Soul Renewal

Erin Gordon Goddard (middle) , Sara Hof (right), me (left)
at the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, CA

by Rev. Laura Barclay

I had the blessing to be able to visit dear friends I see rarely who live in California a few weeks ago. To make this even more special, seeing them coincided with my birthday. Cupcakes, adventures, and exploring were on the docket. Nothing could have been a better present than seeing friends who are like family after a long time apart.

I met Erin and Sara in divinity school at Wake Forest University. I lived with Erin for two amazing years and spent countless hours in Sara's library studying (or not studying) and laughing at YouTube videos. These are two wonderful people who I know I could pick up with like no time has passed. They never judge me, they are always quick with a hug or friendly text, and are some of the most genuine and authentic people I know. In short, they have been models of Jesus's ethic of love for one's neighbor when I've lost my way. Without judgement, their unconditional love has always helped guide me through, as it seems to do with the best of friends. I am so blessed to have so many beloved friends (especially from Wake Divinity and University of Louisville and CBFNC), and I was tempted to begin naming them. Yet there are so many dear ones who have guided me along and been the loving presence of Christ.

When you encounter friends like these, it feels like your heart will burst and you can never give enough thanks to know such people. If I've learned anything from them, it is to pay it forward. When one friend renews your soul, try to renew another. Send a note or a funny present or a card that lets you know you are thinking of them. If a friend is in need of help--be it moving or some other project--make the time to be there for them. Friends who are like family are nothing short of life-giving, and they need to know you care.

I'm reminded of this quote from Paul's Letter to the Ephesians in Chapter 4: "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." This is the mark of a healthy community, a wonderful friendship, and a model for the Kingdom of God. 

How can you model this for a friend this week?

On Finding Comrades: The 2nd Annual Faith & Immigration Summit

 The 2nd Annual Faith & Immigration Summit was sponsored by the North Carolina Council of Churches and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina.



Professional interpreters make sure everyone
can follow along in both English and Spanish.



story by Scott Schomburg and photos by Justin Hubbard, Duke Divinity School Interns for the North Carolina Council of Churches

I was new to the scene, a newcomer at the 2nd annual Faith & Immigration Statewide Summit. Just weeks ago I started my internship with NC Council of Churches.

Before the room could come into focus, I found myself in conversation with pastors, organizers, and advocacy groups, recognizing both a patience and an urgency that seems to come with this work. Our day together unfolded a compelling narrative of faith leaders in North Carolina moving forward in solidarity to make communities better for immigrants.* Not everyone shares this vision however, as some politicians continue to push a restrictionist agenda, infusing local communities with anti-immigration rhetoric. This story of challenge and hope, of conflicting conceptions of justice, and of faith leaders forming a public voice, captured my attention early.

The fellowship hall at United Church of Chapel Hill was filled with faith leaders looking for comrades, searching for creative ways to tell the truth about immigration in North Carolina. Rev. Ismael Ruiz-Millán, director of the Hispanic House of Studies at Duke Divinity School, weaved accounts of immigrant struggle together with a lively scriptural imagination in his keynote address. For Rev. Ruiz-Millán, to stand with his friends to make communities better for immigrants is a way of practicing resurrection. That is, the very act of solidarity is in itself the account of the hope that is within us.

Mauricio Castro from the NC Latino Coalition leads a
workshop on North Carolina Legislation and Lobbying

Transitioning from Ruiz-Millán’s keynote address to a series of workshops, participants were able to focus the conversation in specific tracks covering the different modes of response available to faith community. From introductory sessions on immigration policy, to pastoral care, to the specific strategies of effective community organizing, seminar leaders offered their expertise and interacted with the many questions and testimonies of faith leaders in the room. I attended the advocacy workshop led by Mauricio Castro of the NC Latino Coalition.

Castro began by evoking the late Archbishop of San Salvador, Óscar Romero, whose prophetic witness against social injustice exemplified Castro’s greatest hopes of organizing for immigration reform in his home state. Unveiling the forces in North Carolina that prevent people from flourishing, Castro pointed back to the painful effects of two anti-immigration bills passed in June 2011. In addition, he described the anti-immigration aims of the Select Committee on the State’s Role in Immigration Policy, and the upcoming legislative session that may well see consideration of new measures to make undocumented workers and immigrant families unwelcome in North Carolina.

