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Racial Justice
During a candid panel discussion held as part of the NEXT Church national gathering last week, leaders talked about antiracism work that’s been going on within the organization and the bumps in the road they’ve encountered striving toward greater inclusivity, especially among leadership.
The Rev. Otis Moss III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, and Tanya Watkins, executive director of Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation, which carries the memorable acronym SOUL, may take slightly different approaches to serving their community.
Closing worship for the NEXT Church national gathering on Sunday brought together two ways of being community that you wouldn’t necessarily associate — Luke’s description in Acts 2 of how the early church functioned and the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which have been adapted to other addictions as well.
The Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III remembers the heartbroken grandmother of a man in denial of his drug addiction. “Son,” she told him one day, “until you name the demon, you ain’t never gonna be free.”
Picking up on the NEXT Church national gathering theme, “Breaking, Blessing, Building,” Dr. Christine Hong wondered how people will come out of “survival mode” inflicted by the pandemics of coronavirus and racial injustice and rally for a future of blessing and building.
The Rev. Lenny Duncan, who delivered a powerful and at times anguished and angry keynote Friday during the NEXT Church national gathering, said he agreed to speak because the Rev. Denise Anderson asked him to.
Opportunities are broken, the Rev. Bertram Johnson told the NEXT Church gathering Friday, when we worship anything but God. And for anyone who needed proof, he cited Exodus 32:1-20, the story of the tablets that Moses broke, furious that while he was atop a mountain to receive the Ten Commandments, Aaron allowed the people to construct a golden calf to worship. Moses was so mad upon his return he took the image and burned it. Then he grounded it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink the water.
Engaging with Matthew 25 and the three areas of focus that make up the vision — building congregational vitality, dismantling structural racism and eradicating systemic poverty — is being addressed in a variety of ways by the 765 congregations and 72 mid councils who have signed on since its launch in April 2019. Now there is another way to start those conversations and actively engage in the world around us.
Nearly two centuries after many of their ancestors were displaced from their native homelands in the southern United States, a group of Native Americans is preserving their language and traditions in a unique community in Alabama.
In a candid and perhaps long overdue online conversation, members of the Disparities Experienced by Black Women and Girls Task Force presented “Telling Our Stories,” which provided a look at the major concerns of Black women and girls as outlined in its report to the 224th General Assembly (2020), which has been referred to the 225th General Assembly (2024).
