The Rev. Joseph Brown, Sr. is Presiding Elder, African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. He is a former Council president and a past recipient of the Council’s Distinguished Service Award. Rev. Brown is based in Fayetteville.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:31 — 12.4MB) May 14th, 2013 |  Topics: economic justice, good government, public education, race/ethnicity, religion and society, state budget, tax fairness, worship |  Category: Blog, Podcasts, Sermons |  Leave a comment 
Rev. Michael Kinnamon (School of Theology and Ministry, Seattle University) Where does this leave us today? How can the ecumenical impulse be revitalized in such an era as ours? The answer to this may be suggested in the distinction between optimism and hope. Optimism involves the expectation of a better future based on a reading of present circumstances; hope involves the trustful anticipation of genuine newness, perhaps beyond our imagining, based on the promises of God. [...]Continue reading The Ecumenical Journey 
It has been a difficult week for anyone who lives from a place of compassion. For people of faith who believe in a kind and loving God and who may recently have celebrated the resurrection of the Prince of Peace, the tragedies have seemed endless. Horror in Boston, devastation in Texas, decisions around gun violence grounded in elections rather than protection and made blasphemously in the shadow of the sixth anniversary of the massacre at [...] Continue reading Believing in Goodness and Mercy After a Very Hard Week April 19th, 2013 | Topics: children & youth, christian unity, civil discourse, civil liberties, good government, gun violence, opinion, peace, prophetic voice, religion and society, worship | Category: Blog | Leave a comment 
Sojo.net Jesus was a peacemaking, blessed child of God, but he also was an “other.” Reviled and persecuted, he was the paperless son of displaced immigrant parents. The prophetic iconoclast. That guy who hung out with those people, the type most modern leaders would not associate with, except for a photo opportunity at a Thanksgiving Day soup kitchen. Let us remember on Sunday when we celebrate his resurrection, that Jesus was crucified because he was an outsider whose way of doing things scared and angered the powers-that-be. [...]Continue reading Preparing the Way: Blessed are the Peacemakers March 26th, 2013 | Topics: christian unity, civil discourse, interfaith, peace, people with disabilities, prophetic voice, religion and society, worship | Category: In the Media | Leave a comment
From the Easter Sunday chapter of Preparing the Way: A Social Justice Study for Lent. We’re offering this free resource to you and your congregation as we walk through the season of Lent together. Download the full PDF here. Scripture: Matthew 5:9-12 (NRSV) “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people revile [...] Continue reading Preparing the Way: Blessed Are the Peacemakers
From the Palm Sunday chapter of Preparing the Way: A Social Justice Study for Lent. We’re offering this free resource to you and your congregation as we walk through the season of Lent together. Download the full PDF here. Scripture: Matthew 21:1-11 (NRSV) And when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, to the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will [...] Continue reading Preparing the Way: The Price of Faithfulness March 15th, 2013 | Topics: gun violence, lent, religion and society, worship | Category: Blog | Leave a comment
If ending gun violence were easy, nightmares like Sandy Hook would never happen. Young lives would not end on urban streets in a hail of bullets. We wouldn’t need to parse the difference between automatic and semi-automatic. Just as taking away guns does not inherently make us safe from harm, we need to move beyond the lie that minimal regulation of those guns makes us any safer either. Some leaders in North Carolina seem more threatened by [...] Continue reading National Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath — March 15-17 March 12th, 2013 | Topics: children & youth, christian unity, civil discourse, civil liberties, domestic violence, good government, gun violence, interfaith, peace, prophetic voice, religion and society, worship | Category: Blog | One comment
From Chapter 5 of Preparing the Way: A Social Justice Study for Lent. We’re offering this free resource to you and your congregation as we walk through the season of Lent together. Download the full PDF here. Scripture: Deuteronomy 24:14-15 (NRSV) You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether other Israelites or aliens who reside in your land in one of your towns. You shall pay them their wages daily before sunset, because they [...] Continue reading Preparing the Way: Let the Oppressed Go Free
From Chapter 4 of Preparing the Way: A Social Justice Study for Lent. We’re offering this free resource to you and your congregation as we walk through the season of Lent together. Download the full PDF here. Scripture: Matthew 7:9-10 (NRSV) “Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake?” Social Justice Reflection Obesity attracts a lot [...] Continue reading Preparing the Way: Nourishing God’s Children, Body and Soul
From Chapter 3 of Preparing the Way: A Social Justice Study for Lent. We’re offering this free resource to you and your congregation as we walk through the season of Lent together. Download the full PDF here. Scripture: Luke 10:25-37 (NRSV) Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus… [And] wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into [...] Continue reading Preparing the Way: Who Is Our Neighbor? 
