St. Mark's mission is to be a beacon of racial justice and compassion. We celebrate each of the heritage month and provide educational opportunities and activities to further our mission.
Learn more about how you can stand against racism below.
Vision Statement
St. Mark’s is a beacon of racial justice and compassion.
Mission Statement
To open our hearts and minds to listen, learn and take actions to foster racial justice and social equity.
Monthly Devotional
How can we speak of racial healing without understanding the fullness of the injury and depth of the wound? Jim Crow laws and discrimination lasted through the 1960s. Many of our Black elders experienced the pain and injustice
of Jim Crow. During this time the threat of lynching was ever present. Jim Crow
segregation didn’t just mean separate schools. It meant Black kids couldn’t swim in the public pool. It meant Black people entered the back door at the doctors’ office and sat all day with a sick child until every white patient had been served. It meant Black people couldn’t work on a sales floor serving white customers. It meant separate bathrooms, hotels, water fountains and so much more.
So let us be humble and listen to the pain, rage, and grief pouring from the lips of our black brothers and sisters. Let us hear the fears of being Black in America
today. Let us sit with a gay man who is afraid of deportation when being gay is a
death sentence in his African homeland. Or a woman afraid being deported to
Haiti due to false claims that she was eating pets. Let us mourn with the parents
of a black teenager who was killed at the hands of police. Let us weep over our
criminal justice system, which is neither blind or just. Let us understand how
voter suppression and gerrymandering create unequal representation.
How can we speak of racial healing when so much injury continues today and the wound deepens? Can we be a ray of light for one child, one teenager, one man or one woman? Can we use our voice and our vote to fight for racial justice?
Let us pray:
Lord, we stand firmly on the ground with our eyes fixed on you. We confess that
at times we have closed our eyes and turned away so we didn’t see racial
discrimination. Therefore we have not followed Wesley’s rule to ‘do no harm’.
Help us to listen and learn the truth about our past. Help us to repent, to turn
back, to keep our eyes open to see racial discrimination. Help us to use our
hands, our feet, and our voices to create racial justice. Thereby following Wesley’s rule to ‘do good’. We pray that justice will roll down like water allowing healing to begin. In your name we pray,
Amen
Our initial focus as a church is deepening our understanding through education.
Current classes available here.
Statement on Racial Justice from the United Methodist Church Constitution (Article V):
The United Methodist Church proclaims the value of each person as a unique child of God and commits itself to the healing and wholeness of all persons. The United Methodist Church recognizes that the sin of racism has been destructive to its unity throughout its history. Racism continues to cause painful division and marginalization. The United Methodist Church shall confront and seek to eliminate racism, whether in organizations or in individuals, in every facet of its life and in society at large. The United Methodist Church shall work collaboratively with others to address concerns that threaten the cause of racial justice at all times and in all places.