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The Episcopal Diocese
of Northern California
Beloved Community
Resource Newsletter
Published by
The Commission for
Intercultural Ministries
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Episcopal Church Becoming Beloved Community | |
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Newsletter Highlights:
- Sacramento congregations unite to support LGBTQ+ community
- Restored
- Celebrating Pride Amidst Anti-LGBTQ Sentiment
- Slavery and The Episcopal Church: A Deceptive Tale of Unity
- More than 60 parishioners attend virtual Racial Healing and Justice Workshop
- St. John's, Roseville, will begin a new series of Regular and Deeper Dive Sacred Ground Circles via Zoom in August 2024
- Season of Courage: The Rev. Cliff Haggenjos
- Diocesan-wide New Camino Training September 27-28
- Vote Faithfully: A Nonpartisan Informational Series
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Sacramento congregations unite to support LGBTQ+ community
KCRA 3 I Maricela De La Cruz I Posted June 12, 2024
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The Very Rev. Matthew Woodward, Dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Sacramento, was interviewed . The Cathedral is a member of SARFA. | |
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Fostering love and acceptance regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, a coalition of congregations that spans various faiths and denominations has formed the Sacramento Area Rainbow Faith Alliance (SARFA).
At the heart of this initiative is the belief that faith can be a powerful force for good, transcending differences to embrace the common humanity that binds us all.
SARFA comprises over a dozen Sacramento-area Protestant churches that aim to provide a safe and affirming network of LGBTQIA+ worshipping communities.
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Restored
Sermon by the Rev. Paul Mallat, Deacon
Church of the Incarnation, Santa Rosa
June 2, 2024
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Good morning, Incarnation — and Happy Pride Sunday!
I want to begin with the boy Samuel from our Hebrew reading.
As with any good, young Jewish man, I am sure that with his religious upbringing, Samuel was most familiar with the Psalm we prayed this morning.
Samuel's truth comes forth in Psalm 139, It is the Lord who speaks to him through the words, and he came to realize that God's goodness would guide and bless his life:
You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
Samuel's truth is now my truth – The Lord speaks to me, and I know too that I am marvelously made!
But that wasn't my truth as a young man.
This is what my truth looked like:
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Left to right: Vestry member Jeff Paik, Bonnie Kim, Senior Warden Janet Wiese, Cammie Circle, and Vestry member Evelyn Circle representing St. John's, Episcopal Church, Roseville, at the May 2024 Placer Pride event. All photos by Jo Ann Williams. | |
Celebrating Pride Amidst Anti-LGBTQ Sentiment
Bonnie Kim and Jeff Paik
St. John's Episcopal Church, Roseville
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We had friends and colleagues who identified as LGBTQ+ and we naively thought that we were allies. It wasn’t until our child came out to us two years ago that we realized what true allyship was. We also began to experience first-hand the hate and discrimination that the LGBTQ+ community faces. As residents of Roseville in Placer County, a conservative district of California, we face a near-daily reminder that we are not welcome here. The Episcopal Church’s unwavering stance on radical inclusion is what drew our family to the community of St. John’s in Roseville.
This was only the third year of Placer Pride. And even though it has grown in size every year, it pales in comparison to Sac Pride which is held in nearby Sacramento. And yet, is it not any less important. Being present at Placer Pride is such an important ministry for us because the LGBTQ+ community in Placer County is surrounded by neighbors, coworkers, and student peers who openly degrade the human dignity of this marginalized community. Their lives literally depend on allyship and support.
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Jeff, Nicole Miller, and Bonnie | |
St. John's Pride tote bag | |
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June 20 is World Refugee Day (WRD), a day designated by the United Nations to honor and celebrate refugees around the world. World Refugee Day is an opportunity to highlight the journeys and risks refugees face, their dreams and hopes for a better future, and our responsibility to advocate for pathways to protection for all people forced to flee home.
In 2024, Episcopal Migration Ministries' (EMM) marking of World Refugee Day is linked to celebrations of Pride Month in June, as we provide resources and invite local communities to support LGBTQ+ forced migrants (refugees and asylum seekers) through our Rainbow Initiative.
Join EMM during the month of June and take action to speak out in support of refugee resettlement and the dignity and rights of all people.