Castro then pointed forward, calling for a mobilization of faith leaders with specific strategies to bend North Carolina legislation toward justice, making all communities better for immigrants. He urged leaders to take power analysis seriously, to know how strong are the forces against immigration reform. Yet, far from painting a paralyzing picture of insurmountable challenge, Castro and other seminar leaders evoked a desire for something better. The conversations reminded us that not even the most ardent of opponents to immigration reform are outside the possibilities of conversion. Indeed, even Romero’s courage to speak against social injustice came after his own unexpected conversion.

It was a day marked by a powerful underlying story: faith leaders are active, and congregations will not stand idly by while immigrant communities suffer. And in these months following the Faith and Immigration Statewide Summit, I imagine it will be a springboard for more conversations to be had and meals to be shared. Indeed, I am tempted to say, that the spirit of Romero is alive in North Carolina.

*I am borrowing the phrase “make communities better for immigrants” from the Latino Migration Project, which takes this to be its mission.


Did you miss the Summit but want to hear some of the workshops? You can listen to the recordings here as podcasts: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/nc-council-of-churches/id571816854. You can find additional resources addressing immigration on the CBFNC website: http://www.cbfnc.org/Missions/Immigration.aspx. This blog post originally appeared on the North Carolina Council of Churches' blog.

FBC and the BBC

 By Dr. Dennis Atwood

It’s been an interesting week here in Mount Olive. The BBC (as in British Broadcasting Corporation) was in town—and in our church—last Sunday to do a story on the Haitian immigration to Mount Olive. The BBC broadcasts its news stories to over 100 countries throughout the world. The link to our story is: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17039167.

Here's how it started. On January 22, 2012, the Raleigh News & Observer published a front page feature on Haitian immigrants settling in Mount Olive. Last Thursday afternoon I received a call from a reporter with the BBC. At first I thought it was a marketing salesman trying to sign me up for a subscription to the BBC! As an outside observer, the British reporter thought our community was a fascinating story of four cultures (Anglo, African-American, Hispanic, and Haitian) converging in a small southern town. Obviously this happens frequently in large cities and urban settings, but when it happens in a small southern town—given the south’s history of segregation and racism as its backdrop—then it becomes much more pronounced. It becomes a “story.”

It has been a year and a half since the first Haitians stepped through the doors of our sanctuary on a September Sunday morning. Many things have happened over these 18 months. Relationships have been established; needs have been met; many worship services and prayers have been shared. I’m proud of the fact that our church has been willing to open our doors and our hearts to these people of vibrant faith. They are brothers and sisters in Christ. They do have great needs, but they also have great hopes and dreams for a better life.

In Mount Olive we are learning to live, worship, and work together and we do have a long way to go. But it is my hope, and the hope of the gospel, that with God’s help we might become a tiny model of how to live as a community of one. In fact, we also provide worship space for a Hispanic congregation which meets between the Haitian’s two worship services each Sunday. So on any given Sunday you will find two English worship services, one Spanish worship service, and two Creole worship services in our First Baptist facilities. That’s a small town Pentecost!

Of course, there are those in the community who say they would prefer the Haitians “go back home.” They don’t like the new people. If a Haitian is rude or commits a crime then suddenly all Haitians are portrayed as rude criminals. Immigration is clearly an emotional and divisive issue for many people in our society. But the way I see it, in America, we are all sons and daughters of immigrants. Hopefully those who are not so optimistic about the new immigrants in Mount Olive will be won over in time with love and kindness. But even if they are not, the call of Christ compels those of us who are listening to embrace the outcast and the immigrant. This is a vital part of the fabric of the gospel that cannot be torn away or altered by human hands.

Our story in Mount Olive is really one about paying attention to God and what God is doing around us—and sometimes right in front of us! Then it simply becomes a matter of being courageous enough to do something nobody else may be doing… because it’s the right thing to do.

Dennis Atwood is the pastor of FBC Mount Olive. This article originally appeared on his blog.

Awesome and Meddlesome

by Rev. Christina Whitehouse-Suggs

I have no idea how I first met Hugh Hollowell and was introduced to Love Wins Ministries but he's become one of those friends that you swear you've known your whole life. You know, the one who is SO MUCH like you but keeps you honest and real? Yeah, he's like that. Awesome and meddlesome, all at the same time.

