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Seeds July 2020

Good Soil Lutheran Ministries 20300 Hilliard Blvd.

Rocky River, OH 44116 440-331-1773

A Message from the Pastor

Kairos: The Opportune Time 2020 has been exceedingly difficult. With the arrival of July, I wish I could say, “Thank goodness it’s halfway over!” but unfortunately the coronavirus pandemic operates outside the boundaries of chronological time. The same can be said of a second pandemic we continue to face—the chronic disease of systemic racism. We live in tense, strange, unsettling, and uncertain times, but God has a solid track record of being visible and at work during times like these. In fact, it’s often said that the presence of Jesus is more strongly felt during times of pain, desperation, and need. What’s more, difficult times can also prove to be a fruitful backdrop for spiritual growth, even in the midst of hardship and discomfort. The way the New Testament speaks about time points to this idea. There are two Greek words for time: chronos and kairos. The former refers to chronological or sequential time, while the latter signifies a proper or appropriate time. Chronos is linear, while Kairos refers to the inbreaking of God—a holy, opportune time, often involving action or learning. Kairos shows up in a variety of places in the bible which gives speaks to its many layers of meaning:

Mark 1:14-15—Kairos is a time that requires a conversion from people. Luke 12:54-56—Kairos is extraordinary time, requiring interpretation. The capacity to read the signs of the times (Kairos) and respond appropriately is an act of faith.

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Luke 19:44—Kairos can be a dangerous time. It is critical to recognize it, for if you allow it to pass the loss will be immeasurable. There is a burden or responsibility tied up in the recognition of a Kairos moment. Romans 13:11-13—Kairos time is here. It calls for action, conversion and transformation—a change of life. 2 Corinthians 6:1-2—Kairos is not just crisis but opportunity and favor. God assists us in discerning the Kairos—a moment of grace.1

I would venture to say that we are in a Kairos moment. If so, how are we as God’s people responding to both pandemics in our midst? How is the church witnessing to God’s continued grace, love, and presence? How are we practicing gospel values—to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and love our neighbors as ourselves? And how are we following the biblical command to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God? One way we can respond is by continuing to educate ourselves as a predominantly white denomination about the ways in which the church (including us individually) contribute to and participate in systems of oppression (especially racial injustice) in our society. The Growth, Advocacy, and Evangelism team has taken this to heart and will be working on this together (more information about this in Amanda’s article later in the newsletter), and we invite the congregation into further conversation around these important issues as well. In the words of the ELCA’s social statement on race, ethnicity and culture, “Because of sin and indifference, intentional measures are necessary for vision to become reality.”2 We’ve included an appendix of resources accompanying this newsletter for exploration and further discussion—just one example of an “intentional measure” we can take. And we would welcome any additions to that resource list that you have found to be helpful in this holy work too! At the end of the day, we are on this journey—rising to the occasion of this Kairos moment—together. I’m so grateful for your partnership along the way. Thoughtfully and prayerfully, Pastor Marissa

1 Scripture passage examples adapted from: https://www.kairoscanada.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/KairosBibleStudy.pdf 2 ELCA Social Statement: “Freed in Christ: Race, Ethnicity, and Culture” (1993), page 5 https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/race_ethnicity_culture_statement.pdf

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“Gathering Again” Task Force Update from Alex Alusheff

Council has been working diligently to determine the best and safest way to resume in-person services at Good Soil. A task force has been formed to focus on developing written safety protocols for both indoor and outdoor worship. After much research, discussion, prayer, and discernment, Council has set a target date of August 2 to start outdoor in-person worship and a target date of October 4 for indoor in-person worship. That being said, please keep in mind that these target dates are subject to change depending on the activity of COVID-19 in our area. We will continue to monitor this activity and adjust our gathering plans as needed. The task force is meeting on July 8 with the goal of finalizing both indoor and outdoor protocols and will present them at the next special council meeting on July 14. Once finished and adopted, they will be emailed and distributed to everyone so we can worship safely together . . . something all of us are looking forward to! Live streaming and FM transmitting Sunday services will continue during the transition to in-person worship and hopefully into the future as well. Council is committed to upgrading the quality of both formats. Making sure you feel safe to return to worship is important to us. We will continue to update you on Council’s progress and share the safety guidelines when completed. If you have any questions or concerns as we continue this journey together, please feel free to reach out to Pastor Marissa, myself, or any member of the task force (see below). Thank you for your continued patience, understanding and support. It will be good to gather together in Jesus’ name again soon. Gathering Again Task Force Members: Alex Alusheff 517-391-0802/alusheff@gmail.com