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What Juneteenth tells us about the value of black life in America
The Washington Post I Nicole Ellis I Posted June 19, 2020
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In 2020, The Post’s Nicole Ellis visited Galveston, Tex., where Gen. Gordon Granger gave an order that emancipated 250,000 enslaved people on June 19, 1865. (Video: The Washington Post) | |
Juneteenth has taken on a symbolic national reverence as the day news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Texas, but, in reality, the emancipation proclamation didn’t end slavery, and neither did the Civil War. Revisiting Galveston, Tex., where Gen. Gordon Granger delivered an order that emancipated 250,000 enslaved people on June 19, 1865, reporter Nicole Ellis examines if Granger’s clarifying words on the value of Black life in America distinguishes Juneteenth as emancipation day. But our ability to live up to that ideal as a nation may be best measured in the days, weeks and years that followed. | |
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Slavery and The Episcopal Church:
A Deceptive Tale of Unity
The Rev. Katherine Cruthirds Frederick
Curate, Grace Episcopal Church, Fairfield
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Click on the image to flip through the Bible View of Slavery written by
Bishop John Henry Hopkins, Bishop of Vermont, based on a lecture he gave in 1851.
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Growing up in the Episcopal Church, I heard many people boast about how it never split over slavery before the Civil War like the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians did. This claim seemed to posit that Episcopalians were better at agreeing on things than other churches. As I learned more about the Episcopal Church’s history, I discovered that the real story is much more complicated. The story is one of hierarchical power being complicit with oppressive systems.
When a seminary professor assigned me to construct a family tree that focused on our cultural heritage, I was pleased to learn that going back to the time of the Civil War, none of my ancestors held slaves. I was interested in learning more about my family, so I continued further back and learned that I did, in fact, have ancestors who held slaves; I would like you to meet one of them. My 6th great grandfather, Robert Smith, was born in England in1732 and ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1756. The Rev. Smith emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, where he became rector of St. Philip's Church. He was consecrated the first Bishop of South Carolina in 1795. Smith was a wealthy member of the planter class and held slaves. At the time of his death in 1800, Bishop Smith held 201 slaves, far greater than the Charleston average of 11. Bishop Smith was known for expressing proslavery views, and there is no evidence that he saw any conflict between his position as a church leader and his owning human beings as property. Bishop Smith is sadly not alone in episcopal slaveholding and proslavery views. This article will introduce you to several other proslavery bishops. Why does it matter what bishops do? Because we are the Episcopal Church, not the presbyter church, the deacon church, or the lay people church.
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Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice takes first steps as nonprofit with inaugural board
Episcopal News Service I David Paulsen I Posted June 5, 2024
The inaugural board of the newly formed Episcopal Coalition for Racial Equity and Justice held its first two meetings last month, and this month, it is preparing to offer an informational session at the 81st General Convention to provide updates on the launch of this much anticipated churchwide network.
The informational session is scheduled for noon-2 p.m. June 25 in Louisville, Kentucky, while bishops and deputies are gathered for the triennial churchwide meeting. Previous listening sessions at smaller church conferences and meetings have been well received, said the Rev. John Kitagawa, chair of the nonprofit’s board of directors.
“There’s a lot of good energy,” Kitagawa, a priest in the Diocese of Arizona, told Episcopal News Service. “Part of the question is how to harness that and bring people together.”
The Rt. Rev. Ian Douglas, the former bishop of Connecticut who serves as the board’s vice chair, echoed Kitagawa’s comments about strong churchwide interest in the coalition’s first steps. “There is a desire, an urgency, to get on with this in the church,” Douglas told ENS, “and I think, frankly, that’s a very good sign.”
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Committees discuss Episcopal seminaries, theology schools incorporating anti-racism education into curricula
Episcopal News Service I Shireen Korkzan I Posted May 30, 2024
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General Convention’s Racial Truth-Telling, Reckoning & Healing committees on May 29, 2024, discussed a proposed resolution to encourage Episcopal seminaries and theology schools to incorporate anti-racism education into their curricula. Photo: Screenshot | |
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General Convention’s Racial Truth-Telling, Reckoning & Healing committees on May 29 discussed a proposed resolution to encourage Episcopal seminaries and theology schools to incorporate anti-racism education into their curricula.
Resolution A034, “Promoting Equitable Formation for Future Church Leaders through Dismantling Racism and Achieving Racial Justice and Healing Education in Seminaries and Schools of Theological Education,” calls on The Episcopal Church to “strongly urge” all Episcopal seminaries and theology schools to incorporate racial justice and healing education into their curricula within the next academic year. If implemented, seminaries and theology schools are encouraged to assess and review the efficacy of their anti-racism programs.
