Listen to Marta Gómez singing Manos de Mujeres (translation below).
Hands of Women Continue reading Lenten Reflection from Palmer Maxwell: Hands of Women
Category Archives: Social justice
99 Films Presents Gaining Ground: Tuesday, Feb. 16th, 7 PM
On January 19, we screened “Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street.” This is the followup of that award-winning documentary about community vision, struggle, and change in the Roxbury Neighborhood of Boston. We will continue the discussion about the development of one of the most successful community land trusts in the nation, and how the City of Birmingham can learn from Dudley Street.
Led by Susan Diane Mitchell, founder of Birmingham’s first ever community land trust, the Dynamite Hill-Smithfield Community Land Trust.
Magnolia BBQ and Fish will have a hot dog stand out front.
$5 suggested donation.
For the Common Good: 1st Corinthians 12:1-11
We are currently without a lead pastor, but we are blessed to welcome numerous guest preachers each week. Our Beloved Jennifer Sanders preached the following sermon on Sunday, January 17th.
I spent some time on Friday following one of the heritage walks downtown in the Civil Rights district. If you’ve been downtown at all, you’ve probably passed and read some of those signs that mark significant events and places in Birmingham’s Civil Rights history. Though there are currently four separate march routes that spread across several blocks each, I’ve always read individual signs by happenstance, usually through my car window as I’m stopped at a red light.
I had never followed a whole path before. So Friday – on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s actual calendar birthday – I decided to make the time to not only walk through Kelly Ingram Park, but also to trace the route that covers the Selective Shopping campaign, the economic resistance that led to peaceful protest and violent response.
Foot soldiers and firehoses. Pickets and police dogs. Even though we know the history – some of you lived through it – it never ceases to hold new lessons for us. It is a part of who we are and who we will become. It is a part of our context. Walking that whole path brings a vivid sense of our city’s history and of how that continues to shape our journey forward as we seek – or not – common ground and the common good.
This letter of Paul’s to the Corinthians is born of another specific context and it speaks into that context. It’s one of a series of letters – only 2 of which have been preserved – from Paul to a congregation that he had founded some years before. Much of the letter consists of his pastoral responses to their questions.
Read the full sermon on Jennifer’s blog…
99 Films Presents Holding Ground: Tuesday, Jan. 19, 7 pm
We hope to see everyone after the New Year at Beloved for a screening of the documentary, “Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street,” facilitated by Carol Judy from the Clearfork Valley in Tennessee. Carol is a Rural Development Leadership Network Fellow, and former resident and leader of the Woodland Land Trust in Tennessee, one of the oldest community land trusts in the country.
This award-winning documentary is about community vision, struggle, and change in the Roxbury Neighborhood of Boston, including the development of one of the most successful community land trusts in the nation.
We condemn Islamophobia.
A joint statement from the leadership of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) released Wednesday, December 9, 2015.
As people of faith, we are called to “love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength.” Jesus charges us to “love our neighbor as yourself,” telling us that “there is no other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:29-31). We are called to be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9), and to “pursue peace with everyone” (Hebrews 12:14).
Recognizing that all people are created in the image of God, and heeding the words of our sacred scripture, we are disturbed and concerned as we witness the divisive discourse in our country concerning our Muslim neighbors. The rhetoric of exclusion and vilification runs absolutely counter to our understanding of God’s oikos, which is an inclusive fellowship of God’s children and creation.
As leaders of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), we offer our ongoing solidarity with and support for all those who are increasingly fearful for their safety and well-being as a result of the heightened vitriol. And we commit to continuing to pursue peace, to promote better understanding among our communities, and to pursue justice in all that we do.
We are witnessing the convergence of a massive global refugee crisis, not limited to the displacement of over half the Syrian population due to the tragic war there; a sentiment of fear resulting from heinous attacks in many places in the US and globally; and the relentless nature of a US presidential campaign in which candidates exploit circumstances and fears to put forward ever more restrictive and exclusivist programs to address perceived threats. In this combination of circumstances, Islam and Muslims as a whole community experience an escalation in violent rhetoric and action that is misplaced and unjustified—and that does not represent the ethos of nurturing stronger and deeper intercommunal ties in our society that we seek to promote.
Our two churches are vocal and consistent in our condemnation of all forms of violence, including terrorism; in our hope for a peaceful and swift end to the war in Syria; in our unwavering advocacy for humane and welcoming attitudes and policies towards refugees; and in our clear denunciation of language and actions that insult and harm people of any identity, including religious, and specifically Muslims.
Daily we see the destruction of human life caused by people who employ ideologies, policies, systems, and sometimes, religion. There are forces in the world that would choose death and destruction to life with abundance; and we stand in clear opposition to those forces. Many victims of injustice go unreported, hidden, or denied. God knows their pain; they do not go unnoticed. We are called to work for God’s kindom in this world.
In this moment, we own our Christian responsibility to lift up our voice once again to express our love and concern for our Muslim sisters and brothers. We stand in solidarity with communities of faith in our abhorrence of the xenophobic and racist attitudes that motivate such hate speech and actions. We live with the hope that peace and justice will prevail for all of God’s children.
The Rev. John Dorhauer
General Minister and President
The Rev. J. Bennett Guess
Executive Minister, Local Church Ministries
The Rev. James Moos
Executive Minister, Wider Church Ministries
The Rev. Bentley DeBardelaben
Manager, Justice and Witness Ministries
The Rev. Sharon Watkins
General Minister and President
The Rev. Ron Degges
President, Disciples Home Missions
The Rev. Julia Brown Karimu
President, Division of Overseas Ministries
“Beasts of the Southern Wild” screening December 15th
The next film in the 99 Films Series, presented by Birmingham Institute for Social Change (BISC), will be hosted at Beloved on Tuesday, December 15th.
“Beasts of the Southern Wild” is narrated from the point of view of a young girl in New Orleans. It shares her experiences living through Hurricane Katrina, with her family and community binding together to overcome the injustices that followed.
This is the third film in BISC’s five-film series which focuses on land, cultural identity and community. These five films (Daughters of the Dust, My Brooklyn, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Holding Ground, and Gaining Ground) all serve in BISC’s popular education platform to address common themes and issues of land as sacred space; cultural identity, migration, and community; and gentrification, resistance and just transition in Birmingham black and brown communities, and tying our lived experiences in with other marginalized peoples in global sites of resistance.
Amnesty International Write for Rights December 7-10
One letter can change a life.
Beloved Community Church, The Abbey and Saint Junia UMC invite you to participate in an ecumenical Advent effort to support human rights.
We will be writing letters for Amnesty International’s Write for Rights campaign, which focuses this year on 12 human rights cases around the globe. Our letters can free Prisoners of Conscience (people imprisoned for their beliefs or identity), halt executions, stop torture and change lives.
We’ll have a letter writing table set up at our next door neighbor, The Abbey coffee shop (131a 41st St. S, Birmingham) from 5:00-7:00 pm on December 7, 9, and 10. Information about the cases, sample letters, and writing materials will be provided.
Join us to Write for Rights!
“World Peace Diet” author to speak at Beloved Dec. 4th
She Matters forum at First Congregational UCC
WHAT: An open forum engaging the community-at-large, community organizations and community leadership in healthy discussion concerning the documented incidences of police brutality involving African American women in 2015 around the United States.
WHEN: Saturday, November 14, 2015, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
WHERE: First Congregational Church, 1024 Center St. North, Birmingham, AL 35204
Continue reading She Matters forum at First Congregational UCC
