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Jul 01 2022

Highlights from the Juneteenth Jubilee Observance

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!

Boston City Hall was lit in liberation colors at the end of the festivities.

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

Jan 05 2022

Peace in the Midst of Tribulation

This Sunday, we’re featuring a reflection on peace by Rev. Dr. Moreen P. Hughes. Rev. Hughes is an ordained minister with the American Baptist Churches, USA and serves as Associate Pastor and Minister to Women at the Concord Baptist Church of Boston in Milton, where her husband, the Rev. Dr. Conley Hughes, Jr. is Senior Pastor. As Christians worldwide begin the season of Epiphany, she shares a timely reflection on finding peace in Christ in these challenging times.

He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Come, O house of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord. (Isaiah 2:4-5)

During this festival of Epiphany, reflecting upon the manifestation of Christ to the Magi, we’ve come to the close of the Advent season, celebrating the birth of Christ, our hope and our salvation, the coming Messiah – the ‘Prince of Peace.’

But it is riveting to see, regardless of our faith or spiritual beliefs, that the world news keeps repeating the same stories – despair, tragedy, and warfare; pain and human suffering. There is the injustice of hunger and poverty…the senselessness of brutal murders and violence. People look to the sciences and in space exploration to find satisfaction, and in education and personal achievements for human fulfillment.

How ironic, that one of the words we associate most at this time of the year is ‘peace’ – “Peace on Earth.” We sing joyously Christmas Carols of Jesus being the “Prince of Peace.” However, the mood in our country and around the world is far from peaceful.

This year, many of us will approach Ephiphany with a sense of loss much due to the severity of this world’s pandemic. Persons are engulfed and preoccupied with worries, grief and pain that seems to peak during what should be a time of joy and celebration. Our souls long and hunger for an inner peace that cannot be achieved through human efforts, but can only come from God, as we seek his guidance.

The words coming from the Prophet Isaiah, describes the time when God’s promise of salvation will be a reality, not just for the house of Jacob, but for all nations, for all people. This dream of peace and an end to conflict will cease. The Prophet Isaiah invites us to anticipate a time when all peoples and nations will turn toward God and live-in peace, as we “ walk toward the Light of the Lord”. May you find peace in his promises.

Thought: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.” (Saint Francis)

Photo by eberhard ???? grossgasteiger on Unsplash

Sep 15 2021

The Call to Repentance from 9/11

Today, we are honored to have Dean Borgman as our guest blogger on UniteBoston. Dean Borgman was a youth leader in Connecticut, then in Young Life’s first urban work on New York’s Lower East Side. For some forty years, he taught youth ministry, racial justice and biblical social justice at Gordon-Conwell’s Roxbury and Hamilton campuses. Here, Dean shares a reflective piece after watching a documentary from 9/11 about the need to confront the evil in our midst.

Photograph by Beth A. Keiser / AFP / Getty

I watched CNN’s documentary on 9/11… and was led to live it in some small way… as an intrusive visitor. Still, its sounds and smells, the thuds of bodies and cries of injured… the incredible sacrifice of First Responders filled me with awe, anxieties… and questions.

My inner soul wants to take it all somewhere… but where? What are others feeling? What is Media suggesting? It’s been twenty years since my assistant called me and merely said: “Dean, you don’t know? Turn on your TV!”
In some way or other we are all Responders.

There seems to be at least three ways to respond:

to hate… to forget and pass on…

to forgive—a word that is almost unfathomable in this case. I have hated those who plunged so many lives into fear, pain, death, and grief. I have hated those who hijacked and drove those planes… and those who planned and smiled at great distances as so many suffered, those dying and those who would spend the rest of their lives grieving.

Then, besides that initial hate, I have forgotten… and gotten on with my life. After all, it’s unhealthy to dwell with hate or drown in grief. We who have tended to forget and pass on will occasionally express a genuine: “It was a terrible shame.” And our unfinished regret is assuaged by media memorials.

But finally, beyond hate and forgetting, the forgiving…. What does that even entail and mean? And what good does it do… myself and the world? I don’t see myself, or society, knowing what it might mean to forgive such an enormous assault? The forgiveness seemingly called for is not just my own individual turn from hatred… or “getting on with my life.” It seems to call for a much larger national forgiveness… and forgiveness from “faith & religion,” the Church.