Growing up as a preacher's kid at Central Baptist Church in downtown Miami, FL meant seeing lots of homeless folks...even serving them a hot meal on occasion from the mission at the back corner of the church parking lot. But it never meant getting to know them. Or seeing them as real live human beings.

Leave it to Hugh to make me re-think that old script.

I end up subscribing to the Love Wins newsletter and one day read this post about/from Tony. Specifically, this:

“Please tell the people who give you this money that I am so grateful. That I could not have made it this long without you guys. And that while it may not seem like a big deal to them, it has changed my life. Hell, it probably saved my life.”

Damn it, Hugh.

That night, my family becomes a monthly contributor to Love Wins. Hugh sends me a direct message on Twitter to say that we rock. I tell him to shove it because it's a pittance and I want it to be more. I can almost feel him roll his eyes when he responds, "You don't know what I can do with a pittance."

In the next few months, I can't get Tony off my mind. Eventually, I email Hugh and ask if there's any way I can get in touch with him. Become his friend and let him know that someone other than Hugh cares about him and wants to know him personally.

Tony agrees and we start emailing. Just getting to know each other. When Tony mentions that he could use some dishes and kitchen supplies, I just smile and shake my head. God's sense of humor and timing continues to slay me...I have a ton of stuff I've "inherited" when a great-aunt passed away.

I had the opportunity to give these things to Tony in person yesterday. I got to see where he lives, hug him, introduce him to my daughter, and talk smack about NC football teams. I discovered that his birthday is close to my anticipated due date and promised I would email him when I found out the sex of the baby at the end of this month.

Hugh told me today that I have no idea what that short visit meant to Tony. I told him that I know what it meant to me.

Because, you see, Tony is my friend.

Christina Whitehouse-Suggs is the Associate Coordinator of CBF of South Carolina. This article originally appeared on her blog, Thoughts from the Journey.

Hugh Hollowell will be a workshop leader at the CBFNC General Assembly at Trinity Baptist Church in Raleigh. To find out more information and to register, visit http://www.cbfnc.org/Congregations/2012GeneralAssembly.aspx.

Justice for Hector, but a Long Road Ahead

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Friday, September 2, 2011, was over a year in the making for Hector Villanueva, CBFNC pastor and legal resident who faced deportation after applying for citizenship and was arrested for a 15-year-old crime for which he had already served time—cashing a check that wasn’t his while homeless. CBFNC staff organized ministers and laity to pack the courtroom in support, and Hector gave compelling testimony about his transformation in serving God through his ministry and his commitment to his wife and children, which includes two adopted daughters. The judge, moved by his testimony and our support, said that he was convinced of Hector’s “rehabilitation” and canceled his deportation. The judge carefully reminded him that he could never be a citizen under current U.S. immigration law, though his wife and children all enjoy that privilege.

Relief and joy washed over Hector, his family, and reverberated throughout the CBFNC network. We’ve received countless messages of support for Hector over the last year and in the wake of this positive decision. However, the fact that Hector is barred from citizenship is a reminder to us that our system is flawed and there is little room for grace. States across our union are faced with these realities every day. Denominations are suing the Alabama state government for violating the practice of their faith by passing a law indicating that anyone who aids an undocumented immigrant will be arrested. Arizona requires all immigrants to carry and show their papers. Here in North Carolina, our Hispanic Network of Churches is facing a growing crisis. Police officers camp outside their churches, checking the documents of every driver entering for worship. Many of our Hispanic pastors, who are citizens or legal immigrants, have to drive vanloads of members to church because the police can only check the driver’s ID. Our current system is clearly broken, and our immigration quota system has barred many immigrants from ever obtaining citizenship. This means there is no line for those without documents to get into in order to immigrate legally.

We as Christians are called to respond to our neighbor. In Matthew 25:40, Jesus reminds us, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Whatever your opinions on what immigration reform should look like, the gospel is clear in how we should treat the stranger in our midst.

What can you do for your immigrant neighbor? You can begin by getting to know them. Consider a partnership between your church and a Hispanic congregation. Listen to their stories. Learn more about our current immigration system, by non-partisan resources and not from the mouth of a politician trying to get your vote. CBFNC, along with the United Methodist Church and other faith groups, has partnered with the Baptist Center for Ethics to produce a documentary, Gospel Without Borders that can be used in Sunday schools paired with an online discussion guide. Consider attending an upcoming screening. The North Carolina Council of Churches also has an excellent church resource called Becoming the Church Together which includes lessons and a concise time line for learning about the history of immigration.

