| Suicide Prevention Resources and World Immunization Week
NCC Newsletter April 29, 2022 |
| | | | | As the NCC Governing Board and staff will be gathering in Montgomery, Alabama for a special meeting next week, the NCC offices will be closed from Friday, April 29th through Friday, May 6th and the NCC will not be publishing a newsletter next Friday.
After visiting the National Museum for Peace and Justice and its Legacy Museum, our Governing Board and staff will participate in facilitated discussions led by Dr. David Anderson Hooker. Dr. Hooker is the Founder and Principle Narrator for CounterStories Consulting, LLC, which "engages as a conversation and visioning partner with international, national, and local civil society organizations and religious groups to craft narratives of their preferred futures and align organizational structures and internal practices in furtherance of their constructed narratives."
These discussions are intended to create an environment in which the Governing Board can have candid and meaningful conversations about race and the impact of race on how Board members work together and relate to one another. The conversations will help to lay a foundation for deepened ties and will include discussion about how to create on-going relationship-building practices into the Board structure.
This programming will build upon NCC’s current priority, the “A.C.T. NOW to End Racism” initiative started in 2018. Vital communities - that experience a depth of relationship with God - cannot grow and thrive without doing the hard work of acknowledging, and working to end, the damage done by systemic racism. |
| | New NCC Resource: A Christian Approach to Suicide Prevention
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| | According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, on average there are 130 suicides per day in the United States. Churches can offer support and care for community members impacted by suicide.
The NCC's new resource sheet provides several trainings and resources that have been specifically created for people of faith. These resources can help clergy and lay leaders provide care, assistance, and hope for those who may be considering suicide.
Trainings can help ministers recognize signs of suicide risk, comfort those who experience suicide loss, and integrate strategies for suicide prevention into the life and ministry of local congregations and faith communities. |
| | | WISC Meets with the Cuban Ambassador and Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs |
| | | Photo Caption: NCC Chief Operating Officer Rev. Dr. Leslie Copeland-Tune joined faith partners from the Cuba Working Group of the Washington Interfaith Staff Community (WISC) last week for a dinner with Cuban Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera and Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs Carlos Fernandez de Cosio Dominguez. Conversation centered around the role of the faith community in the ongoing work and support for U.S.-Cuba relations. |
| | | Watch "Housing, Land, and Debt" |
| | This month's Reparatory Justice webinar on "Housing, Land, and Debt" features:
- A Welcome from Rev. Sekinah Hamlin (Moderator), Minister for Economic Justice at the United Church of Christ, National Ministries;
- Prayer and Theological Premise from Pastor Alexander Clemetson of the United Methodist Church and Executive Director and Founder of Together We Compost;
- A Presentation on Pigford Legacy Farmers, land debt cancellation, the plantation economy, and the USDA’s history of discrimination by Attorney Tracy Lloyd McCurty, Esq., Executive Director of Black Belt Justice Center and Co-Alchemist of the Acres of Ancestry Initiative/Black Agrarian Fund; and
- A Closing Prayer by Rev. Antonia Coleman, Program Coordinator, The Center for Reparatory Justice, Transformation, and Remediation at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference.
Information referenced during the webinar: |
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This week from April 24 - 30, 2022, the NCC joins with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in celebrating the World Health Organization's "World Immunization Week 2022." Always celebrated in the last week of April, World Immunization Week aims to highlight actions that promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. WHO works with countries across the globe to raise awareness of the value of vaccines and immunization in the hope that more people will be protected from vaccine-preventable diseases.
This year's theme, "Long Life for All," highlights how vaccines have saved more lives than any other invention in human history. The NCC joins in acknowledging the enormous number of people who have made this remarkable accomplishment possible by sharing "A love letter to those who have made vaccines possible." Each day, many people go "above and beyond" to protect children with vaccines, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, have gone to great lengths to get people vaccinated around the world. World Immunization Week is a time set aside to say a "big thank you."
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| | | | | COVID-19 Pandemic Response: Keeping the Circle Strong |
| | Spread the word about the "Keeping the Circle Strong: We Can Do This Indian Country" virtual event on Saturday, April 30, 2022 at 12 p.m. Pacific Time. Tribal community members and health experts will talk about COVID in Indian Country, the vaccines, and boosters. The event can be watched live on Facebook. No registration is necessary. |
| | | Letter to President and Congress on Poverty Priorities |
| | The NCC has joined a Circle of Protection letter to President Joseph Biden and the US Congress asking them to do more to provide help and opportunity to people in poverty. The priorities in the letter include supplemental funding for ongoing management of the COVID 19 pandemic, international aid discussed in connection with the COVID package, and the immediate supplemental funding for humanitarian assistance for those suffering from conflict and hunger.
The letter highlights a few provisions considered especially important including restoring improvements in the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, universal pre-kindergarten, affordable childcare, closing the Medicaid coverage gap, affordable/fair housing, the protection of voter rights, and the prevention of election results being nullified by partisans at the state level or when Congress counts electoral college votes.
To sustainably fund these initiatives while also reducing our budget deficits, the members of the Circle of Protection support tax increases for corporations and high-income people as "this makes sense in view of the extreme inequality of our country and would allow for deficit reduction in response to inflation." The group's unanimity on this controversial point is "grounded in the understanding that God calls us to practice mutual generosity so that all may have enough for their daily needs (as St. Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 8:9, 13-1)." |
| | | | | Worship resources for Ecumenical Advocacy Days (EAD) 2022 “Fierce Urgency: Advancing Civil and Human Rights” are available for local congregations, small groups, and worshipping communities to prepare hearts and minds to address civil and human rights.
All worship resources, including the full recording of the EAD Worship Service, Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III’s sermon, and the worship bulletin are now available.
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| | You Can Still Make an EAD Worship Service Offering |
| You can still make a difference by contributing to this year's Ecumenical Advocacy Day's offering which will be split between Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute and International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines Global (sponsored by the United Church of Canada). Learn more about the transformative work of these organizations at the offering link.
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| | | | This evening, April 29, 2022 at 5pm PT (8pm ET), FACE President & CEO, Rev. Hyepin Im, will be a featured on a panel of Black and AAPI faith leaders, hosted by the Asian American Christian Coalition (AACC), to reflect on the LA Riots in the wake of its 30th anniversary. Rev. Im was a panelist for our WCC North American Women's Team Visit held last month.
In addition to Rev. Im, speakers will include Rev. Dr. Mark Whitlock, Dr. Alexander Jun, and Dr. Leon Harris. The session will be moderated by Pastor Raymond Chang.
The panel can be viewed live on Youtube using the link below.
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| | Job Listings
Communications Manager for Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC) - to help expand BJC’s audience and inspire its supporters to take action to advance faith freedom for all. Full job description |
| | | | Here's this week's faith-related Wordle! We've customized the game solutions to be religion-based each Friday.
If you have never played, click on the "Play" button and you will be able to find instructions by clicking the "i" for information.
Please share this newsletter with your friends, family, and faith community members who may enjoy completing these special Wordles! |
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If you find our newsletter informative, please forward it to friends and colleagues!
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Your gifts helps us build a more just and equitable community that chooses grace over greed, love over hate, and faith over fear.
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