There is trivial forgiveness of slight social mistakes, and there is superficial forgiveness of serious personal and social injustice—harm that one suffers and can’t get over.

Effective forgiveness needs to be pondered and discussed—as a process. It calls for genuine relationships and the telling of true stories. Must I not deeply understand what I’m called to forgive? Don’t I somehow need to comprehend vividly what I am forgiving… something of the nature of Evil?

Something still seems to be missing? That hour in CNN… with the dust and darkness, the bodies! The terrified faces of those fleeing the hailstorm of debris… the frustrated looks of firemen and first responders. The cries! I’m struck by the enormity of Evil.

Am I alone trying to comprehend such evil? I hardly hear it being called Evil. Nor little suggestion as to how we are to deal with evil. Nor instruction about what Evil really is. I understand that in our Post-(so much) times such issues have dissolved into the ultimate nothingness of life. Can we live with such final meaninglessness?

Being honest, I realize I have not preached specifically on Evil. I fear… I may get it wrong… express it wrongly… be misunderstood or rejected. Am I another part of a Church that hasn’t taken up its cross and proclaimed Evil as a necessary part of the Good News. Am I basically unwilling to follow the way Jesus confronted the evil of Pharisaical religiosity (Matthew 23) or the evil in every individual’s heart (Matthew 15:19)?

Such honesty would call us all… individuals, nation, and churches… to repentance. The Good News would not be “just believe and join us,” but “repent and believe.”

I can hardly do this alone. Don’t we need the Church? Don’t we need others to help us confront evil… which comes from the Evil One… who so easily seduces societies, churches, and all of us descendants of Adam and Eve? Don’t we need, as a People, to remember and face the evils of the Holocaust, Racism and 9/11… and more, with true repentance, corporate and individual… against evils going beyond our personal comprehension.

Loving and forgiving God, we are trying to face realities in which we all share some blame. We have busily built our own kingdoms. Help us humbly repent and pray,”‘Thy Kingdom come.”

Dean Borgman was a youth leader in Connecticut, then in Young Life’s first urban work on New York’s Lower East Side. For some forty years, he taught youth ministry, racial justice and biblical social justice at Gordon-Conwell’s Roxbury and Hamilton campuses. He’s also taught at Fuller Theological Seminary, Cuttington University (Liberia), the African International University and Daystar University (Kenya). Dean and his wife Gail have four grown children and twelve grandchildren.

Jun 10 2021

In the Wilderness…

This week, we’re featuring a blog written by Rev. David Wright. Rev. Wright has been UniteBoston’s Board President since 2017, and serves in dual roles as assistant to the pastor of People’s Baptist Church as well as the Executive Director of the Black Ministerial Alliance. As many churches begin to re-open their buildings, Rev. Wright believes that the people of God need to lay hold of what was learned during the wilderness experience. Read below to hear his thoughts on the importance of discerning the will of God for His people now.

²At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.” ³So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth.^[^b^] ⁴Now this is why he did so: All those who came out of Egypt—all the men of military age—died in the wilderness on the way after leaving Egypt. ⁵All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness during the journey from Egypt had not. ⁶The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord. For the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land he had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. ⁷So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way.
Joshua 5:2-7

Rev. Kelly asked me to share a devotional at the recent UB Board meeting, mentioning that, “it would be great to talk about what the Lord is doing in the church at this time . . . .”

Well, I would never try to tell anyone that I know the mind of Jesus for His Church. I do, however, have a sense of what I believe He wants me to understand concerning His purpose in this time. So, with humility I offer the following observations about today’s Scripture reading.

The context is critical, right? Israel has formerly and finally entered the Promised Land. God tells Joshua to circumcise all the males. Why, because all of the men (everyone of military age) that left Egypt have all died in the wilderness. Those who are left were young men not born in Egypt and have not been circumcised.

This is an important part of this message and where I want to focus. They got out of Egypt, but did not get out of the wilderness. An entire generation was marched around the wilderness for 40 years until they keeled over and died. Why? Because of their disobedience. Because they refused, in some cases to leave Egypt behind and, in other cases, to leave the wilderness behind. They got stuck in being who they were and doing what they did. So, when they were all gone, God let Israel cross the Jordan.

