As we move into the second half of Black History Month, it is vital for us not only to acknowledge our history, but to ask how we are actively creating a culture of welcome in our congregation today.
Black History Month calls us to honesty about both. You can read how Calvary has always been shaped by the realities of race in America in our 2022 Becoming Beloved Community Report to the Diocese of Southern Ohio.
Our spiritual discipline focus this month is prayer. The Prayer Book states, “Prayer is responding to God, in thought or deed, with or without words.” Welcome, therefore, is a vital act of prayer.
The Episcopal Church Foundation recently reminded congregations to create a culture of welcome. Episcopal worship has often been heavily Eurocentric, and that can be alienating for people and families who hold multiple cultural identities. Truly multicultural worship requires more than adding a hymn or celebrating a holiday. It requires relationships built with care, compassion, and holy curiosity. It requires resisting the impulse to control and instead embracing sharing, exchange, and difference as gifts from God.
Art speaks volumes about what we believe. The images in our stained glass, our bulletins, and our classrooms teach theology long before a sermon begins. When children of color see themselves reflected in the art of the church, when they encounter Jesus portrayed as the brown Palestinian Jew he was, they learn that they are seen and valued by God and by us.
In recent years, Calvary has taken intentional steps. We have incorporated music from Lift Every Voice and Sing into our worship. We have expanded our Godly Play saints to include Martin Luther King, Jr., Harriet Tubman, Congressman John Lewis, and Bishop Barbara Harris. We partner with St. Andrew’s in Evanston, support food access ministries, and show up in tangible ways through Laundry Love and housing partnerships.
Our mission is to be confident in God’s love for us and fearless in our love for all. Our vision is to become Jesus’s heart, hands, and feet as we realize beloved community.
Black History Month is not only about remembering the past. It is about shaping the future. It is about ensuring that when someone walks onto our grounds, especially someone whose ancestors were excluded from places like this in the past, they experience not politeness, but belonging.
Here are a few ways we can engage the present to shape the future in light of our history:
- Pray daily for the courage to welcome difference as formative, not threatening.
- Build one new relationship across difference. Invite someone to coffee hour you do not yet know.
- Support the inclusion of multicultural liturgical resources by participating with openness and curiosity.
- Encourage our children and youth as they engage saints and stories that expand their imagination of who belongs in God’s story. Check out the art that our Children and Family Minister Sally Engelbert has so thoughtfully incorporated into the children’s formation.
- Serve at Laundry Love or St. Andrew’s food pantry. Move from awareness to relationship.
- Ask why inequities exist, not only how to respond to them.
- Help us imagine worship that reflects the whole Body of Christ.
The work is ongoing. It is holy. And it is ours.
