The Work Continues

 

In March, St. James UMC, along with several other churches in the Greenville/Pitt County area, concluded our year-long Living the Word Justice and Equity Ministries class. That doesn’t mean we are done though! The teams from the various churches will continue to meet monthly to keep planning and implementing joint as well as individual church ministries around justice and equity issues.

 

You may remember the Community Thanksgiving worship service we had back in November 2023 in which all the Living the Word churches came together to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a beautiful time of worship and truly a sign of God’s kin-dom as we came together. We plan to continue that “tradition” in November of this year! This time, it will be held at one of the other churches. More information will be shared on that as the date draws closer.

 

Other ideas that the St. James team discussed for our individual ministries include:

  • Joining with the other churches to celebrate Juneteenth and including our youth in that celebration;
  • Inviting children from all the churches to participate in children’s summer activities here at St. James; and
  • Offering Bible studies on biblical/restorative justice.

 

In this class, we learned the amazing history of Greenville—both the good and the bad. We gained new perspectives and new understandings. Because of that, the St. James team also decided to dream about creating an exhibit here at St. James that would include recorded stories of local residents who lived through the Civil Rights era or who simply have experienced the challenges of racial conflict or discrimination in their own lives.

 

The idea behind this exhibit is to help us all hear a different perspective. Because we tend to assume that we know what someone is going through, what they are thinking, or how they should feel, we rarely take the time to actually listen to their side of the story. This exhibit would give us the chance to learn from those whose experiences have been vastly different from our own.

 

We will be reaching out to invite other St. James members to participate in the activities and the ongoing work of this important ministry team. If you have a passion for justice and equity ministries, please contact one of our team members. Their names and contact information are below.

 

We ended our class with each church team offering a gift to the group. St. James offered a poem. We created this poem with the help of Artificial Intelligence by feeding into the program the things we most appreciated about our experience with our brothers and sisters from other churches. Click HERE to read that poem.

 

St. James UMC Living the Word Team

 

Living the Word Churches

  • Anderson Chapel AME
  • Cornerstone Missionary Baptist
  • Greater Glory AME
  • Jarvis Memorial UMC
  • St. James UMC
  • Sycamore Hill Baptist
  • York Memorial AME Zion