On February 6-8th, 2020, the Presbytery Leadership Team in collaboration with the Anti-Racism Task Force will host an anti-racism educational retreat, facilitated by Crossroads Anti-Racism Organizing and Training.
This retreat marks the formal beginning of an institutional assessment of the presbytery around the issue of race (which occurs over the next 18 months). The assessment is not a study of individual churches, but rather of the work of the officers and committees of the presbytery as a whole. The wider goal is to:
- understand how race and ethnicity have played a role (both of good and harm) in how our presbytery has lived out its life of ministry in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and
- to practice a process of faithful self-honesty and transformation that can continue forward even beyond the formal conclusion of the assessment.
Members of the working group who will facilitate this institutional assessment as well as committee chairs and ministry leaders in the presbytery will gather for this training.
There are a limited number of additional slots available to others in the presbytery who would like to attend. While there is no cost to attend the retreat, you must commit to ongoing engagement and support of the institutional assessment over the next 18 months.
Such engagement and support may take various forms depending on what support is most helpful to the work group, but is likely to include connecting to the process through 3-4 Zoom calls with the Anti-Racism Task Force, promoting and championing the need for all in the presbytery to participate in surveys and focus groups as requested, and generally being an ambassador for this process by helping all to understand the importance of this work as followers of Christ seeking God’s dreams of justice and peace for all people.
The educational retreat will be held:
Thursday, February 6, 2020, 5:00-9:00 pm; Friday, February 7, 8:00am-5:00pm; and Saturday, February 8, 8:00am-5:00pm at the Minnesota Humanities Center, 987 Ivy Avenue East; St. Paul, MN 55106
In Christ,
Anna Kendig, Presbytery Moderator
Walter Rockenstein, Chair of Presbytery Leadership Team
Jeffrey Japinga, Executive Presbyter
Kendra Grams, Chair Anti-Racism Task Force