The Practicing Church

There has been a call for clergy and faith leaders to go and be a witness in Minneapolis this week.

I answered the call out of a deep conviction that we must resist the evil unleashed on Minneapolis and stand in solidarity with our neighbors who are being targeted once again by blatant racism and state terror.

What I have witnessed here on the ground is both immensely heartbreaking and stunningly beautiful. The city is under siege of occupation forces who have been empowered to terrorize the streets with brutal violence. This is not business as usual. Everyone is affected and experiencing collective trauma.

At the same time, I have been so incredibly inspired by the love of neighbor being embodied here, and the power and scale of resistance in solidarity and community. The best thing we can do is to know our neighbors and care for one another.

I ask for your prayers today. This is a battle on many fronts, but it is a deeply spiritual one. Pray for safety but also pray that our resistance will inspire moral courage in the leaders of our nation.

I believe this is a moment where we are called to rise up.

Join us this Sunday, Nov 30th, for the first Sunday of Advent with Advent candle lighting, community stories, and an Advent devotional for the season!

Luke’s Gospel begins the story of Jesus with this opening line: “In the time of Herod…” This detail may seem minor to modern readers; however, it reveals layers of information about the fearful world Jesus entered, one filled with rampant oppression, economic disparity, uncertainty, and instability. A world not so unlike our own. And yet, throughout the stories of Christ’s birth, we hear the whispers of angels delivering a surprising message: “Do not fear.” When Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, and the magi are each called into God’s redemptive story, they do not deny their fears—they move through them. They ask questions, hold fast to courage, trust in good news, and say, “Here I am, Lord.” When we find ourselves in fearful times, can we acknowledge our fears while also insisting on hope?

As we journey through this season, may our hope become gritty and resilient. May we remember: hope that trembles is still hope. This season, let us insist on hope and trust that good news is greater than fear.
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W e a r e f a m i l y.

This is a reason to celebrate amid a world of deep fragmentation. As the prophets, Sister Sledge, herald, "We are family....Get up, everybody, and sing!" Perhaps both the good and bad news is this—we are living in a time where the myth of individualism is exposed for the heinous lie that it is.

You see, if the powers can keep us apart—isolated, divided, alone, self-absorbed, and disempowered, they win. We remain consumers captive to the exploitive and violent systems of greed and oppression.

Yet if we remember that we are family, that we belong to one another... If we remember that we are all "tied together...caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny" (Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)...if we remember that our flourishing is tied up together....

Then and only then is there hope in the midst of despair, and joy found even in the deepest sorrow. There is a reason to celebrate! For we are in this together. When the community comes together to offer their gifts, big or small, there is always enough.

This is why we are so excited to regather this Sunday, August 31st, at 10 am to worship together as family.

We belong to God and to one another in a community of radical belonging that overflows in love of neighbor.