“We’re more alike than we know! I listened to parishioners, pastors, women and men from diverse backgrounds in diverse vocations from around the PCUSA talk about the challenges they’re facing and the innovative ways they’re following Christ toward justice, faith, hope, and love. Pastor Shavon Starling-Louise shared the profound difference it makes when we actually behave like siblings.  Reverend Dr. Larry Hill shared about how the act of showing mercy to a 13-year-old White girl who burned down his historically Black church facility led to him becoming a spiritual advisor to President Bill Clinton. 

Pastor and Housing Project Lead Joe Clifford shared about how the question: “What is the most loving thing to do?” has guided him and the congregation to address their local housing crisis.  As I listened to each panelist and presenter share, I realized they sound a lot like us here in the San Fernando Valley.  They are also figuring it out.  Experts and authors alike shared about what they are doing with humility and a gracious tone.  Each conveying a deep sense that we are all figuring it out.  We are all discerning God’s unique invitation for us to get in on kingdom action in our community.  Joe mentioned how the national conversations can distract us from discerning how we can engage our local community.  This felt like a word from God for us.  What does it mean to discern where God is at work right in our backyard and join in?  How can we follow Christ and the Spirit to unveil the Kingdom of God right in our neighborhoods? 

Sisters and brothers shared how this local mindset has led to local partnerships and greater and more focused kingdom impact.  The question is, where is your unique invitation to participate?  How are national narratives distracting you from the local voices around you expressing their need for the just-hopeful-faithful-tangible-present love of God?  The beauty of wrestling with these questions is that it turns our hearts, minds and hands to our neighbors.  It wells up compassion in our bodies, the kind that wouldn’t allow a Samaritan man to leave his brother wounded on the side of the road.  Faithful wrestling wells up the kind of attentiveness that notices a bleeding woman grasping to be acknowledged, seen and loved.  It wells up a sense of mission, like the one that led a revolutionary rabbi to endure the full force of the Roman law to embody and usher in a new kingdom.  We may look around and compare ourselves to different ministry models, different leaders, or different perceived impact, but we are all simply discerning what it means to follow Christ faithfully in our neighborhoods.  When we can articulate God’s unique invitation for us in relationship with our neighbors, we can embody the love, justice, mercy, humility, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control that signal that the kingdom of heaven is at hand!  That’s good news for everyone, and it’s what we’re all doing.”