A034 also calls on the church to institute a certification mandate to enforce the dismantling of racism education. However, both committees voted in favor of the resolution without the certification language.
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What Role Did TEC Play in Indian Boarding Schools?
The Living Church I Kirk Petersen I Posted June 13, 2024
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St. Mary's Episcopal School for Girls, South Dakota, early 1900s | Used with permission by the Center for Western Studies, Augustana University | |
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In April 2022, Executive Council approved a multi-year effort “to retain independent historians to study and document the extent of the Episcopal Church’s complicity in the Indigenous boarding school movement.” The resolution called for a majority-Indigenous committee to oversee the study. The committee also was tasked with gathering information about “the varieties of ways that Indigenous and Native peoples are subjected to unequal treatment by the federal government, state governments, and other authorities,” and with “the development of proposals for advocacy and other action responding to the issues identified.”
Two months later, General Convention passed Resolution A127, creating a fact-finding commission focused solely on researching the complicity issue.
The commissions [for each resolution] will have a booth in the exhibit hall at General Convention. “This is our opportunity to engage the leadership of the church,” [Bradley] Hauff said, and distribute literature and information. [Hauff is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and; since 2017, the missioner for Indigenous ministries on the presiding bishop’s staff.] “We will be encouraging people to talk to their bishops about supporting the research work that’s happening, and that needs to happen in each and every one of our dioceses.” The commissions also will host a reception and program June 25 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel near the convention, from 7:30 to 9 p.m.
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Racial Justice Audit Update | |
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First year audit of diocesan leadership. A team of people consisting of three Board of Trustees members, one Standing Committee member, and three members of the Commission for Intercultural Ministries Leadership Team has been meeting regularly since mid-March to discuss the audit findings. They have started discussing recommendations to the findings to be presented to the Board of Trustees for their review and action. The recommendations will be carefully considered before the team sends their report to the Board.
Second year audit of churches. The Mission Institute (MI) reports that 257 people from the churches responded to the survey and 29 people requested to be interviewed--a much better response after a slow start receiving responses. MI is evaluating the surveys and conducting interviews. Their goal is to finish the interviews by mid-July. They are auditing by deanery.
Please contact the Racial Justice Audit Co-Chairs, Lynn Zender, zenderlynn@gmail.com, or Jo Ann Williams, bjwilli@surewest.net, for questions.
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I Will With God's Help:
Journey Toward Racial Healing and Justice
Workshop Registration Now Open
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This workshop is rooted in our baptismal identity and the promises we make in baptism. It focuses on how we can more fully live into our promise to be loving toward our neighbors, to address racism in our communities and build the Beloved Community. During the workshop we follow the path of the Becoming Beloved Community labyrinth.
This workshop meets the requirement for licensing for Lay Eucharistic Ministers, Lay Eucharistic Visitors, and unlicensed lay leaders (such as vestry members and ministry leads) in the Diocese. Other lay licensed ministries need to take Sacred Ground to meet Diocesan licensing requirements.
Saturday, September 14 I Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento I 9:30 am – 4:30 pm
Register here: https://form.jotform.com/240775553068160
Registration deadline: September 7, 2024
For questions, contact Diane Williamson, dianewilliamson864@gmail.com
Saturday, October 19 I St. Paul’s, Healdsburg I 9:30 am – 4:30 pm
Register here: https://form.jotform.com/240775631216152
Registration deadline: October 12, 2024
For questions, contact Miriam Casey, edncbbc@gmail.com
A virtual workshop will be scheduled for the Fall, date to be determined.
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More than 60 parishioners attend virtual Racial Healing and Justice Workshop | |
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More than 60 parishioners from 17 different churches, representing all 7 of our deaneries, gathered Saturday, June 8, for the day-long racial healing and justice workshop, "I Will, With God's Help: Journey Toward Racial Healing and Justice." Three groups met at their churches and zoomed in; others connected from home.
Miriam Casey, the Rev. Canon Kathy Hopner, and Bob Wohlsen were the faculty for the day. The workshop began with worship, then moved to learning about racism experienced by Indigenous peoples, African Americans, Latinos, and Asian American/Pacific Islanders. The day continued with a section on Whiteness and microaggressions, and concluded with a section entitled, "Striving for Justice," that focused on how we, as individuals and as congregations, can live more fully into our Baptismal vows, to be engaged with our communities as healers. The workshop ended with worship.