Amanda Inman 216-318-4275/amelliott123@gmail.com

Sharon Bechtel 216-394-1728/termitejane@sbcglobal.net

Marilyn Matevia 415-412-8246/mmatevia@gmail.com

Carl Bruns 216-221-3876/ckbruns@att.net

Tom Smith 330-715-0369/tomgsmith07@gmail.com

Pastor Marissa Harrison 813-494-6507/ pastormarissa@goodsoillutheran.org

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Upcoming “Meet and Greets” with Pastor Marissa

Pastor Marissa will be hosting “Meet and Greet” sessions via zoom and conference call during the month of July. Covid-19 has changed our ability to connect with one another in person, so this is an opportunity to connect with the new pastor and one another in a new way. Each “Meet and Greet” will include a time of introductions, prayer, sharing how we’ve been blessed and challenged during this time of pandemic, and a short devotion (no prep work or homework, just come as you are!). These Meet and Greet sessions will last one hour. There are 4 opportunities to participate—you are invited to join the gathering that corresponds with your last name OR you can join any call that works best with your schedule: Wednesday, July 15th 7:00 pm via Zoom – Last names beginning with A – E Wednesday, July 22nd 7:00 pm via Zoom – Last names beginning with F – Q Wednesday, July 29th 7:00 pm via Zoom – Last names beginning with R – Z Tuesday, July 28th via Conference Call (time of call to be determined) – This option is for anyone who does not want to use Zoom or who does not have access to Zoom. If you want to participate in the Conference Call, please RSVP to Deborah in the church office by July 20 (440-331-1773) and instructions will be given to you for how to join the call.

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Growth, Evangelism, and Advocacy Committee Update from Amanda Inman

The Growth, Evangelism and Advocacy committee is responding to the call for action to love the community and the people in it – and walk with those who are pushed to the margins of society, advocating for them, but more importantly with them. We will be providing a monthly review of resources we’ve been exploring. Please join us in the conversation anytime or at our next virtual meeting on July 16th at 7:30pm. Also, please consider signing the ELCA racial justice pledge https://www.elca.org/racialjusticepledge/.

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Dear Church, a Love Letter From a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the U.S. by Lenny Dunkin, copyright 2019 – Fortress Press, a review by Amanda Inman: When you read this book, read it as a letter, because it is a love letter in chapters to the Church – us, God’s people. The author, Pastor Lenny Duncan (ELCA), shares love of the church and pleas for us to think about and act on the issue of racial injustice, have a conversation and consider where we are enabling by doing nothing, or where we can do more. The language at times may be strong, but I take that as an effort to not sugar coat any issues. I pray that God enlightens me to my blind spots and makes me open to new ways of thinking. All people are worthy of God’s grace and a place at God’s table – all people. There are not exceptions or exclusions for anyone or any group. We all agree with this; a version of this is in our welcome statement, but what are our actions saying? Pastor Lenny directs how white supremacy is a system that can exist without “active” racists, just “passive” Christians. As a black pastor who LOVES God and the church, he shares his struggles with symbolism and rituals of the ELCA. Racism is a theological problem. The church is not exempt from the problems of society. We have evolved with it. Pastor Lenny challenges us to look at intentional inclusion of all people. Yikes – I feel as if I am an inclusive person, but I have a lot to learn. I am urged to consider if our historical congregations benefited from red-lining policies by realtor associations*? What does reconciling with those on the margins look like? What if we portrayed Jesus as black, or Hispanic, or Asian – or even a Middle Eastern Jew? I didn’t know that ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing’ is referred to as the Negro National Anthem. Again, I pray that God enlightens me to my blind spots and makes me open to new ways of thinking. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

Jesus portrait courtesy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.

*More information on redlining: https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america

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50th Anniversary of Lutheran Women’s Ordination in the ELCA

This year the ELCA celebrates 50 years of Lutheran women’s ordination in the United States, 40 years of the ordination of Lutheran women of color, and 10 years of Lutheran LGBTQIA+ individuals’ freedom to serve. Our worship on Sunday, July 5 will highlight this celebration. Here is a link to an article that is a part of an 8-part series featured in Living Lutheran magazine where these leaders share their joys, struggles, and gospel of hope: (https://www.livinglutheran.org/2020/03/we-are-church-we-are-called-it-takes-a-village-to-raise-a-pastor/).

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Outdoor Clean Up Day Mark your calendar for Saturday, July 18 from 9:00 a.m. until noon to come help beautify our grounds. Please bring your own tools and gloves. Garden bags and bottled water will be provided. There is plenty work to do and plenty of space for social distancing. Please call Linda Beebe (440-331-0745) or Sharon Hollowell (216-538-1282) if you have questions or if you have a preferred work assignment. P.S. Pastor Marissa will be there and would love the opportunity to meet you that day if she hasn’t already!

