Late in August, Pastor Beth and I were invited by Hope Church member and Associate Dean for Residential Life and Education, Kristyn Bockniak, to share some faith reflections with the Resident Assistants who were doing their training for the coming school year. We decided to share one of the scripture passages that is fundamental to our identity as a congregation. We saw close connections between this passage and the values they use to ground their work in Residential Life: belonging, growth, dignity, respect, and love. The passage was Micah 6.8 “God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
We also chose this passage because it gave us a chance to share with that group of students what I shared in my last And Finally article back in August regarding the polarity of social activism and spiritual formation. My interest wasn’t so much in the particularity of this polarity so much as the idea of polarities as a concept. I know it would have been incredibly helpful to me to understand this concept when I was a young adult. In order to talk to them about it, I decided I wanted to graph the details of this polarity so that I could talk about it in concrete rather than theoretical terms. I shared this with consistory in the early fall and they thought it could be helpful for me to share it with all of you. The way that I generated the content for each quadrant of the polarity was to imagine someone who was most at home with one side of the pole engaging in an argument with someone on the other side of the pole. Someone who swims deeply in the pools of prayer, meditation, and spiritual retreats going toe to toe with a social justice activist who feels most alive when taking faith and putting it into action for the sake of the “least of these.” I imagined how they would describe the gifts of “their” pole and how they would sound the alarms for the downsides of the “other” pole. It didn’t take long to create this polarity below.
SOCIAL ACTIVISM AND SPIRITUAL FORMATION POLARITY
I hope you have been tracking some of the ways we have been intentionally living into some “action steps” to cultivate our spiritual formation as a congregation. Gordon wrote about some of these in his September And Finally article. The weekly emails Praying Toward Sunday, the Wednesday fall series, and Retreat held in the end of October were all efforts to help fill the reservoir of faith. I trust you are finding ways for this beyond these programmatic offerings. My family has been taking weekly or bi-weekly treks in the forest and I am finding that as one of the places that fills my soul and connects me to God as the
ground of my being.
We do this work of walking humbly with God to fuel us for the outward expressions of our faith: to love kindness and do justice. When I shared this with the consistory, I also included an update for them on the various places we, as pastors of Hope Church, are engaged in the community and staying connected to social activism of various forms. Once again, they suggested that I share this with all of you. So you will find below the list of those engagements along with a mission statement for each group.
Pastors Engagement in Community Work
Faith Leaders for Justice – Gordon convenes this group which all three pastors attend along with several other Hope Church members.
Statement of Purpose for Faith Leaders for Justice:
We are a group of leaders (religious and secular, lay and ordained) working for broader acceptance and justice for and with those who find themselves on the margins of our community. We call the greater Holland area home, and in keeping with our traditions and values, we celebrate the sharing of hospitality and partnership with all our neighbors. Yet there are many who find themselves too often marginalized in our community, in particular immigrants, LGBTQ folks, African-Americans, Latino/as, refugees, people of faiths other than Christian, and people not a part of faith communities.Through thoughtful engagement, education, and advocacy, we along with many allies are working to foster an environment of genuine welcome and support. Humbly and persistently we will strive with and for our neighbors towards justice, equity and reconciliation in our community.
Interfaith Allies – Jill convenes this group which all three pastors attend and she facilitates the programming of this group such as Community Interfaith Diners and the Know Your Neighbors educational series.
Statement of Purpose for Interfaith Allies:
Holland Interfaith Allies are dedicated to engaging people from the wide array of faith and worldview backgrounds represented here in Holland. We expand our circles of inclusion:
- By promoting community initiatives and events that expand our circles of inclusion and our respectful engagement of all our neighbors.
- By moving beyond mere tolerance of each other’s beliefs and worldviews toward understanding, appreciation, and mutual respect.
Together, we are becoming the peace we seek in the battered and beautiful world we share.
Holland Public Schools Equity Alliance – Jill and Gordon share a seat on this community action committee that is sponsored by the Holland Public School Board and is comprised of administration, staff, faculty, parents, and community members.
Mission Statement for Holland Public Schools Equity Alliance
To engage stakeholders in creating a learning culture of justice empowered to identify and address inequities in our school community and beyond.
Holland City Faith-Based Leadership – all three pastors attend these quarterly meetings with the Chief of Police and Human Relations staff. This group focuses on issues of concern within the city and ways communities of faith can help to address those concerns. After initial conversations with the police and city leadership following a high-stakes traffic stop last summer, this group has continued conversations about how to strengthen the relationship between public safety and marginalized members of our community. One form that conversation is taking is to address the impact of trauma on our community. On November 1, this group is meeting at Hope Church to hear from a staff member from Ottawa County Mental Health on this topic and continue to envision how Holland can become a more consistently trauma-informed community.
Holland City Human Relations Commission – Beth is member of the commission.
Mission Statement for City of Holland Human Relations Commission: The City of Holland recognizes the inherent right of its inhabitants to strive to fulfill their goals and aspirations unhindered by discrimination based on or resulting from considerations of race, creed, handicap, educational association, color, sex, age, marital status, national origin or association. Therefore, in 1966, the City of Holland created the Human Relations Commission. The HRC is comprised of 9 members broadly representative of the City’s population who are appointed by the Mayor with approval of City Council.
RCA Commission on Christian Action – Beth has recently become a member of this commission within the RCA denomination structure.
Mission Statement for Commission on Christian Action:
To inform and advise the church concerning current social issues and the spiritual and Christian principles by which critical evaluation may be exercised on those issues and proper action taken.
There are many, many ways to live out our faith. I trust that you are finding ways to engage the work of justice and kindness day by day. Perhaps in formal associations and groups like the ones listed above but even more in the concrete experiences of your day to day life. I am deeply grateful for the vast diversity of expressions of faith we all embody as well as the divergent spheres of influence we all occupy. God is moving among us and beyond us and it is a gift to bear witness to all the places the Spirit is leading us to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.
Peace to you,
~Pastor Jill