Click here for a free PDF download of Sí, se puede: Celebrating Holy Week & National Farmworker Awareness Week (PDF, 5Mb). Holy Week this year is also National Farmworker Awareness Week (March 24-31). It seems like no accident that the week in which we celebrate Jesus’ service and sacrifice for humanity is the same week that we celebrate the extraordinary gifts that farmworkers offer to our communities. It’s a time when we both remember and look for [...] Continue reading Sí, se puede: Celebrating Holy Week & National Farmworker Awareness Week March 1st, 2013 | Topics: farmworkers, food, immigration, lent, worship | Category: Blog, Resources | Leave a comment 
Our friends at People of Faith Against the Death Penalty have provided a bulletin insert for churches interested in helping work to repeal the death penalty. PFADP, which began as a program of the Council, has been a leader in this movement. There has not been an execution in North Carolina since 2006, and leadership by organizations like People of Faith has been instrumental. Now, with efforts to repeal the Racial Justice Act underway, it is [...] Continue reading Bulletin Insert from PFADP February 21st, 2013 | Topics: death penalty, equality & reconciliation, human rights, interfaith, prophetic voice, race/ethnicity, worship | Category: Blog | Leave a comment
From Chapter 2 of Preparing the Way: A Social Justice Study for Lent. We’re offering this free resource to you and your congregation as we walk through the season of Lent together. Download the full PDF here. Scripture: Psalm 103: 8-14 (NAB) Merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger, abounding in kindness. God does not always rebuke, nurses no lasting anger, has not dealt with us as our sins merit, nor requited us as our [...] Continue reading Preparing the Way: Caring for Creation – A Lenten “Carbon Fast” 
If you haven’t discovered The Green Bible yet, you are in for a joyous surprise. This 2008 edition of the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible is made unique by its emphasis on ecological and environmental themes. Using the technique we all remember from the red letter versions of the King James translation, The Green Bible editors have made green all the verses in the Old and New Testaments which pertain to the Earth, [...] Continue reading The Green Bible is a Must Read February 17th, 2013 | Topics: environment, fracking, religion and society, worship | Category: Blog | 2 comments 
From Acts of Faith: Free Lectionary Resources for Prophetic Worship Date: 4th Sunday in Lent – March 10, 2013Topic: Celebrating Abrahamic Faiths Focus Text: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 From the pastoral reflection: “Nadia dramatically called us into the reality of her life and away from our being disengaged onlookers. Angrily, she described the early morning hours onslaught as she, her husband, and three little children huddled on their bedroom floor, bullets ricocheting around the room for half an hour. They assumed they would die in the hail of gunfire. But surviving the experience, the family began cleaning up their devastated home and quickly recognized the telltale imprint of American military hardware: spent shells that they knew came from American-made equipment.” [...] Continue reading Lectionary: Celebrating Abrahamic Faiths (4th Sunday in Lent) February 17th, 2013 | Topics: interfaith, lent, peace, worship | Category: Blog, Lectionary | Leave a comment |
|
|
Copyright © 2013 NC Council of Churches - All Rights Reserved 27 Horne St., Raleigh, NC 27607 | 919.828.6501 | info@ncchurches.org Website by Tomatillo Design | Proudly hosted by WP Engine |
|