It was, indeed, a Christian celebration of liberation filled with preaching, music, singing/rapping, poetry, testimony and prayer! Let’s take a photographic scroll down memory lane as we use this Friday to flash back to the first inaugural Juneteenth Jubilee Observance! Thanks again to Rev. Kevin Peterson for the vision and The Table, Restoration City Church, New Democracy Coalition and UniteBoston for the partnership in making this happen!

Photos courtesy of Josh Wilson, Devlin Scott, Davie Hernandez, Kelly Fassett and Fons Cervera.

This year’s theme for the UniteBoston’s Concert is “Together Again.” After the challenges that have arisen these past few years, including widespread isolation, political animosity and racial reckoning, it is an important moment to re-gather the body of Christ to worship Jesus together, rebuild community, and rekindle our common faith and mission. We have an incredible team of people who are producing this year’s concert – Meet the directors below and see what the theme of “together again” means to them! 

Name: Craig Ramsey Jr.

Home Church: Mission Church COOLJC 

Role: Community Choir Director

Why Craig is Excited About the Concert: I’m excited to be apart of this concert because I love to see God transform through process. UB has ushered in a space to engage Christians at all stages of their faith. This allows for individual and collective connection with Christ. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share what God has given me with this organization . I can’t wait to see what Jesus Christ does through us and for us. TGBTG (IYKYK) ✌🏽.

Name: Alexis Monroe

Home Church: Impact Church 

Role: Production Coordinator

Why Alexis is Excited About the Concert: “I am excited to be a part of this concert because it’s an opportunity to show the world that there is unity among Christians. In the hustle and bustle of city culture, and the isolation of the pandemics, we can forget that there are many Christians with diverse experiences doing the work of the Kingdom in Boston. It’s time for Boston to see us united in love and serving as a witness of the goodness of God.” 

Name: Jen Aldana

Home Church: Impact Church

Role: Band Music Director

Why Jen is Excited About the Concert: UB’s first in-person concert after 2 years?! Who wouldn’t be excited for that! I love what Unite Boston represents and had the honor of taking part in the concerts in previous years. UB Concerts have always been filled with new connections, fresh revelations, and a focus on the Lord. I’m so excited to help see that vision come to light again this year and I’m honored I get to contribute in this new role. I cannot wait to see how God will show up in unexpected and beautiful ways! Prepare to be inspired, filled with joy, and ready to worship! 

Name: Bailey Kolapudi

Home Church: Reunion Christian Church

Role: Band Manager

Why Bailey is Excited About the Concert: I am so excited to see people come together after such a long time apart and isolated.  We are, of course, still feeling the effects of the pandemic almost two and a half years later.  Our mental and emotional health is suffering. What better way to remedy that than by gathering as one body, “together again”? I can’t wait to reconnect with everyone to remember who we are in Christ and how much love we can bring to our city as we share the good news of Jesus!

Name: Kelly Fassett

Home Church: Neighborhood Church of Dorchester

Role: UniteBoston Support

Why Kelly is Excited About the Concert: “This is an important moment to gather as Christians to worship Jesus all together again! My biggest hope is that this concert will re-kindle the flames of our “first love” with Christ and spread that to the world around us.”

The beauty of the resurrection is that death is not the end of the story – but leads to ultimate life. Similarly, we often see how there are signs of God’s redemptive life coming out of painful circumstances and broken realities in our world. In this season of Eastertide, we want to feature The Boston Project Ministries, which “engages and equips neighbors, volunteers, and churches to build strong communities characterized by God’s shalom.” Below, Paul Malkemes shares how they worked with residents of the community to create a mural symbolizing hope after the heartbreaking loss of a young man in the neighborhood.

“We have learned that healing as a community is often rooted in relationships.”

– Paul Malkemes

Our community has experienced some real heartache this year. Maybe you have to? 

Early in 2021, we lost a young man to violence. He was deeply loved by his family, school, and community. He was an artist, a comic and video game enthusiast, a promising student, and a beloved son. An outdoor memorial and healing service brought together over 100 young people to grieve. Unexpected loss can sometimes be the hardest to recover from.

Then in the spring, retaliatory violence shook our community again. Trauma reawakened. Parents kept their children inside; neighbors wanted to move. What was happening?

Neighbors began to ask: How do we heal as a community? How do we find hope?

Our sense of safety had been shattered. The COVID-19 pandemic layered health concerns, loneliness, economic hardship, and learning loss on top of this tragedy. We have learned that healing as a community is often rooted in relationships. “Knowing and being able to talk to my neighbors helps me get through,” shares one resident.

