MLK Day

Hello New Life Church,

In celebration of MLK day on Monday we wanted to share how you can engage with the day. Monday is a national holiday due to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's vision and heroic work of championing the civil rights of Black people and minorities. God has called us to be a church where all are welcomed, seen, and loved. One of the first steps in the process of loving well is to lean in and listen. Dr. King talks about the “agonizing gulf between the ought and the is” and to learn is a decision to begin to bridge that gap. We'd love to invite you to see this as an opportunity to pause and engage with harder realities. Dr. King says, “Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions.” Our invitation for you is to engage with one or more of these opportunities/resources and have conversations with one another about racial injustice and racial reconciliation. 

Here are a few ways to engage on Monday and beyond:

• Pray for New Life Church, that God would help us to continue to grow into a multi-ethnic, multi-economic class, multi-generational church.
  • Pray the verses below over us as a church

• Lean in and learn.  Here are a few recommendations as starting points:
  • Watch a movie that educates about black history. A few to consider: “Selma”, “Just Mercy”, and “Hidden Figures.”
  • Read and reflect on Dr. King’s “I have a Dream Speech”: https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety
  • Read and reflect on this article with insight into Dr. King’s prayer rhythms and the soul of his leadership: https://transformingcenter.org/2017/01/martin-luther-king-jr-and-the-soul-of-leadership/
  • Read Under Our Skin by Benjamin Watson: A book by a Christian and former NFL player about how the gospel is key to racial healing.

• Attend a local MLK Day event:​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
  • List of University of Michigan MLK events: https://oami.umich.edu/um-mlk-symposium/events/
  • Jewish Community Center Freedom Songs Sing-Along: https://jccannarbor.org/event/mlk-day-4th-annual-freedom-songs-sing-along/
  • Online Zoom Lecture (on Wednesday) with Dr. Lisa Bowens of Princeton Theological Seminary: Zoom Registration Link

• Consider how you can intentionally serve your neighbors and live sent.

Scripture to pray over our church: 

Ephesians 2:14-22 ESV 

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.  

In Christ,

Nik Spasovski, on behalf of the Elder and Minister Team and our Justice Ministry

P.S. All quotes are from Strength to Love by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.