Sunday, June 13, 4 pm
First Church Front Lawn (Honduran food to go afterwards!)
There will be an opportunity for children to join Carolyn Ash and FamChY volunteers in the play yard.
None of us are free until all of us are free. This month’s Lawn Church takes place in the middle of LGBTQ Pride Month, and the week of Juneteenth, a commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States in 1865. As an Open and Affirming congregation that is committed to the work of Anti-racism, we seek to honor these complex histories and ongoing movements for liberation and justice in a way that feels fruitfully intersectional: moving through lament, music, prayer, art response, and call to action.
The history and legacy of LGBTQ Pride month is one of both celebration and protest. We celebrate being a church community that not only welcomes and affirms but centers and celebrates Queer voices. We lament ongoing disparities and horrors affecting folx across the LGBTQ+ community, like current attacks on trans rights in this country.
Juneteenth celebrates African American freedom, education, dignity, and achievement, while also calling for new liberation from the ongoing horrors of systemic racism and white supremacy in all of our society’s institutions, including the Church. After a year of even more extreme health and social disparities, with the COVID pandemic disproportionately affecting Black/Brown bodies and communities, alongside new national reckonings of longstanding racial terrorism of Black/Brown people at the hands of police — we recognize and lament that full freedom for African Americans (including equity, access and justice) is still very much unfinished.
Honoring a “both/and” Spirit of celebration and lament, repentance and reflection, we hope to make space for both pain and praise, moving through a time of commemoration, collective art response and call to personal and collective action.
To be involved in leadership for this worship event, please reach out to Revs. Kit or Kelly, or First Church leader Kara Korbel-Chinula.
*A note on masks:
As we await imminent new CA state guidelines, and in a spirit of abundant inclusivity and caution, we will continue to require masks, even outdoors, for now. In the interest of audibility and accessibility, your fully vaccinated worship leaders may remove masks while leading parts of the service – as always, please choose your distance according to your comfort levels. Thank you!