Assignment | Lesson 3 | Community Strategies on Justice and Inclusion

TEST

Reading through this week’s articles, I found the Oakland Peace Center and other articles spoke to the way I view church in First Christian Church Chico. There are community programs that use our facilities and our staff to further the work they are doing in the community. I asked in last week’s post “how do we bring diverse voices to the table”, and I can see some tangible options here, including providing community groups the space and resources to thrive in our community, to network with others, and to grow their individual and collective goals for the broader community. 

The “ABCD” development model is very interesting to our church in Chico. For the past year or so, we have been working on doing shared ministry with First Baptist Church of Chico, and we have been having lots of conversations about the assets that are our strengths, the opportunities we see to serve, and connecting with other groups that may benefit from the assets we have. We originally started these conversations about our shared ministry, but it has slowly morphed into ideas and visions of new community programs and spaces within the church that could serve as a “community center.” The area that may be missing for us so far is that these conversations have been “internal” so far (between our two congregations), so building relationships with the community and asking them what they would like to see or have value in would grow this perspective.

Our church is very engaged in “service” work. This month I’ve really had my eyes opened to the differences between “service/mercy” and “justice.” Our church has historically been very involved in meeting people’s needs, like serving meals, filling food pantries; but I’d like to give some thought to how we can help change the systemic barriers these communities face. I would like to take these conversations to my congregation and talk about ways that our current efforts might intertwine “justice work.” Our most recent sermon series has been on “What Disciples Do,” which has included lessons about humility, prayer, generosity, and service. I would add that Isaiah 1:17 tells us to “learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause.” Disciples seek and work towards justice.

These articles reminded me of the makeup of the first church(es). Living in community, sharing and being in unity, not uniformity, while learning and engaging in social services. All things we hope and believe churches are. While my own church context does its best to center our mission on community and participation in community justice issues. The reason we can do is because of what was reflected in many of these articles, the sharing of stories. These stories, along with scripture, take center stage to show biblical relevance and guide the congregation to participate in and be a community.

Participatory democracy is a valuable tool that I hope to learn more on and incorporate as we begin to build relationships with community leaders and organizers. My church’s leaders/pastors do their best to create this type of leadership style. We do our best to make time for storytelling and sharing the current and future needs of the church and the surrounding areas. Because of my particular context, we have found that it takes some time to create a safe space and encouragement for people to know that their whole selves will be heard and seen.

I hope to be able to bring in more of the pointing out “how God is working, even within the complexity of our most difficult issues”. This is something I feel we have a lot to work on. Although we do talk about difficult and current issues, many of which my context faces on a daily basis, when we really get into the others, many folks don’t really seem to listen. They hear it, but don’t fully take it in. There is a lot of purple among our space, and although that can be” ok” from the political point of view, it’s not ok when it goes against what we say we (Jesus’)stand for.

While reading the questions for this assignment after watching the videos and reading the articles, I was faced with the dilemma of answering the safe way, which would be to talk about the work my church (First Christian Church of North Hollywood) does with the North Hollywood Interfaith Food Pantry and our Human Needs committee, but I don’t think that it would serve the biggest challenge that I see in my congregation. My church does great, work. It does amazing work. Sometimes I feel that we rest on that and it holds us back from even more important work that has to be done.

I loved all the tools that Sandhya touched on in their video. I think that in some cases we could use all of them in different ways. What struck me though is that after I read the articles, I realized that we need to start with the conversations first. If we can’t have the difficult conversations about things, then we can’t really determine the true needs in our community. I believe that starting from there, and moving into the one to one conversations, the participatory democracy and the ABCD could all work in tandem.

This month’s content brought into focus for me the need to amplify our individual gifts to come together in our justice work. We are all part of it in our own ways, just as we as the Body of Christ. No one is greater than the other and we need our different skills, talents, and gifts from God to make it all happen. I needed this reminder as I seem to look at what others are doing and feel that I’m always not doing enough in comparison.

 Sylvia Figueroa

11/15/2025

1)One of the article’s main themes is hospitality, at First Christian Church of Ontario, despite of having a small group we greet newcomers warmly, making space for diverse backgrounds, and affirm that we want them there give them a sense of feeling that they belong. We always invite them to have coffee after service. My church has incorporated different music genres, inviting guest speakers from varied backgrounds, and rotating leadership roles.

2) I appreciate all the tools Sandhya shared in their video and see how each could benefit in so many ways . Still, after reading the articles, I realized we need to begin with open, honest conversations. Without these, we can’t truly understand our community’s needs. I remember when I first started going they made me feel soo welcomed even just by knowing my name, felt amazing.

3) Here’s what I want to bring from this month’s content to my community, and here’s why theologically it makes sense in my context.

 What I would like to  month’s content is more so on invitations to show love and compassion  to others, particularly to those who might feel lost or a reminder that they matter.  Theologically , the call to compassion comes from scriptural teachings and the example shown by  leaders throughout history. For example, Jesus always reached out —whether they were the poor, the sick, or the socially outcast—demonstrating that love and mercy  is given to everyone!