The 18″ Pilgrimage
The work of social transformation and racial justice can be personally taxing, toxic, and tyrannical. Jumping into the fight for racial justice ill-equipped to hold space and follow leadership has led to many lasting wounds in the movement toward collective liberation. The 18″ Pilgrimage is an exploratory sermon on navigating the inner-workings of the personal and intimate self-work before engaging in social/racial justice work. It is a sermon comprised of story and observation of intersectional justice work with impacted communities and frontline UUs.
This Sunday’s guest preacher is Pastor Danny Givens, MUUSJA Statewide Organizer and Senior Pastor of Above Every Name Ministries. Read more about Pastor Danny below.
Please join us for worship at 10 a.m. this Sunday, July 1!
Order of Service: July 1 Order of Service
Listen to the Sermon:
Offering Recipient: Alliance for Metropolitan Stability (give here)
Guest Preacher: Pastor Danny Givens, Jr.
Pastor Danny Givens, Jr. is the Senior Pastor of Above Every Name Ministries, a young cutting edge congregation in the Twin Cities that prides itself in being a “Church for the People.” As an advocate for Racial/Social Justice surrounding the systemic issues facing Black communities and other communities of color, Pastor Danny devotes much of his time and energy to the #BlackLivesMatterMpls movement in the role of Clergy Liaison.
Pastor Danny is one of the Founding Members of Black Clergy United for Change (BCUC), a collective of black clergy committed to the work of Racial Justice and Social Transformation in urban communities and abroad.
After receiving his B.A. in Christian Ministry from Bethel University in 2011, Pastor Danny completed a three-year residency as Interfaith Minister at Unity Church-Unitarian in St. Paul in 2016. There, Pastor Danny began to explore and deepen his convictions as an inclusive, aspiring interfaith leader through the co-facilitation of Beloved Conversations, an experiential curriculum that provides a space to re-form/re-fuse the brokenness of racism into new patterns of thought and behavior.
In addition to the litany of organizing strategies, actions, and non-violent demonstrations Pastor Danny has planned and led as a frontline activist, he has also brought both traditional and non-traditional faith leaders of diverse backgrounds to the table at the intersections of faith, race, and justice. Pastor Danny has provided racial justice consulting for Temple Israel of Minneapolis, Mt. Zion Temple of St. Paul, the Minnesota Rabbinical Association, St. John Neumann Catholic Church of Eagan. He has also created a praxis curriculum for faith leaders looking to deepen justice work from the pulpit and beyond.
Summer Worship Theme: Emergence
We humans look at a flock of birds flying overhead, sketching awe-inspiring designs in the sky, and think the birds must be following a leader. But leadership alone has never been the full measure of history nor the full inspiration of the beauty and patterns that emerge from a community of birds in flight. In fact, the patterns we see in the sky are made by each individual bird bringing to the group its own creativity and reacting to the movement of two or three of its neighbors. It is a dance between freedom and faithful followship. Our work in community, our efforts in justice making, and patterns of right relationship emerge in the same dance between freedom (our own creativity) and faithful following (our commitment to our neighbors, community). Together we create patterns of love and justice. This summer we ask: what makes something emerge? How and when do we lead? How and when do we follow? Where and how do we place our attention? What is emerging?
