The United Church of Christ and Join The Movement present: "Living Courageously: A Journey from Bystander to Upriser."

This limited podcast series is an opportunity to continue the brave work of our Lenten Courageous Conversations by deepening our skills for intervening in moments of racial harm.

We hope you will take a few minutes to meditate and learn with us as we await the Resurrection and transformation Christ offers.

Transcript:

Greetings beloveds! My name is Dr. Sharon Fennema and I am the curator of the United Church of Christ’s Join the Movement toward Racial Justice initiative and campaign.

This Lent at Join the Movement, we’ve been engaging in courageous conversations to help us explore more fully our connections to racial justice and practices of antiracism because our scriptures reveal to us a Jesus who leans into difficult conversations. As followers of Jesus, we, too, are called to speak truth and listen with love so that we might build our capacities for creating and sustaining the kin-dom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

But we also know that our courageous conversations and the new understandings they bring us must also change the way we live and move in the world. So this Holy Week, we are moving from words to deeds, exploring what it means to live courageously as racial justice uprisers. One way we can practice living courageously is by intervening in moments of racial harm.

Have you ever witnessed someone say or do something racist but not known how to respond? Or maybe you’ve seen or heard someone be harmed in a racially unjust way, but felt powerless to intervene. Have you ever stayed silent when you wish you had said or done something? 

I imagine we all have moments where we don’t fully embody our racial justice commitments, moments when out of fear, discomfort, or self-doubt, we remain bystanders. But we know that part of the life of faith is learning how to live out our beliefs and embody our commitments to justice. And as movement-makers, we know there are skills and practices that can help us grow.

Each day this Holy Week, we will explore one step that can help us move from being bystanders to racial justice uprisers and practices that can help us build our capacity to intervene. So, as we journey through these sacred days, where we confront the depth and breadth of suffering and injustice as we remember Jesus’ betrayal, torture and death, let us lean into practices of addressing harm in the hopes of transformation.

We hope you will join these movements toward racial justice this Holy Week.