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Highlights from the June Council Meeting • New officers were elected. Joe Lanter and Amanda Inman were re-elected as President

and Secretary respectively and Barb Munch was elected Vice President. • Tom Smith has agreed to be the understudy for Dave Blocksom as Treasurer and Alex

Alusheff has agreed to be back-up Secretary for Amanda Inman. • Passed resolution for designation of Pastor’s housing allowance. • Created a COVID taskforce to evaluate proposal for in-person worship plan and building

use policy. Proposal to be submitted to Council for review and discussion before June 30, 2020.

• Discussed Good Soil’s response to racism and resources for anti-racism work as well as the possibility of beginning an anti-racism study together.

• Spent time in prayer and devotion, including intentional time of getting to know each other better.

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Trouble Getting Email from Good Soil?

If you are not regularly receiving Good Soil’s email messages it might be because they are going to your spam folder. To avoid that happening, please make sure that Pastor Marissa’s and Deborah’s email addresses are included in your contact list (pastormarissa@goodsoillutheran.org/deborah@goodsoillutheran.org). If at any time you believe you’re not getting your email from church, please don’t hesitate to contact the office (440-331-1773).

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Getting to Know You Surveys If you haven’t already done so, please turn in the “Getting to Know” survey you recently received from Pastor Marissa. Scan and email it back, snail mail it back, or drop it off at Sunday morning parking lot worship. If you need another copy of the survey, contact the office by phone or email.

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THOSE CELEBRATING BIRTHDAYS

08 – Jay Shackelford 11 – Diane Bennett 17 – Samantha Forshey 22 – Kathy Berkshire 23 – Amelia Forshey Jerry Hoegner 26 – Dave Blocksom 28 – Jenna Carlson

THOSE CELEBRATING WEDDING ANNIVERSARIES

02 – Greg and Mandy Forshey 06 – Matt and Jennifer Mitterholzer 30 – Jerad and Becky Williamson

THOSE CELEBRATING THE ANNIVERSARY OF

THEIR BAPTISM

03 – Jennifer Krankowski 11 – Jeanne Livingood 26 – Amanda Inman

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How to Get in Touch with Pastor Marissa

Cell Phone: (813) 494-6507 Quickest way to contact Pastor. Calls or texts work great. At night text messages are silenced, so if you have a pastoral emergency after hours, please call cell phone because phone calls will come through. Email: pastormarissa@goodsoillutheran.org Best way to contact Pastor for scheduling or planning purposes. Email is checked regularly, but if you need a more immediate answer please call or text. Sabbath Day: Monday Text messages and phone calls are not answered on Pastor’s day of rest. However, if you have a pastoral emergency (family member in the hospital, a death in the family, etc.) at any time, please don’t hesitate to call. Non-emergency calls and texts will be answered the next work day.

JUNE CALENDAR OF UPCOMING EVENTS Day Event Time

July Watch your email and snail mail for updates on worship and events.

Fri, July 3 CHURCH OFFICE CLOSED FOR INDEPENDENCE DAY Wed, July 8 Gathering Together Committee Meeting TBD Sat, July 11 Outdoor Clean-Up Day 9:00 a.m. –

Noon Tues, July 14 GS Council Meeting to Discuss “Gathering Together” Plan 7:00 p.m. Tues, July 21 GS Council Meeting 7:00 p.m.

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GOOD SOIL 2019/2020 COUNCIL

Joe Lanter President 216-469-0269 joe.lanter@gmail.com Barb Munch Vice President 440-465-4937 bwmunch@aol.com Amanda Inman Secretary 216-318-4275 amelliott123@gmail.com Dave Blocksom Treasurer 440-356-1728 dblocksom@yahoo.com Alex Alusheff 517-391-0802 alusheff@gmail.com Sharon Bechtel 216-226-1856 termitejane@sbcglobal.net Eric Carlson 330-883-0625 ecarlson.ou@gmail.com Sharon Hollowell 216-538-1282 hollowells@gmail.com Tom Smith 330-715-0369 tomgsmith8@gmail.com Committees: Growth/Advocacy/Evangelism Amanda Inman Property Larry Jacobson Service/Missions/Fellowship Sharon Hollowell Stewardship/Finance Eric Carlson Worship Sharon Bechtel

