Reflections on “It’s All About Love: A Festival for the Jesus Movement”
Across the church and around the world, we are hungry for revival and renewal. On July 9-12, a churchwide festival of worship, learning, community, and action for the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement, was held at the Baltimore Convention Center.
The event was organized around three Jesus Movement festival “tents”: Racial Reconciliation, Creation Care, and Evangelism. Attendees could explore the themes of worship and liturgy, formation, justice and advocacy, leadership, preaching, stewardship, and youth and children.
Two parishioners from Church of the Servant, Rachel Williamson and Julie Potter, traveled to the event. Read on for their reflections of the Festival.
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry triumphantly quoting Jimi Hendrix’s thoughts on Love during the revival set the tone for my time at the festival. It grounded me in why I was there - to better equip myself to work alongside others doing the essential work of ending systemic racism.
In the Protest Chaplaincy workshop, I learned how to support you and other community members the next time we rise up in protest. The workshop on Reparations gave me concrete ways to begin making amends to our African American siblings. Other speakers directed me to step into the fray and speak up against color blindness. The Rev. Canon Kelly Brown Douglas asked “What does it mean to Be Church?” How would you answer that?
Thank you for supporting us as we learned how to continue Loving God and one another.
~Rachel Williamson
Bishop Michael Curry told a story about THE WEDDING he officiated for Harry and Megan. The sermon was about love – one of the scriptures being John 4:16, “God is love. Those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” Afterwards, he said it was uncanny how many people approached him in public and said they had no idea Christianity was about love. Thus, the name of the conference: “It’s All about Love” and reclaiming love as the bedrock of Christianity.
This reclamation is anchored in truth - the antithesis of love is racism.
Throughout the conference three directives emerged: Educate (Sacred Ground), Inner work (Racial Equity Project (REP) Parish-Focused Committee) and act (REP Community Outreach).
I left with two distinct feelings: the wealth of Episcopal leaders of color speaking truth places the Episcopal Church on the cutting edge of racial healing, and…Church of the Servant has embraced this work more ardently than many other churches.
But we have a LIFELONG journey ahead of us. I brought home two statements I encourage us to consider as individuals and as a congregation:
“Whiteness keeps us from what God wants.”
“The mental duress of white supremacy causes us to shrink from being the person God intends us to be.”.
As Dr. Catherine Meeks, executive director of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing and author of The Night Is Long, But Light Comes in the Morning, said: “Stand up and be counted. God has an assignment for us.”
~Julie Potter
To learn more about the Festival, explore the following link: https://www.episcopalchurch.