New commission aligns with areas of focus
Members of the United Methodist Commission on
Religion and Race meet Sept. 25-28 in Linthicum Heights, Md. UMNS photos
by John Coleman. |
By John Coleman*
Oct. 8, 2008 | Linthicum Heights, Md. (UMNS)
The agency charged with helping The United Methodist Church be more
racially inclusive will increase its monitoring, advocacy and education
efforts, while at the same time integrating that work into the
churchwide focus on developing new congregations, new leaders, and new
ministries to fight poverty and disease.
The United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race, meeting Sept.
25-28 to organize its new board of directors for 2009-2012, adjusted its
year-old strategic plan to encompass the new emphases adopted by the
denomination’s legislative assembly in May.
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Erin Hawkins, top executive, and the Rev. Bob Bushong of Florida discuss the agency’s agenda.
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The commission’s strategic goals call for engaging more white partners
in the fight against racism, facilitating the growth of multicultural
leadership in the church, expanding its purview to address racism and
ethnocentrism on a global scale, and promoting core values of justice
and compassion around denominational concerns with racial/ethnic
implications. Those concerns have included the need for more humane
policies and practices in the treatment of undocumented immigrants and
the elimination of sport mascots offensive to Native Americans.
Now the agency will also encourage more inclusiveness in the church’s
efforts to attract new and younger members through new faith
communities, to develop new clergy and lay leadership, and to overcome
poverty and fatal diseases through collaborative ministries. Part of
that inclusiveness, for example, could mean more focus on addressing
racial/ethnic disparities among people who suffer most from poverty,
preventable diseases and inadequate health care.
“The destination for our journey and our mission is to reach the heart
of the gospel and become the heart of the church,” said top executive
Erin Hawkins. Her keynote speech evoked the agency’s 40th anniversary
theme, “Journey to Inclusiveness.”
“We are on a continuing quest to reach out and be a voice of advocacy
and support for those who are still excluded and marginalized because of
race and ethnicity,” she said.
*Coleman is director of communications for the Commission on Religion and Race.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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