Racial Equity Initiative: Our 2021 Goals
In June 2020, Calvary Session adopted a formal statement affirming Calvary’s commitment to antiracism, as we grieved the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Tayler, George Floyd, and others.
As Calvary’s commitment to take action, we are guided by the following:
- We recommit to recognizing and dismantling racism and unconscious bias in our own hearts and minds, in the institution of the church, and in the broader culture.
- We will provide a space to process what we are seeing and learning and to discern our call as a community of faith to take action toward these goals.
- Our shared set of values and mission calls us to “transform lives for Christ:” that now calls us to transform our own lives to be less complicit in racist aspects of our culture, to transform the lives of those who have historically faced oppression by helping eradicate systemic racism disproportionately affecting them, and to be the hands and feet of Christ by opposing institutions and practices everywhere that deny the full humanity of all God’s children.
Racial Equity Initiative Mission
As a Matthew 25 congregation, we commit to recognizing and dismantling racism and unconscious bias in our own hearts and minds, in the institution of the church, and in the broader culture. We will provide a space to process what we are seeing and learning and to discern our call as a community of faith to take action toward these goals. Our shared set of values and mission calls us to “transform lives for Christ:” that now calls us to transform our own lives to be less complicit in racist aspects of our culture, to transform the lives of those who have historically faced oppression by combating white supremacy and helping eradicate systemic racism disproportionately affecting them, and to be the hands and feet of Christ by opposing institutions and practices everywhere that deny the full humanity of all God’s children.
Racial Equity Initiative Vision
To be a faith community committed to anti-racist principles and practices, actively engaged in dismantling and repairing the harm caused by white supremacy and racial inequities.
Racial Equity Initiative Goals
LEARN about the history of systemic racism and the skills to dismantle its effects in our church and society, and within ourselves.
- Create and grow a learning community by providing movie and book discussions, classes, resources for individual learning, and a website that provides information about systemic racism and racial injustice topics to deepen individual and collective understanding.
- Cultivate skills in dismantling racism and organizing for racial justice by sharing best practices, sound theories, skills, models, tools, approaches, and programs to help combat white supremacy and racism.
- Engage in self-reflection and group discussion, meeting challenge and discomfort with courage and curiosity.
- Seek to immerse ourselves in spaces where we can hear from and begin to understand the lived experiences of those most impacted by systemic racism and racial discrimination.
- Implement learnings in our individual lives to be less complicit in racist aspects of our culture.
ACT to help alleviate systemic racial injustices and change unjust policies and practices that perpetuate it.
- Advocate by networking and joining community organizations that are doing important work around confronting and undoing systemic racism.
- Petition by reaching out to state, county, and community leaders and organizations through letter writing, emails, in-person visits, and phone calls to inform and ask they take action that addresses and eliminates racial injustices.
- Volunteer by serving and participating in church, local, and global endeavors that actively address dismantling racial injustices and partner with those who have been subjects of discrimination.
- Participate in peaceful protests and marches in support of causes addressing racial injustices
