Love and power

Dear Minooka UMC Found Family,

Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. 
—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The United Methodist Church is a large denomination, so it takes a lot of committees and groups and teams to organize ourselves and be the body of Christ in the world. Some of our groups are called Boards (e.g. The General Board of Church & Society, which is the advocacy arm of the UMC). Others are called Commissions, such as the General Commission on Religion & Race; aka GCORR; aka R-Squared.

GCORR does incredible, impressive work on many fronts. As we are in the midst of Black History Month, this seems a good time to highlight some of what GCORR offers. Click here for plenty of Black History Month materials.

GCORR recently released a resource called 25 Traits of the Beloved Community. It is very well written. Here’s a taste:

Christians confront hate with love because agape love derives its essence from the cross of Christ, which brings redemptive power. This love does not accept injustice or evil as acceptable. Rather, it loves by way of justice, which ensures equity in access, participation, and flourishing for everyone.

Here’s a look at a couple of the 25 traits:
“God prompts us to remake our hostility-filled communities into those where justice and love reign true… The beloved community manifests and protects agape love as its guiding principle and is expressed in the following ways:

— Offers radical hospitality to everyone; an inclusive family rather than exclusive club.
— Recognizes and honors the image of God in every human being.
— Shares power and acknowledges the inescapable network of mutuality among the human family.”

I encourage you to read the rest here.

Plotting Goodness,

Pastor Dave