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Black Voices, Scripture, and Courageous Living

 

This Sunday, Feb 19th
11am & 4pm: Steve Childress

Next Sunday, Feb 26th
11am: Ruby Love
4pm: Rev. Troy Carr
 

Our series at our Sunday Celebrations this month is "Black Voices, Scripture, and Courageous Living." In this time of necessary courage and resistance, we look to those who have faced and overcome the targeted forces of Empire for generations.

This Sunday, V&M Associate Convener Steve Childress will be speaking at both services! On the 26th, at the 11am service we will hear from Ruby Smith Love, who has a background in arts and acting, addiction rehabilitation, racial justice work, and leadership for social change. Ruby grew up in household actively participating in the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement and had family members who were Freedom Riders and Tuskegee Airmen, and that's the tip of the iceberg! At the 4pm service on the 26th our speaker is Rev Troy Carr, the pastor of Bryn Mawr UMC just 25 minutes south of Hillman City. Rev Carr is a womanist preacher and theologian (womanism= Black Feminism) and is ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and is a leader with John and Neal in the Interfaith Economic Justice Coaltion.

*image above: found all over pinterest-- followed the rabbit trail but could not determine the original artist*

March Community Scramble: one-on-ones and dinner parties!

Our theme this March will focus on deep community. Celebrations help build familiarity, but don't often create the space for longer and deeper conversations to happen. Small groups are excellent for creating community but require longer term commitment. So in in March, we will be helping organize one-on-ones and dinner parties. If you're interested in hosting a dinner party for a group of 4-8, or in helping figure out how to make this creative idea happen, contact john@valleyandmountain.org.  We'll let you know more details as they develop.
 

Resistance Report: Free Daniel and Other Actions


V&M'ers continue to plow forward in standing on the side of liberation and love.  Here are some actions we've been up to this past week and ways to keep the pressure up.

Some V&M'ers attended the Free Daniel rally on Friday morning and the Pray-In at Amazon HQ in solidarity with security guards (particularly Muslims) being discriminated against on the job, and others attended the Nonviolent Direct Action training day today.

Another space to keep up to date with actions (and any other community-oriented things) that V&M'ers are up to is the V&M facebook group. Join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/108398639216285/

The Resistance Choir (link to R.C. facebook group), an excellent space to organize for justice at V&M, has our next rehearsal is SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26th 12:45PM to 1:45PM. Mark your calendars and RSVP to yasminra@gmail.com if you can. We'll sing, talk about a CORE TEAM, and OVERALL STRATEGY.


 

Meal Train Time


Paul and Abby had a baby! Lincoln Robert Perry-Johnson is just a couple weeks old. Help 'em out by bringing them a meal, as we do when folks could use some support-- new baby, hurt/sick, etc (if at some point you or someone in the VM community needs help in this way, let me know-- i cant read minds and dont often make assumptions in this way). Here's the link to sign up for the mealtrain, you can also see baby Lincoln if you click it: https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/988r46

 

New Church Start Visioning Group Kicks Off!

The New Church visioning group that Neal is leading is up and running! For the next six weeks the group will focus on relationships-- just being together over dinner, hiking, exploring, playing games, (and any other awesome ideas you might have) while dreaming about what it looks like to have a V+M/Collab style space for ‘creatives’, the cultivation of creativity, and how all of that fits into our faith and/or spirituality.  If you would like to be a part of this, or know someone that might - email Neal at NealS.Sharpe@gmail.com.
 

V&M Pledges


Fill out an online pledge card at this link!

New pledges are coming in and here's where we are:

Pledging Goal: $80,000 (bare minimum)- $90,000 (optimal) in total pledges. 100% participation from regular V&M'ers.

Pledging Current: $79,966 in pledges from 48 pledges (representing 90 active members), including 21 new and 11 increased pledges.

 

News From Previous Weeks

(in case you missed it)

Olivia Smith Serving as Convener During John's Sabbatical


We are delighted to announce that Olivia Smith will be our interim convener during John's forthcoming 3-month sabbatical (mid-April to mid-July). As most of you know, John was granted a fellowship from the Louisville Intstitute to work on a book making mystical, subversive theology and practice available to a wide lay audience. Thanks to generous support from the Louisville Institute, V&M is able to hire an interim Convener to lead the congregation and Collab during that time. Olivia Smith started as a summer intern in 2015 and was quickly embraced by the congregation and the Collab community, where she made a permanent impact. We hired her on as an Associate Convener until she left to go on a spiritual odyssey. Currently she is in Cuba studying the African Diaspora (and apparently dancing a lot, which perhaps should go without saying). We look forward to her leadership in that time and to getting our systems and leadership teams in place before her arrival.
 

V&M Summer Retreat to Holden Village is Filling Up!

We reserved 18 spots and have already had 31 people sign up for them! John has contacted Holden Village and they are currently in conversation with them about increasing the number of reservations.

John and Freddie are organizing the retreat. They have both taught there in the past and loved it. If you're interested, tell them right away! (john@valleyandmountain.org or fhelmiere@gmail.com).

We are planning a major V&M summer retreat in August to a mind-blowing spiritual retreat center way deep in the Cascade Mountains called Holden Village. About 90 people live in Holden Village throughout the year, but during the summer they offer 5-day stays for guests and about 200 people come each week for the program. Each week a different set of teachers are brought in to offer classes to the guests sprinkled throughout the day. They even bring in a village philosopher/theologian to strike up conversations in the village center during the day. There is amazing hiking in every direction, a great kids program, arts and woodworking/pottery/weaving workshops, and tasty food. Each evening they hold a lovely short song and prayer service. It's run by progressive Christians affiliated with the Lutheran Church.

The trip is Aug 14-Aug 19 (5 nights is the minimum stay). That week is called Interfaith Dialogue week because many of the teachers coming that week will be offering classes on that subject.

It costs $65/night per adult (kids age 5-17 are $46/night and under 5 are free), but that includes all of your meals and lodging, so it's hard to find something much cheaper. Running a remote facility in the mountains is complicated so the price doesn't even cover the actual cost per guest (they're a nonprofit that fundraises to offset costs). If the price tag is a deal-breaker, still tell us you want to go, and we will try to find a way to help.

Read more at: http://www.holdenvillage.org/about-us/

 

"Just Mercy" Book Group Kicks Off


The Winter Book Group kicked off this past Wednesday! Please email Dr Lora-Ellen McKinney at l-emckinney@comcast.net if you want to join or have questions. The group will meet on Wednesdays.
 
Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.
 
Just Mercy Review(New York Times)
 
 
Just Mercy Description
A powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice—from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time.
 
Bryan Stevenson Quote 
"The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice"
 
Dates of Book Group 
Wednesday, February 1 through March 15

 
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