Saturday’s event was the largest ever hosted for the workshop. Initial feedback from the participants has been very positive. In-person workshops are now available for registration. Another virtual workshop will be scheduled for the fall.
Information about workshops is regularly published in the weekly Diocesan Enews and in the Beloved Community Resource Newsletter.
Submitted by Bob Wohlsen, bob.wohlsen@gmail.com.
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St. John’s, Roseville, will begin a new series of Regular and Deeper Dive Sacred Ground Dialogue Circles via Zoom in August 2024 | |
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St. John’s, Roseville, will begin a new series of Sacred Ground Dialogue Circles via Zoom in August 2024. Regular circles and Deeper Dive circles will be offered again. The 11-part series is built around a powerful online curriculum of documentary films and readings that focus on Indigenous, Black, Latino, and Asian/Pacific American histories as they intersect with European American histories.
Last year, St. John’s offered “Deeper Dive” dialogue circles to participants who have already completed Sacred Ground. Two of our facilitators, Michael Adams and Diane Williamson, went through the Deeper Dive materials from the Sacred Ground website for each session and chose those that they believed would spark the best conversations. The sessions followed the same topics for the 11 sessions, but discussions went much deeper. We had two Deeper Dive circles and two regular circles via Zoom. Everyone began and ended together in the same room, and then we were divided into breakout rooms for the circle discussions. Deeper Dive participants were very positive about the experience.
This series will be held via Zoom so that all may participate, regardless of distance and circumstances. We have found it works best to space the sessions at least 2 weeks apart to allow time for participants to complete the work in between sessions. The sessions are scheduled for August 14th and 28th, September 11th and 25th, October 9th and 23rd, November 13th , December 11th, January 8th and 22nd, and culminating with a Saturday morning session on February 1st .
Please contact Diane Williamson, dianewilliamson864@gmail.com, or 916-300-6384 for more information or to sign up.
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Welcome to Our Newest Sacred Ground Team Members: Andrea Lauerman and the Rev. Valerie J. Mayo
The Episcopal Church Racial Justice and Reconciliation Ministries I Becoming Beloved Community Newsletter I June 2024
We are delighted to announce the arrival of two extraordinary individuals to our Sacred Ground team. Please join us in welcoming Andrea Lauerman as our new Sacred Ground program coordinator, and the Rev. Valerie J. Mayo as our Sacred Ground strategic consultant. Each brings a wealth of experience, a profound dedication to our mission, and a vibrant vision for the future of Sacred Ground.
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Season of Courage: The Rev. Cliff Haggenjos | |
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The Commission for Intercultural Ministries created an exhibit for the Fearless Faith Revival featuring examples of courage by various clergy and parishioners from around the diocese. Beginning this month and in the future months ahead, we will share the individual stories from the exhibit of these courageous people, among many people in our diocese, who willingly step outside of their comfort zones to reach out to others.
This month we are pleased to feature the Rev. Cliff Haggenjos, Rector of St. John's, Roseville. Rev. Cliff has shown leadership to organize his parish to become involved with ministry to the homeless, especially students at Grant High School in Sacramento and the Gathering Inn in Roseville, and he has been a role model to address the needs of God’s people in other areas in his community. This is his story.
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Two passages of Scripture have been embedded on my heart and have given me the courage to serve our homeless in Placer County, collaborate in addressing intergenerational poverty and abuse in Del Paso Heights, participate in Kairos ministry as well as facilitate a prayer group and bible study at California State Prison-Sacramento in Folsom. Ephesians 2:8-10 helped me understand that it is through the grace of God that I have been given the work that God has given me to do. Matthew 25:35-36 has led me to the hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and imprisoned. The courage to do this work comes from God, not from me. I have simply learned to listen and follow the Spirit's voice. | |
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The Episcopal Diocese of Northern California is excited to announce that they will have a diocesan-wide New Camino training on September 27 & 28, 2024 at St. John’s, Chico. The Rev. Anthony Guillen, the Episcopal Church’s Missioner for Latino/Hispanic ministries, will be here to help them explore opportunities for Latino/Hispanic ministry in our diocese. This training is suitable for individuals as well as church teams.
