One of the points of our focus on racial justice is to find areas in our church life where patterns of racism or a white racial narrative may be occurring.Today a new document has been added to the Racial Justice Page on our web site. It is an executive summary of the results from a ‘Mapping Racism’ exercise done in May. Led by our racial justice consultant Dr. Heather Hackman, about 35 congregants who went through the G1 or G2 racial justice trainings with Dr. Hackman met to identify areas in church life where racism and whiteness may be occurring. Participants were able to identify areas for investigation by looking through a sharper racial justice ‘lens’ than they may have had before going through training. Check it out by clicking HERE. We hope you’ll find it thought provoking. Perhaps you will use it as fodder for meaningful conversations.Based on this information, the Racial Justice Leadership Team has prioritized the worship and communications/culture/identity aspects of our church for investigation, and is currently assembling teams to address these area. A team will also be created to connect those of you with a passion for racial justice more deeply with this ministry.

Also, a new staff intern with a social work background will be helping to create a set of questions to use for all of our Faith in Action work that will help assure that we assess all such efforts with a racial justice lens.

Racial Justice Leadership Team Members,
Kristen Mengelkoch 

and Emma Paskewitz