✨ A Message from Rev. Jermell Witherspoon ✨
We've Been Here Before + We Are Still Here
Beloved Community,
By now many of you have heard about the efforts to urge the Supreme Court to formally overturn the landmark ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. Some are shocked. Some are in disbelief. As a Black man, married to a man I love deeply, I am neither surprised nor numb, just painfully reminded that the bottom can always drop out when your humanity is still considered optional.
Dr. King told us: “A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And while some feel blindsided, many of us, especially those whose very identities have long been criminalized or politicized, have always known this moment could return. When hate is in the neighborhood, it eventually knocks on every door.
And still, I find hope.
I find hope in the fact that we have survived this before. The injustice embedded in our nation’s systems has never been hidden from the “least of these.” Yet through it all, we have remained. Through it all, we have organized. Through it all, we have LOVED.
This month, AllianceQ spent hours inside a youth detention center. I preached six services to over 75 young people, proclaiming PRIDE in the very face of shame. I reminded them + myself that my allegiance is not to systemic sin , it is to JUSTICE.
We owe it to them to keep showing up. Because the only way LGBTQIA+ kids, + especially Black, brown, trans, disabled, + undocumented queer youth, will survive and thrive, is if we keep speaking truth to power. If we keep building spaces of embodiment and belonging. Many of us may not live to see the promised land, but just like our ancestors, we labor so that the next generation will inherit something better.
I am grieving, yes. But I am not stopping.
Please don’t you stop either, beloved.
Our children depend on it.
With love, urgency, + hope,
Yours in community, Rev. Jermell Witherspoon, Executive Director
Beginning Wednesday, September 3, 2025, and for the following 24 weeks we will begin a new lecture study, “Great Figures of the New Testament”, taught by Professor Amy-Jill Levine.
Professor Levine teaches New Testament Studies at the Vanderbilt University Divinity School. These lectures are about the great figures in the earliest years of the church. The focus is on the Biblical historical context, with a detailed examination of key characters, their actions, and how historians, artists, and theologians have interpreted them over time.
The Wednesday Bible Study meets weekly via Zoom at 9:00 A.M. from September to June. A hyperlink is included in "The Sower" newsletter and emailed to participants. If you are interested in participating, please contact Vaughn Ouellette.
The Christian Temple Sunday morning Forum is one of our church programs that we have been doing for a very long time. I believe it was originally the, "Sunday Morning Adult Bible Study." During Rick Powell's ministry, because the gathering evolved into more than just a commentary study on the Biblical text, the name was changed to reflect the diversity of theological subjects and discussion topics to the "Forum." Traditionally, the Forum has been led/hosted by the Standing Pastor and/or an elder. Before COVID the Forum was an in-person study. After COVID and with the advent of Zoom, it moved online. The latest version of the Forum was hosted by Rev. Dr. Katie Callaway, using Zoom online, from 9 to 10 am, Sunday mornings. Historically, the topics for study/discussion have been selected by the pastor/host. However, now we have an opportunity to reconsider the format, and study and discussion topics for our new program year starting Sunday, September 7, 2025.
In the recent past, I have suggested to a number of participants several study books to consider, including a video study by Professor Amy-Jill Levine, who is a New Testament Scholar, on The Gospel of John: A Beginner's Guide to the Way, the Truth, and the Life; a study book by Rev. Terri Hord Owens, the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), "Staying at the Table - Being the Church we Saw we are;" or a study commentary on the one or more of the books in the New and/or Old Testament (the Bible). There are several books that Katie had planned for this year's Forum, "She Who Is - The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse by Elizabeth Johnson, and "Slow Church - Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus by C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison," that we can also consider. In past years, Joe Pettit hosted a special Advent study for the Forum, and we should consider doing it again this Advent season. Or we can do something else!
Now that COVID is no longer a threat, we should also consider in-person gatherings, Zoom meetings only, or a hybrid meeting with Zoom available for those participants who may not be able to attend in person. But we need to hear from you about these proposed changes.
However, for our first meeting on Sunday, September 7, from the feedback received, we feel the need for a discussion on all of the above, to establish a curriculum for at least through Advent, and to acquire the necessary study materials. Besides Joe and I hosting the Forum, because of our other responsibilities on Sunday mornings, we would like to hear who else may be interested in hosting one or more of the studies.
We have been given an opportunity to reshape the Forum to meet our spiritual development needs. What a gift!
I hope you will join Joe and I on Sunday morning, September 7, at 9 am on Zoom for this chance to shape the future of the Christian Temple Sunday morning Forum.
The weekly market is every Wednesday 9:00 am - 12:00 pm in lower parking lot.
