Becoming a Racial Justice Ministry Setting

 

Spring 2022 - Eastertide

Dear Beloved Siblings in the Southwest Conference:

The Southwest Conference Racial Justice Team invites you on a journey toward becoming a Racial Justice ministry setting. This work is an unfolding movement of Spirit requiring much imagination and determination. We hope that you’ll feel a call to this journey.

Before you begin, know this: The journey is not a comfortable one. For many of us, the experience has included deep inner work, including grief over our personal and cultural history, anger regarding the lacks in our education and formation, and immense sorrow over the way white supremacy and related ideologies have shaped our thinking and our actions. If your ministry setting chooses to move forward with work and study, the prayers of the Racial Justice Team are with you.

We are confident that future gatherings of the Southwest Conference will include celebrations and sharing of racial justice covenants from a variety of congregations and communities. Even then, we know the work will have just begun.

Please email us at racialjusticeteam@uccswc.org if we can be of assistance, if you are looking for conversation partners in this work, to share resource suggestions, and to update us about your journey.

In faith and courage,

Your SWC Racial Justice Team

Nine Steps: A Path For Becoming a Racial Justice Ministry Setting

The SWC 2022 Annual Meeting adopted a path for congregations and communities to follow in their pilgrimage to becoming a restorative racial justice ministry setting. This document fulfills the commission of the 2020 annual meeting’s resolution Decentering Whiteness in Our Churches and Society.

AntiRacism Study Dialogue Circles (ASDIC)

The SWC is partnering with ASDIC in a two year partnership designed to help us become a restorative racial justice conference.

Phase 1 began in early 2022 as SWC standing committee members and staff completed the IDI and are arranging to bring ASDIC curriculum, to the SWC.

Phase 2 begins mid 2022 with authorized clergy and local church leaders completing the IDI. Programs designed to improve the SWC’s intercultural competency will begin in the fall of 2022.

In Phase 3 local churches begin working with ASDIC in ways tailored to each church’s context.

Overview of the curriculum designed especially for the SWC, including assessment and inventory tools, PowerPoints, handouts, and more is available online.

This “be-it-yourself” guide to anti-racism for churches and church leaders offers:

  • A clear audit of church operations and reasons why this work is so important

  • Workbook-style questions at the end of each chapter

  • A workable action plan for churches to implement what they have learned

  • Tips, encouragement, and questions for BIPOC leaders in primarily white churches

  • Helpful glossary of terms to aid general understanding

Resources

(time) indicates a video resource

underline indicates a link or online resource

Italics indicates a print resource title

This is a crowdsourced resource repository. Please email your suggestions to racialjusticeteam@uccswc.org

Understanding Race & Racism

  1. What is the Origin of Race (10:15)

  2. Intergenerational Trauma (4:02)

  3. For a Just World Podcasts (Sacred Conversations to End Racism, hour-long episodes)

Doctrine of Discovery

  1. Discovered? Or Stolen! Repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery (UCC resource) (6:15)

  2. Toni Buffalo talks about the Doctrine of Discovery (3:26)

  3. UCC General Synod resolution and study guide repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery

Lessons for Deeper Engagement

  1. Intersectionality - Intro to Intersectionality (9:52)

  2. Non-Binary - People Explain What Non-Binary Means to Them (7:32)

  3. Code-Switching - The Cost of Code Switching (10:43)

White Privilege, White Fragility, Whiteness

  1. White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

  2. White Privilege: Let’s Talk (UCC curriculum, leaders resources, webinars)

Human Migration

  1. How Humans Migrated - mtDNA shows how humans migrated across the World

  2. Path of Human Migration - Map Shows How Humans Migrated Across the Globe

  3. Africa's Great Civilizations - Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (PBS subscription required)

  4. Africa’s Great Civilizations - Grades 6-12

Overcoming Blind Spots

  1. Blind Spots Challenge Assumptions (2:19)

  2. Blind Spots Overcome Stereotypes (3:25)

  3. Blind Spots Broaden Perspectives (3:24)

  4. The Model Minority Myth Asian Americans (10:22)

  5. Don't Put People in Boxes (4:24)