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Anti-Racism Resource List: To access a resource, click on the blue hyperlink title to be directed to that resource on the web. These resources can also be found on the web by searching them by title or you can email Pastor Marissa for a direct link: pastormarissa@goodsoillutheran.org Video/Film: + "Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man" (2020) - Youtube series with former NFL player, Emmanuel Acho, specifically created in response to the question, "What can I as a white person do?" Episode 2 features a conversation with Emmanuel and Matthew McConaughey + "Emanuel" (2019) - Documentary featuring intimate interviews with survivors and family members of the Emanuel Nine. Also currently streaming on hulu. + "Just Mercy" (2019) - Based on the true story of Bryan Stevenson, a young black lawyer who fights for justice for an innocent black man sentenced to death row + "Selma" (2014) - Based on the 1965 Selma to Montgomery voting rights marches led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and so many others + "Do Black Churches Matter in the ELCA?" (2017) – Documentary Youtube series developed by Pastor Lenny Duncan. Episode 2 features conversation with Bishop Elizabeth Eaton. Articles/Studies: + "Unpacking White Privilege: The Important Work of Making the Church Less Harmful" - Living Lutheran Article exploring how white privilege surfaces in the church and what we can do about it. + "Freed in Christ" - The ELCA's Social Statement on Race, Ethnicity, and Culture. Answers the questions, "Why is this important as people of faith?" and "What are we called to do?" + "The Invisible Knapsack" - Author Peggy McIntosh "wakes up" to white privilege and shares her findings of white privilege examples in everyday life. + "Troubling the Waters for Healing of the Church" - An ELCA Study, "A journey for white christians from privilege to partnership" + Pocket's Collection of Articles - In-depth collections and recommended articles, curated in partnership with Black scholars, journalists, and writers. Books/Audio Books - Black Voices: + "Dear Church: A Love Letter from a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the U.S." - Written by ELCA Pastor Lenny Duncan, a black pastor in the whitest denomination in the United States. Part manifesto, part confession, and all love letter, Dear Church offers a bold new vision for the

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future of the ELCA and the broader mainline Christian community of faith. Dear Church calls everyone--leaders and laity alike--to the front lines of the church's renewal through racial equality and justice. + "Between the World and Me" - Written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and framed as a letter to his adolescent son in an attempt to answer the question, "What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we honestly reckon with the U.S.'s fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?" Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences. Coates clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward. + "Stamped from the Beginning" - Ibram Kendi's National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis. Kendi shows racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred--they were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities. In shedding light on this history, Kendi offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope. Kendi’s book + "How to Be an Anti-Racist" is also a powerful and informative resource and teaches that the opposite of “racist” isn’t “not racist,” it’s “anti-racist.” Books/Audio Books - White Voices + "Anxious to Talk About It": Helping White Christians Talk Faithfully About Racism" - Written by Presbyterian Pastor and Seminary Professor Rev. Dr. Carolyn Helsel. She draws on her success with white congregations to offer insight and tools to embrace, explore, and work through the anxious feelings that often arise in hard conversations about racism. Through powerful personal stories, new observations on racial identity development, and spiritual practices to help engage issues of racial justice prayerfully, readers gain a deeper understanding of race in America and their place in it. Readers will learn how to join conversations with courage, compassion, and knowledge of self, others, and the important issues at stake. + "Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion" - Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove grew up in the Bible Belt in the American South as a faithful church-going Christian, but he gradually came to realize that the gospel his Christianity proclaimed was not good news for everybody. Just as Reconstruction after the Civil War worked to repair a desperately broken society, our compromised Christianity requires a spiritual reconstruction that undoes the injustices of the past. Reconstructing the gospel requires facing the pain of the past and present, from racial blindness to systemic abuses of power. Grappling seriously with troubling history and theology, Wilson-Hartgrove recovers the subversiveness of the gospel that sustained the church through centuries of slavery and oppression. + "These Truths: A History of the United States" - Jill Lepore writes a one-volume history of the U.S. that explores the "three truths" of American Society (political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people) and asks if history has proven those truths or contradicted them. To answer that question,

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Lepore wrestles with the state of American politics, the legacy of slavery, the persistence of inequality, and the nature of technological change. Webinars/Action Items: + "Becoming the Body of Christ Where All Bodies Are Valued" - Webinar hosted by the ELCA's Southeastern Synod, featuring several panelists as they explore the ELCA's resolution to condemn white supremacy. + Racial Justice Pledge you can take on the ELCA's website here: https://www.elca.org/racialjusticepledge Additional Resources: + ELCA Racial Justice Resource Page: https://www.elca.org/Resources/Racial-Justice + Northeastern Ohio Synod Resource Page: https://neos-elca.org/racial-justice/ + Indiana-Kentucky Synod Racial Justice Team’s Resource List: https://iksynod.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Anti-Racism-Resources-for-Congregations-1.pdf