’re facing, once they learn, they’ll know how to pray. And also, once they learn, they can celebrate when there’s time to celebrate. And when there’s times of lament, you can lament with them. You know, Romans 12:15 tells us to weep with those who weep. And I think that’s why having a Black Voices Collection so important so you can do just that.

Unless someone is operating their lives in a small bubble, you will encounter people who are different. And I think we should be educated and prepared to interact with people, even from an evangelistic standpoint, from a discipleship standpoint. The better you know someone the better you’re able to do that, which of course comes under the umbrella of the Great Commission. And I just think it puts everyone in a better position to do that.

KM: It’s acknowledging that we, we have something to learn from others. And I think, even if we don’t always recognize that we do this, most people already are doing this sort of thing where we learn from other believers from different perspectives and different experiences.

So, for instance, it’s not uncommon, if you’re a part of a church—maybe that church invites a missionary who’s visiting to come and speak at your church. And if they have a Q&A maybe afterwards, what oftentimes happens is people ask for that missionary’s insights given their cross-cultural experience.

Maybe they’re from a different culture, and so they’re able to provide a unique lens on ministry and the gospel. Not that we have different gospels, but that, even as we see within our New Testament, Paul is becoming all things to all people (1 Cor 9:19-23). The gospel contextualizes, even if it doesn’t change. We might change how we minister the gospel.

And so we’re able to ask that missionary, what insights do you have from your context that maybe we have blind spots to? Or are there unique insights that you have into our context that we have blind spots to given the different perspective that you’re able to bring with your experience?

And if we understand that Black communities, especially within the United States, have had unique experiences given our unique history in this country, and that it shaped a unique tradition similar to how we have an Anglican, a Lutheran, and a Baptist tradition—and even though we have our different theologies, we oftentimes recognized we can learn from one another—so too the Black church tradition has a unique contribution to make. And especially if we consider ourselves one in Christ, rather than saying, I don’t want to listen to these other voices and seeing that as divisive, it’s actually an expression of our unity, not an expression of division.

And so even from a perspective of someone who’s not Black myself, I’m intrigued. When the sale came out, I was intrigued to go look at it because there’s things that I can learn.

Especially if a group has been marginalized too historically, and maybe we haven’t given their voice the same sort of attention that we ought to have in the past, it’s worth being intentional about that.

Is the collection just for those who are Black?

KM: And so that does raise one of the questions: If an individual isn’t Black, should they find value in a collection such as the Black Voices Collection, or is this just for customers who themselves are Black?

CA: Great. Again, another great question. This collection is for everyone.

As I mentioned before, unless you’re operating in a bubble, you will encounter people who are different. And it doesn’t mean better than, or greater than, or less than—that that has nothing to do with it. It’s a way for—let’s say a pastor who pastors a multiethnic church. I would think that those pastors would run to get a collection like this as they try to best serve their flock in the church because, again, we all bring those different backgrounds. We bring the different cultural experiences. And so if you aren’t equipped to relate to people like that, you may lose them or you just won’t have that relatability factor.

As an example, my sister attends a church in East St. Louis, and my church is, as I mentioned, in Frisco, Texas. So we’re in a suburb of Dallas. She’s in an area in East St. Louis. I. Her church is anyway, which isn’t let’s say the best of neighborhoods, let’s say. And I remember we were having a conversation recently talking about small groups, and I was telling her about how small groups work in my church. So my wife and I lead a small group here in Frisco at our church. And every other week families come over. We probably have about fifteen families. They come over, we share a meal, we connect, we pray for one another, and then we have discussions about the sermon from the previous Sunday.

I was telling her about that. And she’s like, Chauncey, that’s great, but that wouldn’t work in East St. Louis. The idea of inviting people into your home, it just wouldn’t fly. So if I was writing a book about small groups and she was as well, our books would look totally different because she wouldn’t face the same challenges that I do and vice versa, whether or not it’s there’s a cost for providing meals and some people may not be able to do that.