Throughout Hector’s ordeal, I learned that immigrants have no right to an attorney and no right to benefits other than public education and emergency care. Many states have barred children brought here by their parents from obtaining a college or vocational education. Immigrants are under such hardship they can barely attend church without getting deported. We must ask ourselves what an authentic Christian response looks like in these difficult situations. I, like many of you, am a white, U.S. citizen who has never had to worry about such consequences. Instead of harboring guilt for this privilege, the proactive question remains: How will we use the privilege we were born with to change the system for those who have none? I hope that you will take advantage of one of the above resources and walk with us on the journey.

The Beloved Community - A Review and Proposal

by Rev. Laura Barclay

Dr. Charles Marsh, director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia and son of a Southern minister, brings us this scholarly, yet practical analysis of the Civil Rights Movement and the concept of The Beloved Community in bringing about the kingdom of God on earth. Marsh profiles Dr. King’s early ministry and calling into civil rights work in Mobile, AL, with the community involvement that ensued and led King out of his pastorate and into the struggle. He follows Charles Sherrod and the rise of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as a religious fellowship that embodied kingdom work, only to abandon its vision to infighting and radicalism. He follows former pastor Clarence Jordan’s work with the interracial, intentional farm of Koinonia Community in Americus, GA. Marsh then tells the story of John Perkins, whose brother’s murder at the hands of local police led him to flee to California and outside the church, only to come back to and through the church toward intentional community in Jackson, MI, and out into the world as one of the most respected faith-based organizers and religious leaders in America.

These men all had their grounding in Christ. They were open and accepting of people of other faiths and no faiths in their organizing, but they always identified their reason for doing the hard work of justice with their organizations as the historical event of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection made real in the church. They believed that we could not allow our brothers and sisters to be beaten, killed or excluded because of the witness of the Christ. If Christ is in us, then we cannote be separate from our neighbors. This underlying message of love made the leaders of the religious movement of the civil rights struggle committed to non-violence against even those that cursed them (37). The intentional relationships they made as King listened to the imprisoned African Americans sharing his jail cell, or that Jordan made in the black church in Louisville during his seminary days, or that Charles Sherrod formed during his work with fellow members at SNCC meetings, or that Perkins made working on intentional community in Jackson transformed these men into dynamic disciples for Christ. They listened with their hearts open and reflected the concerns of their harassed and broken neighbors. Their firm belief that all are created in the image of God matched with their seminary training helped them to focus these relationships through the lens of the body of Christ.

Marsh shares these stories to make a point—the church is not necessarily the beloved community, the kingdom of God, though it has been that during certain times in the past. The church can foster and encourage the kingdom, but it can also fail to be on mission in the world. It can submit itself to the concerns of the state and one’s selfish desires—slavery, war, oppression, economic inequality, discrimination, etc. The church can and has in the past forgotten its prophetic voice and the call to nurture the kingdom of God. However, the church is globally an incredibly diverse body that points us toward right ways of being, lifting us out of our single ethnicity congregations into a universal Christ-moment that allows us to be open to the communion of all creation (215). Marsh notes that we must be cognizant of where God is breaking through in the world and to go follow that Spirit. This can and should lead us out of the church doors and into the community to build relationships and participate in the world as Jesus’ disciples, but it should also leave us connected with the church, as King, Sherrod, Perkins, and Jordan were. If we believe God created all in the image of God and that God reigns everywhere, not just behind the walls of church, this should not be a radical proposal (214).

Near the end of the book, Marsh shares examples of intentional religious communities that have organized for better neighborhoods from Jackson to Philly, and encourages readers to join their efforts. He notes that the students coming into our university system today who hear his stories of the beloved communities that occurred during the Civil Rights Movement--the hymns sung at the SNCC meetings and the glory given to God during the marches for the victory in the Montgomery Bus Boycott--become inspired and commit themselves to Habitat builds, organize multiracial prayer groups, advocate and empower single mothers and undocumented immigrants, and many other endeavors. Let us foster their zeal and excitement to help their brothers and sisters, and let the light of God shine in the darkest of places. May those students in the past and present who commit to loving and empowering their neighbor inspire us to let our light shine as well, and show the people of God to be “a light among nations” (Is 60:1-3).