So we began planning monthly events – a book fair, a vaccination clinic, building raised bed gardens, and having cookouts. But we wondered – could we have a more permanent reminder of our healing-hope journey? One youth expressed it this way, “Hope is like looking for the light at the end of the tunnel.” The idea for a mural was born.

The vision was cast for a mural that would both memorialize the loss of our beloved young person, and speak to the eternal message of hope found in Jesus – even as we face challenges in our individual lives and within our collective community.

Summer arrived and the time to create began. The process of building the mural was a sacred act of hope. “It was a beautiful experience, and I felt really honored to be part of this healing and catharsis for the community, and my friend,” expressed one youth.  Another teen shared, “For me, it was an impact to see a memory coming to life. Watching adults, kids, and teens grieving together. At the same time, it gave people life. It was very beautiful – to some people, it was remembering our friend, for others, it was seeing hope for our community.”

Muralist Alex Cook reflects “It is powerful to have a human figure (in the mural) enveloped in hope. It is about our identity, our inner experience, and our struggles. It is intimate. It makes you think about your own relationship to hope. The butterflies represent our letting go and the healing process. You don’t keep a butterfly, but you let it rise.”

As we were completing the mural, a neighbor walked up and said to us, “that person in the mural, it’s Jesus right? It has to be Jesus.” We believe Jesus is the one who restores and embodies HOPE.  In the words of Pastor Valerie Copeland, “Art has a way of pointing our hearts toward God.”

We put our hope in the Lord. He is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. Let your unfailing love surround us,  Lord, for our hope, is in you alone.

Psalm 33:20-22

As we emerge from the pandemic, we wanted to highlight the creative ministry at Roxbury Presbyterian Church, where church leaders imparted ashes to congregants in their cars after their Zoom Ash Wednesday service. Read below to hear Elder Chase Grogan, Elder Kim Houston, and Rev. Dana Baker describe the significance of this practice, how it blessed the broader community, and what the Church should focus on moving forward.

How did you decide to impart ashes on the cars? What was the most meaningful moment of that day for you?

Chase: Throughout the pandemic, we have been going back and forth with how to create and foster a sense of community while existing in this space of isolation. We’ve done other creative events like this and we figured we would provide the best solution for a circumstance where we knew people would gather. Our creative worship team, along with our church administrator, put together the logistics and THE PEOPLE SHOWED UP!! 

Maybe the most meaningful aspect, however, was not just the members that drove from around the city – some even on the bus – but there were community members walking down the street that asked for ashes and prayer! They wanted to know what we were doing and so there was a sense of evangelism and outreach that also occurred that was the biggest blessing! 

Dana: One woman was on the phone as she walked by – she stopped right in front of us and told the person on the phone, “I’ve got to go, I’ve got something much more important to do right now.”  The fact that she recognized that what we were doing was something significant, and would stop a conversation in which she was in the middle, just said to me how much meaning these sacramental moments can have even when people aren’t directly connected with a local congregation.  We prayed for each person afterwards as they walked away.  Who knows what God will do through that moment.

Kim: Also, one of our congregants got off the bus with so much excitement, waving and shouting “I’m here!” All I could say to myself is: “Look at God!” 

For me the meaning of Lent has evolved as I have grown spiritually.  In the beginning it was just a time to give up something for 40 days, sugar or coffee or even TV, flat and one dimensional.  Now I see it as multidimensional, not just giving up something but adding on something to get closer to God, like prayer, journaling or more studying. The giving up of something is to remove the distractions so you can allow more of God in. 

What is significant about the mission and ministry of Roxbury Presbyterian Church? 

Chase: The significance about RPC is that we’ve existed for over 130 years as a place where the community can be ministered to. Social justice and community outreach have been central to the narrative of our church’s history and seem to be woven into the fabric of who we are. Our church has been used to house programs for the Black Panthers, Alcoholics Anonymous, educational and community programs and now our Social Impact Center where we open ourselves to the community through our trauma-informed programming. Even as we have entered a new season after our beloved pastor, Rev. Liz Walker, retired in December, the outreach and the impact of being involved in the community remain a vital part of what we do and why we exist. Rev. Liz impressed on our hearts the importance of being the love of Christ and the mission and ministry of RPC seeks to embed that in everything that we do. 

Is there anything you’d like to say to Christians in Boston?

