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NT-NL News: June 2018, Fourth Monday

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Engage with Our Youth this Week

We have 330+ youth and adults going to the 2018 ELCA Youth Gathering this week, June 27 – July 1! We invite you to access a prayer booklet put together by our coordinator, Janelle Miller, and lift up everyone participating in what promises to be a life-changing event.

If you’re interested in seeing what our youth are experiencing, you can watch live video from the event. Throughout the week, all video will be available on the Youth Gathering homepage at ELCA.org/gathering.

The ELCA Youth Gathering will be livestreaming (all times CDT):

  • MYLE worship: June 26 at 6:45 p.m.
  • The tAble worship: June 27 at 10 a.m.
  • Daily Bible studies: June 27-30 at 3:30 p.m.
  • Mass Gatherings: June 27-30 at 7:30 p.m.
  • Sunday morning worship: July 1 at 10 a.m.

We know the truth

In her June column for Living Lutheran, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton compares her father’s experience following the war to that of African American soldiers. And knowing the truth of such realities, she writes, means “we have to do something about it.” Read her column in English at https://bit.ly/2LuPDjK and in Spanish at https://bit.ly/2xUFYBb.

Supporting Mosaic

1) Mosaic in Dallas is looking for a full-time Executive Director. Maybe you are qualified, or you know someone?

2) Please consider holding a Christmas in July supply drive in your office, place of worship, or just as an individual. Their needs are great, and your support will make a REAL DIFFERENCE in the lives of those they support! For more information, please contact Mosaic directly at 972-866-9989.

3) Mosaic offers confidential and cost-effective Document Destruction Services.

Mosaic in Dallas Document Destruction, located in Carrollton Texas, offers shredding services with free pick up and free delivery within 25 miles of our location. We use high-end cross cutting shredding equipment. We are bonded and confidentiality is guaranteed. Destruction is done at the Mosaic secured site.

Our business stands out from all the rest; we provide employment and a life of possibilities for people with intellectual disabilities. We help provide paid work to individuals at all skill levels, while helping them build self-esteem for a meaningful life.

Mosaic Dallas Document Destruction has received the US Chamber of Commerce Blue Ribbon Small Business Award. Mosaic has demonstrated an outstanding achievement in promoting community excellence, which is only one reason for receiving this award.

Featured Resources for June

Juneteenth and our Shared Humanity

From The Atlantic article, The Quintessential Americanness of Juneteenth: The most famous Emancipation holiday is more necessary now than it has ever been:

The second-most famous Juneteenth celebration came in 1968, just months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and during the disintegration of the remnants of what could properly be called the Civil-Rights Movement. The holiday exists as a national rather than a local Texan phenomenon today partly because of the decision by King’s associate Ralph Abernathy and widow Coretta Scott King to cut short the posthumous Poor People’s March on June 19 and commemorate it with Juneteenth celebrations. The holiday dispersed through the post-Great Migration black American diaspora as a sort of homegoing for King and the other lives lost to insurgent white supremacist violence. And like many black homegoings, it found a way to fuse sorrow and jubilation. What Abernathy and Coretta Scott King knew was that fusion was the only way to continue the work without breaking.

In the spirit of that 1968 observance, it is clear that now more than ever Juneteenth is a necessary cornerstone of the American tradition, and a worthy public holiday today. It is worthy because of the dizzying contradiction at its core—and all American holidays have at least a touch of contradiction. It is both a second Independence Day and a reminder of ongoing oppression and continuing forms of stricture. It is a memorial to the dead and a remonstrance to those who killed them. It is a clear articulation of the fact that America can never be free until her people are free, and a celebration of the people who have worked to make it so. Juneteenth is the purest distillation of the evils that still plague America, and a celebration of the good people who fought those evils. It is tragedy and comedy, hope and setbacks.

As a national holiday, Juneteenth, immersed as it is both in the canon of old history and in the ongoing struggle for civil rights, would be the only one that celebrates liberty in America as it actually is: delayed.

To learn more of our shared history, please read this History.com article, What Is Juneteenth?, and this PBS.org article from their African American History Blog, What Is Juneteenth? You can also learn more from this SmithsonianMag.com article, Juneteenth: Our Other Independence Day.

Living Lutheran tapped The Rev. Dr. Martin Otto Zimmann to write a series of articles to help us understand and begin to shift our world toward real and authentic love for our neighbor. He is adjunct professor of church and society at United Lutheran Seminary, Gettysburg campus, and holds a Ph.D. in American culture studies. Please take the time to read and pray on these important lessons for us all.

Perspective: When a white man teaches about white fragility (part 1 of 6)

Perspective: The Jefferson litmus test—a cautionary tale in white fragility (part 2 of 6)

Perspective: Youth lead the way in discussing white privilege (part 3 of 6)

Perspective: The strange fruit of Good Friday (part 4 of 6)

Perspective: Yearning for reconciliation is not enough (part 5 of 6)

Perspective: The neighbor we’ve ignored for too long (part 6 of 6)

While God has called and continues to call women of color as leaders in this church, their ministry experiences have often been met with challenges. This Living Lutheran cover story, Called and chosen, shares eight excerpts from “God’s Faithfulness on the Journey,” the ELCA rostered women of color project. The project presents contributors’ stories in their own voices, helping break the silence and celebrate women of color in this church.

We are called to be a publicly engaged church. Download sign templates used at the April rally against racism in D.C. with the National Council of Churches.

Thoughts + prayers + ACTION | Freed in Christ for racial justice

Do right, seek justice, defend the oppressed. – Isaiah 1:17

Save the Date

Annual Women’s & Girl’s Retreat

Saturday, August 11, 2018

Location TBA

Hosted by the Women of the ELCA, Our Redeemer, Grand Prairie

Recent Blog Posts

Bishop Gronberg:

Keeping Families Together, Giving Work to Congress, and Executive Action

(https://www.ntnl.org/keeping-families-together-giving-work-to-congress-executive-action/ – published Jun. 20)

Pr. Totzke:

Revisiting my own history

(https://www.ntnl.org/revisiting-my-own-history/ – published Jun. 18)

Pra. Bañales:

Interfaith Prayer Service for the Children, June 21, at University Christian Church, Ft Worth

(https://www.ntnl.org/interfaith-prayer-service-for-the-children-june-21-at-university-christian-church-ft-worth/ – published Jun. 23)

Where in the world is?

Bishop Gronberg:

Pr. Totzke:

Pra. Bañales:

  • Jun. 26: Meetings at St. Luke’s, Richardson
  • Jul. 1: Community of Hope, Ft. Worth

Upcoming Events

Access our full online Calendar here. Updates made regularly.

Do you have news or announcements to share? Please submit to the Synod office (office@ntnl.org) for consideration for upcoming NT-NL News.