This is a fascinating article from today's New York Times. The big idea of the article focuses on research that shows that "relationships between rich and poor" are a critical catalyst for reducing gnerational poverty.
The effect was profound. The study found that if poor children grew up in neighborhoods where 70 percent of their friends were wealthy — the typical rate of friendship for higher-income children — it would increase their future incomes by 20 percent, on average.
These cross-class friendships — what the researchers called economic connectedness — had a stronger impact than school quality, family structure, job availability or a community’s racial composition. The people you know, the study suggests, open up opportunities, and the growing class divide in the United States closes them off.
I think this is a really interesting hypothesis and one that resonates on many levels. Within the long Christian tradition of seeking after and working for justice, there is an interwoven narrative of relationships and kinship. This study seems to affirm that idea.
This has profound implications for those of us commited to justice and fighting poverty. If relationships can be a catalyst for change, how do we go about building those authentic relationships?
I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas...
Dear RFC Family,
As we look forward to the Fall and school year, we want to let you know about some exciting things we are working on!
With Pastor Jen leaving our staff team this summer, we have been looking at different and new options for ministering to our children and youth. We are excited an opportunity to fully partner with Immanuel Congregational Church with their children's ministry.
This would entail joining with their existing program on Sundays. Their current spiritual formation program for children is a values and justice based curriculum, led y a full time staff person. They also have two additional part time staff working with their children. The full program includes weely Sundays, outreach to families by the pastor, and combined special holiday events like the Christmas pageant and Easter party.
In order to make this work, we will need to move our service time to 10:00 AM. This way, children will be with the full community for part of worship, before heading to their own experience, similar to how we have always functioned.
We will spend the month of August testing out the Sunday, 10 AM start time. We need to see how this works in terms of sound (as ICC will be meeting at the same time). Assuming that it all works out (or can be worked out), we will continue with this service time into the Fall.
In the meantime, (1) please mark your calendars for all the Sundays in August - 10AM start time! And (2) please give us feedback about the new time, joint program, etc. You can comment here or email pastors@riverfront.church.
Thanks and Blessings!
- Pastor Ben
This is a statement from the organization, "Christians Against Christian Nationalism". I have signed it; I hope you will consider doing so as well.
As Christians, our faith teaches us everyone is created in God’s image and commands us to love one another. As Americans, we value our system of government and the good that can be accomplished in our constitutional democracy. Today, we are concerned about a persistent threat to both our religious communities and our democracy — Christian nationalism.
Christian nationalism seeks to merge Christian and American identities, distorting both the Christian faith and America’s constitutional democracy. Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the State and implies that to be a good American, one must be Christian. It often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation. We reject this damaging political ideology and invite our Christian brothers and sisters to join us in opposing this threat to our faith and to our nation.
As Christians, we are bound to Christ, not by citizenship, but by faith. We believe that:
People of all faiths and none have the right and responsibility to engage constructively in the public square.
Patriotism does not require us to minimize our religious convictions.
One’s religious affiliation, or lack thereof, should be irrelevant to one’s standing in the civic community.
Government should not prefer one religion over another or religion over nonreligion.
Religious instruction is best left to our houses of worship, other religious institutions and families.
America’s historic commitment to religious pluralism enables faith communities to live in civic harmony with one another without sacrificing our theological convictions.
Conflating religious authority with political authority is idolatrous and often leads to oppression of minority and other marginalized groups as well as the spiritual impoverishment of religion.
We must stand up to and speak out against Christian nationalism, especially when it inspires acts of violence and intimidation—including vandalism, bomb threats, arson, hate crimes, and attacks on houses of worship—against religious communities at home and abroad.
Whether we worship at a church, mosque, synagogue, or temple, America has no second-class faiths. All are equal under the U.S. Constitution. As Christians, we must speak in one voice condemning Christian nationalism as a distortion of the gospel of Jesus and a threat to American democracy.
