Dear friends,
We are grieving with you today.
Our nation is on fire. Some of us are utterly exhausted, familiar with a combination of fury, fear, and frustration. Some of us are just waking up to the injustices of state-sanctioned violence and the disproportionate murder of black and brown bodies. As a church, we grieve at the recent deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and too many others to count. We grieve at a government that responds to free speech and peaceful protests with violence.
Let us state clearly our beliefs as a church, and as an elder board: Black Lives Matter. Our Black siblings are made in the image of God. For too long, our nation and the American church has remained complacent in systemic injustice, racism, and violence against black and brown bodies. For too long, churches rooted in white supremacy have failed to recognize the ways that we have dismissed, silenced, and policed the voices of people of color.
Even now, in June 2020, we recognize that City Church San Francisco has work to do in order to continuously prioritize justice over comfort. Here are our commitments:
We commit to amplify and uplift the voices of people of color in how we interpret and preach the gospel.
We commit to proactively addressing racial injustice in our classes, sermons, and children’s curriculum because we believe racial justice is a Gospel concern. We commit to focus on a diversity of voices in order to address the needs of a diverse congregation.
We commit to regularly engaging City Church staff in issues of racial justice. This began last year with a yearlong training led by pastor and activist Ben McBride. We commit to focusing on this as an area of growth within our staff.
We commit to building a more diverse and representative staff, even if it takes time.
We commit to curating a list of anti-racist resources and sharing them on our website for congregants, CGs, and staff to learn from and share, beginning here.
We commit to receiving and acting on feedback on how we can continue to be a racially inclusive and radically justice-oriented church body. We know we have work to do.
We ask you to join us as we pursue the good hard work of racial justice. Consider a few of these action steps:
Join us in prayer. On Sundays and in your own prayers, engage God in your desires to end our own complacency to human suffering. Join us in prayer as we repent, and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit for our role as ‘neighbor’, praying for courage to live revolutionary lives of action.
Start conversations. Consider engaging in this topic with your Community Group. We’re aware of some groups already starting to read and discuss books such as: “How To Be An Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi, or “I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness” by Austin Channing Brown, or “White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” by Robin DiAngelo. We’ll share our list of resources when it's posted to our website.
Educate yourself. Consider joining our class “The Sins of Christianity” this summer to further learn about ways systemic injustice has been baptized as “God’s Will” and to engage with this honestly in a safe community. Details Here >
Consider specific ways your life can move towards antiracism. There are many online resources that outline ways to support antiracist policies and organizations, ways to be an ally in your workplace or school, and/or ways to care for yourself and others who are experiencing racism. Prayerfully consider how God might be calling you to courageous and wise action.
And as always, please feel free to reach out to any of the elders or staff individually, or the entire elder board at elders@citychurchsf.org.
Holy Spirit, be with us now. Here we are: the complacent and the crying out, the anguished and the detached, the bewildered and the broken. Teach us to cast down our idols of privilege and comfort. Teach us to lay down our weapons of power and silence. Teach us to speak out and rededicate ourselves to the upward climb. Until the image of God is seen in all people. Until tear gas canisters are beaten into plowshares. Until we see justice for all replace the injustice of Empire.
Amen.
Sincerely,
Board of Elders, City Church San Francisco
Ryan Aipperspach
Cecelia Cox
Jon Dahl
Alex Lim
Elizabeth Marshman
Jennifer Rose-Nussbaumer
Kenny Oyedeji