And so, yes, the gospel is the gospel is the gospel. But at the same time, there’s different and unique challenges that everyone faces. So If I’m a non-Black or non-African American believer or pastor, I would want to learn about other people’s experiences to better equip me as a disciple of Christ.

KM: And you mentioned, unless someone is, maybe, has a very narrow context— I would say, even if someone has that narrow context, it may be all the more reason to be able to expand your horizon and your perspective and learn from others.

And it’s similar to—like I have resources in Logos, study bibles or commentaries that are church history commentaries, commentaries from people in the past or that compile comments from the Reformers or the church fathers, because that time period, that that distance in time, also offers some perspective. Or I have resources that are a study bible with contributors from the global church because that sort of cross-cultural perspective is helpful. This is a similar sort of comparison here.

CA: Yeah, that’s a great example. If you look at the the commentary section in Logos and how you can search by author, you can search by commentary type, and then you can search by era in which it was written. I mean, obviously that’s valuable information to see how the text was viewed, comparing different eras in which it was written. And so a great analogy.

What were some of the challenges in composing this collection?

KM: Let me ask, Chauncey, what were some of the challenges that you faced when putting together a collection like this?

CA: There were many. First, let’s just say that the collection is growing. It’s not a done deal. We’re continuously growing that.

One of the challenges was that the Black community or the African American community, just like others, isn’t a monolith. There’s different theological bins, if you will. Some are more Pentecostal and Baptist and so forth. So the biggest challenge was trying to put together a collection where no one would feel left out. It’s like, why didn’t you include books from x, y, and z? And so that’s a challenge because one collection can’t be all things to all people. So that was a challenge. Knowing that some groups or some sects within the Black or African American community may not like X, Y, or Z author, and so that’s the challenge. And hopefully people will recognize that we can’t be all things for all people, but we did at least want to have a good starting point where the different contributions are added.

Another challenge that we faced was— I wish all of these could be in just one nice bundle. You know, you go to your cart, let’s say at logos.com, click a button, and all of them would automatically come in. But unfortunately we did run into some challenges from a publishing standpoint, where certain titles couldn’t be bundled. And that’s why we put them in as individual titles.

So again, it’s a work in progress. We are just wanting to serve the needs of many. Tust know that the collection will be growing. I’ll be on the lookout for new titles as they come out and get those into Logos us as soon as possible.

KM: And I’ll mention too for listeners or viewers here, if you’re interested in a brief primer on the Black church in America, Malcolm Foley has written a helpful piece for us over on our Word by Word blog (which if you’re not subscribed, be sure to do that). But he provides a really helpful, brief articulation of a lot of the stuff that we’ve been talking about here and the value of having resources from the Black voice,

What are some upcoming digital events?

KM: Chauncey, any other plugs you’d like to make for some of our upcoming digital events? I know you do a lot with those. So feel free to let listeners know what they can look forward to.

CA: Yeah. So moving forward, be on the lookout for more digital events coming. What I’m really excited about is, as I mentioned, I was on the road for seven years speaking at conferences—all different types of conferences—and to be able now to bring different events to the audience that speaks to their individual needs. Whether or not you’re a pastor or you’re a a woman and there’s specific women issues that you would want to hear about, I’ll be doing digital events that would address that. Because I’m gonna take what I’ve heard over the past seven years and convert those into events. So whether or not it’s,

Hey, I’m a pastor who’s 70 years old, and how do I pastor to Gen-Z or how do I pastor to millennials? Those are questions that a lot of people are dealing with right now.
Or if I’m a woman in ministry and I’m struggling with various issues, we’re gonna be talking to some women in ministry.
We’re gonna talk to people in the academic space and talk about what challenges and successes that they’re having at seminaries. You know, is a seminary student who graduates—are they ready for the real world now that seminary is over?

So those types of topics we’ll be touching on, and I’m excited for those to start. So, stay tuned in the next 30 to 60 days and you’ll be able to log in and hopefully grab some really good content.

KM: Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Chauncey, and sharing these things with us.

CA: Thanks, Kirk. I appreciate it.