Start here for CUREJ

Take your next step in the reparative work and write your commitment letter.

What is a commitment letter, you ask?

A commitment letter is a letter reflection on ways you have personally enacted racial harm, and naming ways of harm that you were indirectly a part of; declaring the actions you are going to take, and commitment to build the world you want to be a part of free of racial harm.

We ask this to be the first thing you do, because our letters might change over time and your letter might not be the same as somebody else’s in your community.

We like to think of this first letter as a draft or just a stream of conscious for you to name the harm you want to turn away from, and name the world you want to build.

Once we give it a name, it seizes to have shame!

First steps

The next parts are actions we would like to guide you through as you engage with the work of CUREJ

Our first step is we ask you to take the Christian racial consciousness survey, click here if you have not taken it yet.
Gauge where you are at in your consciousness with your score.
See what areas still might need some educating.
Find a book to go through with your church community, and take some extended time to go through the book together. (Use the suggested books for reading: Divided by Faith by Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith, and The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby.)
Once you read the book, once again write a commitment letter, this time as a collective. This is going to be your community’s commitment to racial justice.

As before:

Name the ways your community personally/directly participated in racial harm, and the ways your community participated in racial harm indirectly.
Moving forward, what will your relationship be to those in the community who have experienced the harm?
How are you going to engage systems of power?
What are the things you need to memorialize and move away from congregationally and theologically?

Next Steps

A coordinator will come and meet with you and your congregation to see what the next steps will be.

Our goal is to have participating congregations participate in a public repentance ceremony and take the next step of engaging the community in repair and healing.

Engagement is our goal, but rebuilding trust is the work the church needs to take up.