This small group study concluded Summer 2022. Please follow the links for the resource packet and videos.
The title of this study guide is "Now Is the Time." Now is the time for white members of the ELCA to face their own resistance and fear. Now is the time to name uncomfortable truths. Now is the time to let go of guilt and embrace responsibility. Now is the time to uncover silence and complicity. Now is the time to acknowledge the depths of systemic racism and white supremacist culture and thinking. Now is the time to recognize how our lives and history are interwoven and how white lives also cry out for liberation from the demeaning impact of racism. Now is the time for repentance, and the time to trust God’s liberating grace, which gives us courage to face an uncomfortable past and walk boldly into a new future of racial justice and reconciliation, and of structural change.
The primary audience for this study guide is the majority-white membership of the ELCA. “Declaration of the ELCA to People of African Descent” is an acknowledgment of the church’s complicity in slavery and the perpetuation of systemic racism. The study guide focuses on deepening understanding of that history and engaging white people in conversation on the meaning and impact of slavery and systemic racism. Racism is a white problem and requires white understanding and responsibility to effect change within white communities.
Throughout this study, we reflect on the different sections of the study guide and reflect on videos created by young adult BIPOC leaders in our church. The five-part study resource, with a guide and participant materials, is available here. Our small group leaders have been trained on this resource.
