Six online sessions between April 2024 and May 2025
Join a community of people from across the church who are exploring
anti-racist practices! Together, we’ll be drawing from some of the
themes of the book Wait—Is This Racist? A Guide to Becoming an Anti-Racist Church to explore very practical ways of co-creating
anti-racist congregations. Even though we will be basing some of the
conversation on Wait—Is This Racist? this will not be a book study!
Reading the book and using the provided assessments will be useful, but
it is the shared experiences of learning and implementation that are what
will change our communities.
This six-session series is offered
between April 2024 and May 2025. The online sessions are designed for
congregational teams (ideally three‒four people from each congregation)
whose communities of faith have already started the journey to becoming
an anti-racist church. It will be helpful, if possible, to ensure that
there is some racial diversity in your team.
As part of these
sessions, gather with other congregations to deepen anti-racist
awareness together. Engage in self-examination, explore practical ways
to deepen your anti-racist work, and accompany one another on your
journeys of learning and change. Communities of faith are invited to
commit people, time, and resources to co-create change in their midst.
Come prepared to work! There will be lots of support along the way.
Please
note that this is not a basic introduction to what racism is. It will
be important to have had some background to anti-racist engagement, such
as through The United Church’s racial justice education sessions. If
members of your team have not had a chance to complete these, some
background resources will be made available, so everyone is starting
with roughly the same understandings.
The sessions will be led by
General Council Office staff Beth Baskin and Adele Halliday. As part of
the first session, Kerry Connelly, the author of the book Wait—Is this Racist? will join us.
Tuition Fee
$49.99 for individual participants
$149.99 for teams of 3 or more -- includes 2 copies of the book
Come as a Team to Maximize the Impact in your Community of Faith
Sometimes, it can be hard to make change alone. Members of a small group, however, can work to bring about change together.
When
your community of faith brings a team of people to Co-creating
Anti-Racist Communities of Faith: A Learning Journey, you will learn
together how to have hard conversations and use solid assessments of
your ministries to create change together. You will create places of
support and accountability for work to happen as a group, in your
community of faith.
Schedule
(click each date to see the start times in each of Canada's time zones)
"Wait, Is This Racist?"
Kerry Connelly, the author of Wait—Is This Racist? A Guide to Becoming an Anti-Racist Church will join us for part of this session.
"Ministry beyond the adults in our spaces"
How do our buildings; grounds; and ministry with children, youth, and people beyond our doors reflect our relationship to this racist society?
"Ministry within our communities of faith"
Explore co-creating anti-racist communities in relation to worship, preaching, and pastoral care.
"Living into our anti-racism action plans"
During this session, we’ll take some time to write up our own church’s anti-racism action plans—or to revise already existing plans!
"Communities of practice: Co-creating anti-racist churches"
Delve more deeply into what an ongoing community of practice might be, what it might look like, and continued practical ways of co-creating anti-racist church
"Continuing our church’s anti-racism journeys"
How have you been living into your action plans? What challenges have you encountered? What successes and results are you celebrating?
