- Justice Action Team
Here is a list of great resources to begin and continue your journey learning about racial justice and how to become actively anti-racist. The list has been compiled by our Justice Action Team.
Books
Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
The Fire Next Time; I Am Not Your Negro; The Cross of Redemption all by James Baldwin
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
Bury My Hear at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo
An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America by Juan Gonzales
How to Be Antiracist; Stamped from the Beginning both by Ibram X. Kendi
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Between the World and Me by Ta Nehisi Coates
An African American and Latinx History of the United States by Paul Ortiz
The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America by Andres Resendez
Is Everyone Really Equal? Ann Introduction to Key Concepts in Social Justice Education by Oslem Sensoy, Robin DiAngelo, et al.,
From#BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Articles
You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body is a Confederate Monument
Podcasts/Radio
On Being:
Movies/Documentaries/Videos
United Shades of America: Where Do We Even Start with White Supremacy? with W. Kamau Bell
Social Media Accounts to Follow
Other
Resource Lists from Others
Trainings
For Kids/Working with Kids
- Pastor Michael & Pastor Ben
As we enter into a fresh Fall season of ministry, we are looking for some key people to step into leadership roles and for everyone who calls Riverfront home to "improve their serve" and volunteer somewhere significant.
In terms of leadership roles, we are beginning to structure our church around six Action Teams: Worship, Family/Fellowship, Spiritual Growth, Community Engagement, Justice, and Children/Youth.
This structure emerged out of the important vision/mission work we did this past Spring. Each of the teams will "steward" that area of ministry -- developing a vision, ideas, plans, and programs. We hope that every member and regular attender at RFC will serve on at lest one Action Team in some role.
Additionally, we are looking for leaders (or co-leaders) for each of these teams. These leaders will help coordinate the individual teams as well as meet monthly with the pastoral staff as an Action Coordination Team (ACTs) to make sure we are coordinating our efforts, stewarding resources well, and thinking about our vision/mission from a 30,000 foot level.
The Board will focus on areas of spiritual leadership, stewardship, policy, and accountability. Each Action Team will have a Board liaison serving on the team (but not necessarily leading the team. One of the pastors will also be a part of each of the teams.
So far, we have leaders in place for two of the teams:
JUSTICE ACTION TEAM - Miela Gruber & Chris Graesser
WORSHIP ACTION TEAM - Michael Minch & Diana Scott
We are still looking for people to take on leadership roles for the following Action Teams:
Family/Fellowship Action Team
Spiritual Growth Action Team
Children & Youth Action Team
Community Engagement Action Team
If you are interested in serving in one of these roles, or have any questions about them or want to discuss more, please email Pastor Ben and Pastor Michael at pastors@riverfront.church.
If you are interested in volunteering and serving in a particular role, you can also check out our VOLUNTEER INFO PAGE.
- Justice Action Team
This statement was officially adopted by the RFC members on 8/21/22:
Riverfront Family Church is fully committed to the liberation of each person from the bonds of oppression and injustice, acknowledging that we all need to be liberated. This is our sacred work.
We believe in a God who loves us all, without exception, and that God’s love is both just and merciful.
We believe that it is our responsibility to work to heal the wounds caused when the Christian church has been used as a weapon of intersectional harm and exploitation. This is our spiritual responsibility.
We actively seek to expose and dismantle our complicity with beliefs and systems--including white supremacy--that perpetuate injustice and oppression.
We reject the violence and spiritual falsehood of relationships based on coercion or hierarchy. We embrace “power-with” relationships, elevate the value of communal responsibility over the value of individualism, and seek the ongoing creation of cooperative egalitarian community. This is the lived expression of our beliefs.
We value deep listening, humility, joy, relational power, transformation, restoration, and equity.
We commit to following pro-Black BIack, Indigeness, and People of Color (BIPOC) civil rights leaders & community leaders of all ethnicities, genders, sexualities, abilities, faith traditions, and generations--past, present, and future--in solidarity and with deep respect. We commit to supporting justice work as it takes shape in our congregation and beyond.
We believe justice and liberation of all of us is necessary for real love, joyful relationship, and the wholeness that the Creator intended for all of creation.