If you are interested in learning more about racial reconciliation, check out upcoming Racial Reconciliation Workshops in Charlotte, NC, (July 13) and Wilmington, NC, (July 29) at the following website: http://www.cbfnc.org/Congregations/UpcomingEvents/RacialReconciliationWorkshops.aspx

The Fear of Christmas

by Rev. Dr. Joe Phelps

Sunday’s performance of Rutter’s Magnificat teems with sophistication as the basses and tenors chase sopranos and altos up and down the musical score, accompanied by a full orchestra. This highbrow work is sung in Latin, which, like a British accent, makes anything sound more elegant and urbane.

But what we call the Magnificat, or the song of Mary, is as down-home as a labor union rally. “The big cats are going down because we’ve oppressed far too long. God has heard the cries of the poor, so you’d better get ready for change you can believe in.”

No wonder we prefer Mary’s song in Latin set to lofty music. What better way to obscure the politically charged, radically subversive message of the woman chosen to carry the mystery of Divinity in her body than to civilize it to death?
We’ve done the same thing to the whole Christmas story, really. Two thousand years of carols about the perfect baby Jesus (“no crying he makes”) and angels that look like Precious Moments dolls have camouflaged the hard-hitting implications of the story. For example, let the previous compliment to the British be accompanied by a recent Reuters story of competitive British parents creating a “manger chic” for Christmas pageants, with exotic fur throws purchased for their children cast as sheep, and ivory bridesmaid dresses for their darlings selected to be angels.

The Christmas story begins with a recognition of who is in charge (“a decree went out from Emperor Augustus”) and his demand that all people in the occupied land return to their hometown to register to pay taxes (quick: name a Christmas carol that includes the word “tax”). That’s what brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem from where they lived in Nazareth, 30 miles to the north--imperial powers throwing their weight around, treating ordinary people like puppets, using their might to meet their own needs. Some things never change.

There’s the stable birth, complete with cattle that are lowing, whatever that means. Other than a cute twist for future Christmas pageants, does the stable detail tell us something about where the sacred is most visible?

And then there are the shepherds, the salt-of-the-earth, working-class folk who are the first to hear the news from “a multitude of the heavenly host.” This is akin to a dignitary sending birth announcements to hotel clerks and fast-food assistant managers instead of to the social and political elite.

We read that the shepherds were “sore afraid” by their nocturnal visitors. Translation: it scared the heaven out of them. You’d be scared too, both by singing night angels but also by their message that interrupts the regularly scheduled programming with the announcement of a new deliverer who will come from outside the prescribed places of power in order to shuffle the deck and deal out a new hand.

But can we hear this message?

I don’t see many of us afraid like the shepherds at Christmas. Maybe we fear not scoring a coveted Zhu Zhu pet--this year’s hip toy. Or we’re afraid our credit cards (symbols of the System if ever there were one) will max out before our shopping is finished. Or maybe we’re afraid that we won’t “get in the Christmas spirit” this year.

But the fear of Christmas that awakens in us an understanding of how the world should be ordered? Not so much.

Karl Barth, a German theologian during World War II, warned, “Christmas without fear carries with it fear without Christmas.” That is, lives void of reverence for the sacred carry in them the seeds of fear that grow unquestioned and unchallenged. These lesser fears paralyze us and ultimately bear the fruit of havoc in our world-- competition, hoarding, retaliation, isolation.

But what about the life-altering chill from hearing a message announcing that the Holy One hears the cries of the poor, comes among us, and condemns our wars and conflicts with the simple words “and on earth, peace”? What about the heart-in-throat evoking realization that this “good news of great joy” really is for “all the people”? What if it’s true that Love is stronger than hate? What if we really are meant to live together as one people, united in common parentage, humanity, and hope?

I wonder if even my Jewish and Muslim friends, who reverence their own faith stories just as I do, might be invited as honored guests to see beyond the details of Christmas and the specificity of the Christian faith in order to recognize a picture that is profoundly and universally true: The Heart of Love wants to scare us awake from the sleep of life-as-usual into a new way of being stewards of these beautiful lives we’ve been given.

Once frightened awake we are assured in Mary’s song “God’s mercy is for those who fear God from generation to generation.” As the angels said to the awakened shepherds in the field, “Do not be afraid.”


Joe Phelps is Pastor of Highland Baptist Church and Ridgewood Baptist Church in Louisville, KY.