The Feast Day of the Beloved Community/Reign of Christ Sunday
“We (the church) are judged by our witness in a world where there’s slavery and terrorism and segregation and mass incarceration. What we say in response to that is how we’re going to be judged.”
Bryan Stevenson, Author, Just Mercy
For far too long, much of the church has been either silent or outright complicit in the evils of segregation, oppression, and marginalization…often either implicitly or explicitly supporting the systems and structures that have and continue to perpetuate such injustices.
Is that what we’re called to? Is that in any way, shape, or form the way of Jesus?
This week at New Wineskins we begin a new tradition by ending the liturgical year on the Reign of Christ Sunday by celebrating what we’re calling The Feast Day of the Beloved Community. As we prepare ourselves for the coming season of Advent, we’ll reflect on where we are as a community of spiritual exiles seeking to confront and redeem the numerous injustices our political, economic, and—too often—religious systems imposed on marginalized people groups.
Together, we’ll view a video from The Work of the People featuring attorney, activist, and Just Mercy author Bryan Stephenson entitled “Stone Catchers,” where he talks about the need for faith communities to stand up to systemic injustices like racism, homophobia, ableism, misogyny, and mass incarceration. We’ll discuss the ways community like ours can catch the metaphorical stones that are constantly hurled by society at our marginalized neighbors and how our witness helps bring about the Beloved Community.
Join us this Sunday, Nov. 21, in our New Wineskins Virtual Theology Pub as we talk about what it means to be “Stone Catchers.”
6:00pm EST: Happy Half-Hour (informal meet & greet time)
6:30pm EST: Presentation & conversation begins
Get ready for (r)Advent!
Plan to join us during the upcoming Advent season as we reinterpret some of our routine rituals and deeply reorient them toward their origins while contextualizing them for our present times. We’ll engage with the traditional themes of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love and explore how they come to new life through a justice-oriented community in our post-Christian world.
We’re calling it (r)Advent.
Watch for details next week!