Many have been asking me about leaving Living Water UCC and POWER to head to DC.  Yes, I am leaving Living Water later this month and POWER shortly thereafter to become the Political Director of the PICO (People Improving Communities through Organizing) National Network in Washington, DC. PICO is the nation’s largest Faith Based Organizing Movement.  For those that know me well this is not much of a surprise.  I was a Political Science major when I started Boston College almost 20 years ago.  Politics and Activism/Advocacy/Organizing have been important to me since my childhood.  My faith has been equally important to me longer than politics.  Finally, I am able to work deeply at the intersection of two of my passions to bring about healing and hope for a broken world.

Some have asked about what church I will be pastoring.  I am not.  In my new role I will be serving as a Public Theologian in the midst of our Nation’s Capital.  In addition, later this year, I will be installed as the Presiding Bishop of Higher Ground Christian Fellowship International.  My mentor Bishop Kermit L. Newkirk, Jr. will be retiring from the role as Presiding Bishop.  I look forward to serving the church in that new capacity.  As a matter of faith practice, I am working with a collaborative of faith leaders from around the country on the creation of an Ecumenical Religious Order committed to a charism of Social Justice as Spiritual Discipline and Spiritual Practice.  The early conversations have been exciting and I look forward to helping establish this new body.   Please keep this effort in your prayers.  If you are interested in learning more about the order, please email me at ddroyster1969@gmail.com.  I would be glad to share with you the plans in more detail.  My family and I will be looking for a UCC church in the MD/DC area to call home.  Pray for us as a seek a place where we can finally sit together during worship and delight in the Lord.

It has been a hard decision to leave both of these organizations and head to DC.  Yet, I am feeling called to our nation’s capital for such a time as this.  There is much going on in the world that requires faith voices to speak truth to power and demand justice in the land.  For that reason, I feel called in this moment…this Kairos moment.    I am not one who believes that faith should not be engaged in the political realm.  I am not sure how anyone could read the sacred texts of the Christian tradition and not see that faith has always engaged the empire in one way or another.  For many communities all across this nation there is great pain.  As the Rev. Dr. Howard Thurman asked in his book Jesus and the Disinherited, “What does our faith have to say to people with their backs up against the wall?”  For far too long the church has been a sleeping giant.  It is time to “Wake Up!”  God has always had a remnant that has lifted a witness for Justice but now we need the whole of the many faith traditions and communities across our nation to become engaged.  Good people who do nothing in the face of injustice are not good people!   We must work to challenge the narratives and stories that have anesthetized our faith traditions into a dreamless slumber that does not even produce rest.  We do not need a sleeping giant but instead a massive army of faith people in a cacophony of voices that calls this nation to its better self.  A massive army that draws our faith communities out of the walls of their institutions and to care for the greater community that surrounds them.  A call to care for all of God’s creation!

So I head to Washington to be Faith Warrior. To fight for a Moral Economy! To Fight for Racial Justice! To fight for an end to Mass Incarceration!  To Fight for a Pathway to Citizenship! To Fight for Climate and Environmental Justice! To fight for issues yet to be named!

Please join me I continue my efforts to Change the Damn World!

​Grace and Peace,
+DDR
​

There's no doubt in my mind that this particular blog post will get me in trouble with a lot of people. Every year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, there continues to be an ongoing debate about a Day of Service versus a Day of Action. In my mind this should never be a debate. Not once do we ever see Dr. King wielding a paintbrush, sweeping the street nor do we see Dr. King doing service projects. What we do see is Dr. King in Action. He is marching, protesting, praying, preaching, being arrested, writing and meeting with the powers that be.  The idea that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr day would become a day of service is in itself a nod to the systemic racism and the deep paralysis that this country has around conversations of race and systemic change.  Service does not change racist systems but Action does!

Over the course of this weekend, I once again (as a part of a spiritual practice) read  Dr. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail . I'm reminded of the deep necessity for us especially in this age, to be about Action and not just about service. Don't get me wrong service projects are critically important to the ongoing work of our communities.  Many of these service projects exist because of the failure of those in political and business leadership to fulfill their responsibilities to local communities; in particular communities of color. I'm deeply troubled that in this age of income inequality; deep racial divisions; the privatization and profiteering off the bodies of black and brown folk that results in mass incarceration and mass deportation; to the violent ways in which we are tearing apart our environment; and treating so many classes of people who are marginalized (think Flint, Michigan) in such in such deeply oppressive ways that we think of honoring Dr. King with a Day of Service is well....insulting.  All the service in the world does not change the issues that I mention in a systemic way.  Why have we chosen to sanitize the memory of Dr. King into a happy go lucky you feel good, I feel good idea.  He was radical. He pushed boundaries.  He fought with love.  If we really honored him we would do the very same things he did.  Put our bodies on the line to change the damn world.

This week the denomination to which I belong, the United Church of Christ, released a video about my friend and colleague in the fight for justice,The Rev. Traci Blackmon. I have placed that video at the end of this blog.  Rev. Blackmon is the new Executive Minister for Justice and Witness Ministries in the United Church of Christ.  She is also one of the key clergy and organizers that supported the Ferguson community after Mike Brown was killed in August 2014.  This video is a reminder to us about why we need to protest in this hour. The radical revolutionary faith, in which I belong, calls me to action.  At the head of my faith is the revolutionary Savior by the name of Jesus.  This Jesus was a disruptive presence and power in Palestine, some two millennia ago. Jesus reminds me over and over again that the call for people of faith is to never be satisfied with oppression and inequity in any form.  We must protest using our voices, our feet, are hands, our minds, our words and our actions to stand up for righteousness and justice in this land. I implore you to join me as I follow the Rev. Traci Blackmon and many others who are putting not only their voices but their bodies on the line every single day to change the damn world. Join me in this hour as we seek to build the beloved community where All thrive not just a few.