Toward the end of last year The Mennonite magazine put out an invitation to submit articles on the theme of race and faith.  I wrote about our congregation’s journey last year.  It has just been posted on The Mennonite website, and I’m copying the text below as well. By way of brief follow up, I’m pleased that the organization Faith in Public Life has been convening Columbus faith leaders once a month to address matters disproportionally impacting communities of color.  Our breakfast this morning had 40+ folks around the table.  Specifically, the group will be promoting Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training for all Columbus police officers, to teach de-escalation techniques, and greater awareness of mental and psychiatric disorders.  The goal of the program is to create a clean link between law enforcement and emergency mental health services (rather than the county jail being the primary mental health institution). “Trouble

  Here’s another sign of the strange times we live in:  Today, while driving back and forth to Lima Mennonite Church for a CDC pastor peer meeting, listening to the recent five part series by On the Media called Busted: America’s Poverty Myths, I found myself being encouraged by these difficult stories of crushing poverty. “Encouraged” maybe isn’t the right word.  “Heartened?”  Not quite.  “Fortified?”  Yes, something like that.  Fortified. The series was released several months ago. In five episodes it confronts myths around poverty in the US such as poverty being the result of a poor work ethic, America being a land of equal opportunity for all, and public cash assistance, welfare, causing most people who receive it to become lazy and dependent. One of the best parts about the series is that it gives extended time to hearing the stories of people in poverty, through their own voice. 

“What am I willing to sacrifice to make sanctuary happen?” This was the question that was posed to the audience toward the end of the workshop put on by the Central Ohio Worker Center last evening.  A crowd of more than 300 people (including many of you) crammed into our worship space, listened to an overview of how the U.S. immigration system works (or often doesn’t work), heard how the recent administration change and executive orders are affecting immigrant populations, and explored some ideas about what it might mean to create sanctuary in our community.  When it was all over, however, the question above is what hung in the air for me.  I appreciated that it was posed not in a guilt-inducing or coercive way, but in a way that recognized we each have our own unique contribution to make that only we can choose.  The presenters offered a number

  In August of 1966, three years after his “I have a dream speech,” a Gallup poll found that Martin Luther King Jr’s national popularity had fallen to a 63% negative rating.  Only 12% of all Americans registered a “highly favorable” opinion of King.  In the remaining year and a half of his life King would come out strongly against the Vietnam War and expand civil rights to an economic platform.  These controversial calls for radical systemic change cost him more allies.  He was helping mobilize the “Poor People’s Campaign” in Memphis when he was assassinated in April of 1968. A 2011 national Gallup poll rated King’s favorability at 94% (statistics found in THIS article). What happened? Every time the week of MLK day comes around, I can’t help but think that we generally mis-remember King in two significant ways. The first is the domestication of his message, as evidenced

What a wild, and sometimes tumultuous ride 2016 was.  Before we get too far along in 2017, here’s a snapshot of what happened in the life of this congregation last year.  It was a full year.  We intentionally confronted racism and affirmed that black lives matter.  We did some work on our building.  And we had some fun along the way.  Because of the long list this year I’ve left off a few of the annual regulars.  If you make it all the way to the bottom, congratulations. + CRC Kids Club after school program begins meeting in our church basement + Winter Seminar on aging with Jep Hostetler and Glen Miller + Youth-led worship service features kids of many ages + “Trouble the waters” Lent worship theme + Serving February breakfasts at the CRC + Maundy Thursday service with Jessica Shimberg of the Little Minyan Kehila + Easter worship