Your Black Bloggers The official gathering spot for black bloggers
I’ve been in New York at The Riverside Church now for about five months, trying to learn the ropes in a beautiful, amazing congregation with such an incredible history.
The adjustment has been exciting and, if I’m being honest, deeply terrifying on some levels. Standing in the pulpit where voices like Martin Luther King, Jr.; William Sloan Coffin, James Forbes — not to mention luminaries like Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama have spoken — it’s daunting to say the least.
So I’ve been adjusting this fall, trying to get to know the incredible people and traditions of this great institution. And I was working pretty steadily toward that end until a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri decided there would be no trial for officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed 18 year old Michael Brown.
Everything began to change for me in that moment, because the day-to-day work of the pastorate became increasingly overshadowed by those questions of institutional integrity and relevance that we’re all asking and have been asking for some time. Is there a future for the church?
As I saw the tears and pain, grief and hopelessness of my congregation and community in response to events on the news, I kept being reminded: this is not a theoretical question anymore.