Chase: We know everyone is excited about seeing “the light at the end of the tunnel.” Soon, our congregations may be back to “normal,” but we must reflect and put into practice what we’ve learned through the pandemic. As the world changes, and the needs of the community change, we as the Body of Christ also must evolve. We must be ready to incorporate technology into our services. We must be ready to speak to the growing mental health challenges in our communities. We must be creative and intuitive and willing to color outside of our traditional lines; and yes, it may be challenging but ministry must be intentional. The Bible reminds us that those that win souls are wise and we, at RPC, are praying for that wisdom so that we can continue to reflect the love and compassion of Christ as we minister to a broken world. 

Dana: These are some words and a prayer that I used to open the RPC Ash Wednesday Service.  May they continue to challenge us to reflect on these in the remaining days of Lent.

“Father God, I find myself tonight so thankful for the liturgical calendar.  For rhythms that remind us to pause and reflect.  For the invitation to stop numbing ourselves or busying ourselves so we don’t notice what really ails us: that the world is not as it should be. 

To remember the tension of being dust and beloved, living and dying, the here and not yet.  That although all of nature will soon remind us that winter and death does have an end – that You have also provided this space.  This muddy place.  This making room for the resurrection of new blooms.

So as we enter into this service, I want to commit to you Lord the words of a prayer, a poem that really captures the cries of my heart, and I hope the cries of others, of a place between dirt and divinity, between ashes and the hope of the resurrection.

“Art and Prayer by Jan Richardson”

“We must pray for peace in Ukraine, but we must pray for the kind of peace that accompanies justice and virtue and truth—even if that takes time and, perhaps, some fighting to secure.“

Today, we want to offer a reflection on how we can be praying amidst the growing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Our guest blogger is Greer Bates Cordner, who is a Ph.D. student at Boston University School of Theology and a former missionary in southern Ukraine. Read below to hear her suggestions on what it means to pray for peace in Ukraine right now.

Many people have committed to fast and pray or attend special worship services to ask God for peace in Ukraine. As we prepare for those important devotions, though, I felt an urge to share a caution that I received during some of my own pleadings. 

It is important to consider what kind of “peace” we desire for Ukraine. More specifically, I think that we need to pray for a “peace” that means something much more than an end to the armed conflict. 

The war needs to end—absolutely. The shelling and killing and destroying must stop. But there are many ways for the conflict to end, and not all of them constitute “peace,” in my mind. 

After all, if Ukraine surrenders, gives in to Putin’s puppet government, yields her territory, and turns vassal, the fighting might end. But would that mean “peace”? If Ukraine falls (without surrender), and time passes before any meaningful pods of resistance can form, there might be a lapse in armed conflict for a while. Would that interim be a time of “peace”? Has there been “peace” in Ukraine for the past several years while the fighting and occupation have simmered out of sight from our headlines and news feeds? Was there “peace” in the months leading up to this most recent invasion, before the fighting broke out? 

We must pray for peace in Ukraine, but we must pray for the kind of peace that accompanies justice and virtue and truth—even if that takes time and, perhaps, some fighting to secure. 

Let us pray that the armed conflict ceases without the destruction of Ukraine’s sovereignty. 

Let us pray that the invaders’ hearts will sicken at the realization of their actions, and that anyone with an ounce of authority over the troops will begin to pull back, resist Putin’s commands, and leave their neighbors be. 

Let us pray that the defenders’ hearts will strengthen to endure whatever amount of fighting it takes to achieve the kind of peace that doesn’t mean victory for the abusers.

Let us pray that the civilians will find shelter and support, that international aid will rally behind them, that countries will embrace the refugees, and that families can somehow be reunited and live in enduring security. 

Let us pray that in the aftermath of this war, Russia, Ukraine, and the rest of our nations take hard stock of our governments, and begin (or continue) the process of rooting out corruption, self-interest, and greed. 

Let us pray that this war doesn’t set up a precedent of inaction by those of us whose personal security affords us the option to look away, or to call for the speediest end to the fight, no matter the cost to a faraway country. 

Let us pray for the stomachs to fight for hard peace instead of the absence of conflict. 

Oh God, pour out peace on Ukraine, on the world, but please let it be this kind of peace—even if it takes time and some fighting to reach. And if the road to hard peace isn’t fast or free of conflict, then pour out strength and courage and faith on anyone who battles for what’s right and true. 

О Боже, дай Украине настоящий, тяжёлый, справедливый мир. И дай ей храбрость бороться для него. Пусть это будет в Украине по словам Твоего Сына: «Мир оставляю вам, мир Мой даю вам; не так, как мир даёт, Я даю вам. Да не смущается сердце ваше и да не устрашается.» Во имя Иисуса Христа, аминь. 

[Translation: Oh God, give Ukraine a real, hard, just peace. And give her the courage to fight for it. Let it be in Ukraine according to the words of Thy Son: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.]