Baltimore Interfaith Coalition - Declaration Against Violence

On Thursday, May 27 about 50 religious and community leaders representing the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition gathered at the New Huntington Baptist Church to unveil the group’s Declaration Against Violence and launched a “Fifth Sunday: Violence to Virtue” program.

The declaration was another bold step by the coalition, which was formed in 2009, and seeks to address the "culture of violence" in Baltimore. The declaration looks to shake up the status quo in Baltimore, which the coalition said has “become ensnared in a covenant with death.”

“The evil inflicted upon our community can be overcome by the faith, morality and spiritual vision that are our heritage to be reclaimed,” the declaration said. “The time has come for a renewed effort to recognize the truth of our situation, to be brutally honest in studying its causes, and to forge a new community-wide commitment to a more creative and effective response.”

For more information on the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition, visit the website at www.baltimoreinterfaithcoalition.com/.

The goal of the “Fifth Sunday” program is to partner faith communities with the state’s attorney’s office to stress the importance of values in teaching children how to build community.

Churches, synagogues and mosques across the city are asked to collect funds at each fifth Sunday service of a month, which occurs four times this year. The money will support youth-oriented activities in partneship with the state’s attorney’s Office of Juvenile Justice forums.

For more information on the Baltimore Interfaith Coalition, visit the website at www.baltimoreinterfaithcoalition.com/.

Baltimore Summit on the City

On Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at Grace United Methodist Church in Baltimore, more than 70 clergy and laity from churches in the city gathered for the first Baltimore Summit on the City. We gathered to worship and to share information on the state of the 46 United Methodist Churches in Baltimore, and look at where we are going over the next few years. These are exciting times as we continue to explore ways to transform churches and communities across the city.

Toward these ends, at the Summit we shared that since 2008 through Hope for the City, the strategic initiative for ministry in Baltimore, some of what has been accomplished is the establishment 9 new Communities of Shalom in the city, the initiation of Camp Life to offer support to youth affected by violence in the city, and launching of It Takes A Village, designed to help persons in churches more effectively partner with the schools in their communities.

Indeed these are hopeful times, and we look forward to what God will continue to do in our midst.

Arizona and Immigration - A Personal Account

I beleive that I'm not alone in that myy first reading of the recent signing of legislation by the Governor of Arizona which targets and profiles immigrants in that state, and seems to threaten the freedom of many law abiding persons. I received word a few days ago that one of my nieces – a U.S. citizen, born, raised and educated as a part of a a multicultural American family, and traveling “legally” to and from Guatemala for her job, upon returning was retained for a very long period of time in an airport Arizona – apparently because she looked like an “immigrant.”

The fact of the matter is that we should all be reminded that that there are very few of us in America - other than our Native American sisters adn brothers - who don't have family root's planted in another land. We are all - in some way - sojourners.

I pray that as we think and talk about persons who are so-called "illegal" or "undocumented", we realize that we are all affected by the strictures that we as a society place on one another.

Common Ground - Tackling Homelessness

This week, I had the opportunity to travel with a group of colleagues to New York City to visit two sites that the orgainzation Common Ground is using to provide transitional and peramnent housing for homeless persons in that city. We learned that more than 120,000 persons continue to be homeless across the nation. It's interesting to note that although many of these persons are in cities, many are also in what would be considered suburban areas. Common Ground's apporach to addrssing the problem of homelessness is unique in that the focus is not on providng temporary shelter, but on moving the most cronically homeless toward more permament dwelling and self-sufficiency. I, and many of my colleagues, left New York excited about this appooach and hopeful that it might be replcated in Baltmore. For more information on Common Ground, go to www.commonground.org.