Dear Caldwell,
As I wrote to you last week in the “What’s New for 2020” letter, our year together is already gathering momentum. Our theme this year is “Holy Conversations: Who We Are and Whose We Are.”
Our hope is that we can engage in all kinds of conversations and dialogues that continue to answer those questions. We’re mindful that our life together must balance authentic, faithful, candid relationships within our diverse congregation SO THAT we are equipped and fed to serve others beyond our congregation in the community together.
As “Holy Conversations,” they will all be held within the context of our identities as people of faith.This election year, one that no doubt will bring difficult and divisive public conversations, we will need to root ourselves in that aspect of our identity more so than other things that define us. As people of faith, we will need to reach for the hope that often requires looking past the immediate circumstances to the hope we have in Christ that a just and fair community is God’s vision and goal.
So, let the conversations begin!
At 7 p.m. tonight, we kick off “The Preachers’ Porch” at Hawthorne’s NY Pizza on 7th Street near church. We’ll grab a room to ourselves and brainstorm about how this Sunday’s scriptures speak to our lives in this busy, rough and tumble world. Appropriately, the thread that connects our scriptures is baptism – Christ’s baptism and how we live out our own baptism. What could be more relevant to thinking about our identities – who we are and whose we are?
Another ongoing conversation we’ll be having is about what justice should look like in our ministries, advocacy and outreach. For Caldwell, we are always being informed by the church’s past ties to slavery and how the ugly truth of those connections must compel us to work for restorative justice in all we do.
Recently, we were invited to write about that for Presbyterians Today, a national denominational publication. The article, by Elder Helen Hull, member Rev. Lori Thomas and me, explained the “justice audit” that the Missions and Justice Committee is leading. Its goal is to examine how we support local efforts with our time and money. The article, which had a tight limit on its length, was written to a denomination that is 90% white. We hope it will help start conversations about justice at churches across our denomination.
As elder Richard Harrison reminds me, “Holiness must look like justice. So, our ongoing conversation about justice should be informed by the truth that the Caldwell family made its fortune through the sin of slavery. As we continue to digest that fact, we will be better able fight racism – and bigotry in all of its forms – in our day and times. ”
You can read the article here. Helen, Lori and I welcome your thoughts and ideas.
So you can see that 2020 will indeed be a year of all sorts of “Holy Conversations” – and I hope you will dive in!
Watch for Caldwell This Week Friday with a full run down of everything that’s happening.
In Christ,
John