Dear First United Family,

Over the last six weeks, our Sunday morning worship focus has been on brokenness and the pathway toward wholeness. Last Saturday, August 12th, many of us watched the news coming out of Charlottesville, Virginia. We saw the breadth and depth of the brokenness of our humanity. Our hearts broke, our anger rose, and our spirits trembled. God’s heart was breaking too.

White supremacy and racism deny the very imprint of God’s image within each of us; they deny the very foundation of our faith in the incarnation of love found in Jesus Christ; they keep us out of reach from experiencing the fullness of the Kingdom of God as our reality.

As a community of faith committed to the way of Jesus, we must remember our baptismal vows and reject the sin of racism, white supremacy, oppression and wickedness in whatever forms they present themselves and by whatever names they call themselves. We must express through our actions that God's grace is a gift to all people of every race, age, ability, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, economic situation and religious background. We must continually recommit ourselves through the power that God gives us, to the journey of discipleship that leads to freedom, reconciliation, love and wholeness.

We the pastoral staff at First United are on that journey with you. We are here to walk alongside of you as we seek to be in solidarity with those who have experienced violence through racism and oppression. We are here to learn along with you the ways in which our own privilege contributes to the brokenness found in white supremacy. We are here to pray with you and call upon God who leads us in truth, in radical love, and toward the grace that binds us together as the vision of the beloved community.

In God’s Peace,

Rev. Britt Cox

Rev. Lydia Mulkey

Rev. Steve Pierce

Alicia Reese

One next step you can take…

Beginning on Sunday, November 12th, Rev. Lydia Mulkey and Rev. Britt Cox will be facilitating a curriculum from the UCC called White Privilege: Let's Talk—A Resource for Transformational Dialogue. It is an adult curriculum that's designed to invite white people to engage in safe, meaningful, substantive and bold conversations on race. We hope that you will join us.