Please go to https://form.jotform.com/232965467198170 to indicate your interest in attending and to receive updates regarding lodging and expenses.
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Registration open for next session of Episcopal Latino Ministry Competency Course | |
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Registration is open for an upcoming session of the Episcopal Latino Ministry Competency Course, an innovative multiday intensive course designed for diocesan staff, clergy, lay leaders, and seminarians to gain practical knowledge and cultural competency for Latino/Hispanic ministry. All courses are conducted in English.
The eight-day, in-person August course will be at the School of Theology of the University of the South in Sewanee.
This popular session is offered by The Episcopal Church’s Office of Latino/Hispanic Ministries and taught by seminary faculty, clergy, and lay leaders with extensive experience in Latino and intercultural ministry.
Click HERE for registration for the Aug. 10-17 session. Registration deadline is July 10.
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In addition to several workshops for educators, this issue also includes informational workshops about "Going Beyond Land Acknowledgments" and Santa Rosa Junior College's California Indian Big Time and Social Gathering events in September and October. | |
What Happened To The Property Of Sacramento's Japanese American Community Interned During World War II?
Cap Radio's Great Question I Emily Zentner I Posted June 4, 2019
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This Florin lot used to hold the house that Lester Ouchida grew up in. His family was able to keep their home after they were incarcerated during World War II thanks to the help of a white neighbor, Mary McComber.
Andrew Nixon / Capital Public Radio
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Marielle Tsukamoto was 5 years old when her family was removed from their farm on the southeast edge of Sacramento in Florin and taken to an incarceration center in 1942.
She got up at 5 a.m. and walked out into the backyard to see her grandmother crying while looking at her garden, worrying that she would never come home and see it again.
“I only got to take clothes and I know I cried because I wanted some toys, and mostly, I wanted my dog,” Tsukamoto said.
Tsukamoto and her family were among the more than 100,000 Japanese Americans forced from their homes by Executive Order 9066. The order, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt on Feb. 19, 1942, called for the forced removal of all people of Japanese heritage to incarceration centers, where they were held until the end of the war.
Sacramento resident Andy Hesse experienced this time from another perspective. As a young, white child in Sacramento, he saw neighbors and one of his father’s colleagues forced to relocate and wondered what happened to them. To this day, he has wanted to know what became of the homes, farms and businesses that were left behind by those imprisoned by the U.S. government.
Nearly 80 years later, he posed this question to CapRadio’s Great Question series: What happened to the property of Japanese Americans in Sacramento who were interned during the war?
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Christians Have "Climate Grief."
How Can Churches Support them?
Sojourners I Meg Duff I Posted June 12, 2024
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In every U.S. congregation, there are likely people experiencing grief, fear, or anger on behalf of creation.
Most Americans now know that the climate is changing; according to recent surveys, a majority now also feel some level of climate-related stress or anxiety. But when terms like “climate grief” and “eco-anxiety” show up in the news, stories often point people toward individual behavior changes or activism, according to a recent study in the journal Environmental Research: Health.
Missing from the conversation is the spiritual dimension of the climate crisis and the role that faith communities can play.
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Vote Faithfully: A Nonpartisan Informational Series | |
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The Public Policy Advocacy Group at Trinity Cathedral would like you to be aware of a series that will provide information in the weeks leading to the General Election Nov. 5, including tools for navigating the voting process and answers to questions your family might have.
We won’t tell you WHO or WHAT to vote for, of course. We just want everyone to be fully informed about the ins and outs of voting in this crucial election.
This work is based on recommendations endorsed in “Vote Faithfully: An Election Engagement Toolkit” from the Office of Government Relations of the Episcopal Church.
Watch for more information soon.
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Principles & Politics:
An Evening with Liz Cheney and Jon Meacham
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Washington National Cathedral I Posted April 24, 2024 | |
As followers of Jesus, we are called to follow the way of love that Jesus teaches us, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We understand that the laws enacted at the federal and state levels impact the systems that operate within our communities. They either contribute to building just systems and the Beloved Community, or they diminish justice and equity within societal systems. As people of faith, we have an opportunity to advocate for laws that are just and help to build the Beloved Community.
The Action Alerts provided below are supported by the General Convention and/or the Executive Committee. Please review these Action Alerts and consider submitting a letter to elected officials encouraging them to support legislation that builds justice and the Beloved Community.
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The Episcopal Diocese of Northern California
The Commission for Intercultural Ministries
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