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Congregational Reflections on Anti-racism Work

The Race and Social Justice Formation Committee is asking for your help to discern how the diocese can better support anti-racism work in our churches.

As part of our commitment to our mission strategy priority of Racial Reckoning, Justice and Healing, we are asking every congregation to share its wisdom, what works and what doesn’t, and how anti-racism work has impacted the congregation overall. Your answers also serve as an inspiration to other congregations and a way to share your learnings beyond your church walls.

We anticipate the following reflection questions will take a maximum of 30 minutes to answer.

Here are some tips for reflecting on the questions.
  • Please answer all of the questions. If you have not done any activities this year, that’s okay! Just let us know so we don’t keep emailing you to take the survey.
  • Think fully about all aspects of your parish life, including worship, formation and any community activities with which you’re involved. Please check with the leaders of all ministries to gather information that might be useful.
  • Focus on activities that lead to understanding racism in our society, even if that is not the primary focus of the activity.
  • Consider all outreach activities and how they might function to dismantle racist structures. Do they make you more aware of greater prevalence of poverty among people of color and why that might be? Do you have conversations with the people you encounter in your outreach work that help you understand how racism might have impacted their lives? If you are in an historically white congregation, can you think of your activities as a way of atoning or making restitution for the ways that your congregation or your community have been part of maintaining racist structures?
  • Feel free to say more about the impact that your activities have had on your congregational community.
Questions? Sue Guptill (sueguptill@icloud.com) and Lew Myers (lewmyers@aol.com) would be glad to connect with you.
1.Congregation name and city(Required.)
2.Your name(Required.)
3.Your role in the congregation(Required.)
4.Does your church or community have a Racial Justice and Reconciliation or similar committee?(Required.)
5.Describe any activities, including work on understanding the racial history of your church and community, that your organization undertakes.
6.How do the work and activities you described reflect your church or community’s sense of discipleship?

One definition of discipleship is "A disciple knows, loves and follows Jesus with joy and works, in community and with God’s help, to build the Kingdom of God." Examples might include:
  • Holding listening sessions to record the oral history of our church enabled people to share their experiences of faith and to inspire the next generation to be fearless truth tellers.
  • Sharing our journeys of faith has helped us to know, love, and follow Jesus.
7.Of the activities that you described, what worked and what did not work?
8.Describe how your church or community has made use of diocesan resources for racial reckoning, justice and healing, if applicable.
9.What help and support from the diocese would help you in your anti-racism work?
10.Please share any plans for anti-racism activities in 2026.