Now, we know there were two exceptions; Joshua and Caleb. We know both of these men had a passion for God’s will and God’s promise. We also know that the wilderness experience only made each of them more determined to achieve God’s next level of purpose for them.

I meet with groups of Black pastors every Tuesday. This is one of the highlights of my week. We have been meeting since this pandemic began and it has become a rich fellowship. One of our older pastors –not referencing this passage particularly, but this story generally– stated that Egypt was the way we did “church” before. By that, and I’m using my words not a quote, Egypt is the church defined and limited by a building, a place, a set of rituals, and a group of traditions.

Egypt is the Church draining of young people and unable to ask them why they have left and are leaving. Egypt is the church declaring its relationship with world that Jesus took on flesh and entered that of “war;” the “culture war;” a relationship where people take sides and battle to the death. Egypt is the church becoming irrelevant to and unable to connect with the World that Jesus died to save.

The pandemic is the wilderness. The disruption of the entire world has made congregations re-think past practices and innovate the delivery of the Gospel, the making of disciples in new ways. I jokingly tell people that it only took my church 215 years to get online. The truth, however, is more sobering. When our very existence depended on it, it took six days. And when we did move to livestream, we saw our attendance shoot up dramatically. We saw members who had moved away “return” to the fellowship. We saw people we never saw before, who never came through our doors, come to our service. This is true for many, many churches.

Now we are in the post-COVID phase. By this, I don’t mean the COVID is over. No, I mean that we are in the midst of this. COVID will be with us for a while to come. It is the new Wilderness. The question is whether we will continue to listen for the Voice and Will of God? Will we continue to innovate and re-imagine ministry? We will continue to try to discern what God is doing now and what He would have us do?

Or will congregations rush back to “what used to be;” to Egypt or to what they’ve grown accustomed to in the wilderness? I hear so many people say, “we can’t wait to get back to the way things were.” I hope we never do. See, we forget that before COVID, churches were closing at rates faster than they were being planted. We forget that many churches were considered irrelevant and/or counterproductive to the issues of the day. Many have forgotten that our churches were destitute of the next generations; young people who did not give up on Christ, just the religion that bears His name.

I think that if we do not take advantage of this opportunity, this grace Jesus has given us to listen, discern, and obey, many congregations will die in this wilderness. Indeed, many have. I believe that if people continue just to see this as an inconvenience to be forgotten, they will have wasted a gift from the Lord, like the Wilderness really was, and will die in disobedience.

I have been saying repeatedly – and I hope it is inspired by God and not just what I’m pulling out of my armpit—that the wilderness experience has two purposes; it is preparation and it is elimination. It prepares people for the next phase of God’s Divine Plan, or it eliminates them as a hindrance to it.

If nothing else, I hope this devotion challenges all of us to really attempt to discern what the will of God is for His people now.

Nov 21 2018

Conversations Around the Thanksgiving Table

Photo from a UniteBoston dinner at Sally’s house in West Roxbury last month

Americans tend to eat with a variety of people around the Thanksgiving table: neighbors, close friends, and family. Often, there are a variety of religious and political affiliations, and at times, these differences can lead to volatile conversation.

Barna research points out that today, religious views and political views on topics such as patriotism and immigration are especially dicey. They also found that there are generational differences in the aspects of our identity that tie to our sense of self.

The challenge in these settings is to learn how to have constructive conversations with people who are different than you. Younger people tend to be more likely to choose diverse social environments than older generations, yet more often than not, people choose to be with people who are like them.

To capitalize on the learning that can happen through engaging with people different than you, we want to highlight a great resource called “Reaching Across the Divide” from Essential Partners. It offers tips to help people better understand each other’s perspectives, and the hopes, fears and values behind them. As Christians, we need to take the lead in modeling how to love one another across deep divides, and stay in relationship even when it’s difficult, as that is what Christ has done for us.

Click on the link below to download the resource!

https://uniteboston.com/…/2018/11/EP-Red-Blue-Guide-1.pdf

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