Loving Our Neighbors
Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a bubble. My secure, middle-class life can feel completely separate from the lives of my neighbors, down the street or just a mile away, whose experience daily frustrations and limitations of poverty. Believing that our lives are more connected than I can see, and trusting that Jesus loves all of us, I look for ways to get outside my bubble. The relationships I’ve found are a blessing to me.
Church is one place where this bubble-effect happens. As congregations and as individuals we need to understand what poverty is and how our expectations are shaped by living in largely middle-class communities.
We also are all becoming more aware of racial segregation shapes all our lives, including our lives in body of Christ. If we do not see or respond to the oppression of racism, we have work to do. We need to learn (1) to see it and (2) how to actively work against it.
Check out descriptions of these workshops that can help us to see. Please join us for an upcoming session or contact me for more information.
– Susan Squires
“If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desires of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.” (Isaiah 58:10)