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What does love look like today? By: Rev. Cindy Hickman Before you read this, a warning: Lent always flips me out, wrecks me.   Lent, our 40-day journey to Easter, begins this week. Our Easter story is an act of love none of us can ever fully comprehend. A man, filled to overflowing with God’s grace, offered himself wholly and completely to a world that did not know him or accept him. He poured his blood into our brokenness as a healing balm. During Lent, I experience that incredible sacrifice as...

By Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Thompson   When I was rostered as a teaching artist with the Iowa Arts Council, one of my programs centered around the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I was dismayed when asking students what they knew about him the number of times I heard “he was the one who freed the slaves.”    The third Monday in January, the MLK Day of Service, is the only federal holiday observed as a national day of service—a "day on, not a day off." King believed life's most persistent and ...

September 20, 2022 CONTACT: Jeehye Kim Pak, Senior Director of Communications and Marketing 202-495-2949 [email protected] FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WASHINGTON – The General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR) is proud to announce a new cycle of the CORR Action Fund (CAF) grant program that will support creative initiatives that will transform the United Methodist Church (UMC) and the world. The 2022-2023 grant program will provide up to $10,000 to fund projects that increase ...

Dynamic discussion and study of Jemar Tisby's "How To Fight Racism: Courageous Christianity and the Journey toward Racial Justice" will be held weekly at the Jubilee United Methodist Church and Freedom Center from August 11 through October 13. Participants will engage in embodied participation as we grapple with the "fierce urgency of now." Primary facilitators will be Kathy Kratchmer and Abraham L. Funchess, Jr. While possession of the book is not necessary for participation in this weekly ...

United Methodist Communications Office of Public Information FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 16, 2020  Nashville, Tennessee: United Methodist Church leaders will launch a plan of action to galvanize church members and others to actively stand against racism in the wake of the death of George Floyd and protests across the U.S. The “Dismantling Racism: Pressing on to Freedom” initiative is a multi-level effort throughout the church to initiate a sustained and coordinated effort to dismantle racism and ...

For Immediate Release Thursday, May 14, 2020 WASHINGTON, D. C. -  The Bishops of The United Methodist Church are calling for justice and the eradication of racism and white supremacy in the aftermath of the killing of an unarmed Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, in Brunswick, Georgia.  In a statement released today and signed by Council of Bishops President Cynthia Fierro Harvey, the leaders of the church joined the General Commission on Religion and Race and the General Board of Church and Society in...

How long, O Lord, how long? The February killing of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, is another incident that torchlights the darkest moments of our history. The recurrence of these killings, coupled with the fact that justice is seldom served, is a strong indication of how deeply entrenched racism is in our society’s systems and beliefs. Eric Garner, Terence Crutcher, Philando Castile, Samuel DuBose, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, and Walter Scott are few of the many ...

On November 17, the Iowa Conference Commission on Religion and Race invites all ethnic clergy and laity, and all members of the church (especially members of their congregation’s Staff-Parish Relations Committee), to the Iowa Conference Center for a special workshop on cross-cultural and cross-racial appointments. “Iowa is a welcoming conference, and we are so blessed that we have a lot of ethnic pastors appointed right now within the whole conference,” says Rev. Dan Fernandez, chairperson of ...