Matthew 25
First Presbyterian Church of Bloomington is a Matthew 25 congregation of the PC (USA)!
Matthew 25 is shorthand for an important story in Matthew’s gospel, specifically Matthew 25:31-46, which begins with the very familiar opening verses:
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left….
We know how it all ends. This is the day of judgement where those at the right hand do all that they can to help his/her fellow human, while those on the left ignored their pleas,
…. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Our denomination is leveraging these verses, which nicely summarize a core belief of our faith as Christians “Do unto others as you do unto me” to motivate PC USA congregations everywhere to live out these words in deed by undertaking deliberate and strategic action directed toward one or more of three overriding goals or focus areas:
1) Building congregational vitality
2) Dismantling structural racism
3) Eradicating systemic poverty
FPC Bloomington, after much deliberation and at a time coinciding with the gross inequities in policing made bare by the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis in May 2020 and the summer of racial reckoning that followed, decided to focus our efforts on dismantling structural racism (focus 2). The Racial Justice Task Force was formed shortly thereafter, with an initial goal to educate ourselves on how generation-spanning racial inequities continue to plague our communities.
Armed with this knowledge and self-reflection and following a retreat held at Camp Pyoca with two other Matthew 25 congregations from Columbus, IN, the Task Force decided to focus its energies on educational disparities in K-12 in outcomes and opportunities that continue to hold our students of color back in our county.
The task force continues to make periodic postings to the monthly First Press and is currently engaging in a series of “listening sessions” in which small groups of members of the congregation and the broader community “share their stories” with members of the task force, so that the congregation can plan a path forward to effect change in how we teach students in the public schools in Bloomington and Monroe County. These listening sessions will continue into the Fall of 2022.
Please contact Sherry Knighton-Schwandt, Chair of the Racial Justice Task Force, if you’d like to join in on a listening session or otherwise participate in the work of the task force. skschwandt@gmail.com
There is also an interest among some members of the congregation to focus on building congregational vitality (focus 1), although these efforts are not quite as well developed. The task force believes that any collective action we propose to take toward our goal of dismantling structural racism in our community will in fact build congregational vitality. Please stay tuned for more information on this initiative.
For more information see: