Faith and Racial Healing: Embracing Truth, Justice, and Restoration

Antiracism Series

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Do you want to talk about racism in your faith community, but you don’t know where to begin?

This small group program guides participants in telling the truth about the history of racism in the United States, that we might work toward true reconciliation with God and restoration with one another.

Program Overview

Faith and Racial Healing: Embracing Truth, Justice, and Restoration guides participants in telling the truth about the history of racial injustice in the United States, that we might work toward true reconciliation with God and restoration with one another.

Regardless of whether your group is new to the topic, or if you’ve already taken our first program on racial equity, Faith and Racial Healing will guide your small group in the difficult but necessary conversation about the historical roots of racial injustice.

Before we come to the communion table, we first confess that we have not loved God and our neighbors with our whole hearts. In other words, before we can receive the joy of reconciliation with God and one another, we must first tell the truth about what we have done and left undone. However, our temptation is to try to skip right to the easy part — reconciliation — without first doing the hard work of truth-telling. And because there is no truth-telling, there is no true reconciliation.

In outlining the topics to be covered in our first program on racism (Faith and Racial Equity: Exploring Power and Privilege), we at JustFaith Ministries quickly realized that it is impossible to work toward racial healing without first acknowledging the truth of our history. So we put together this second program to explain the historical context behind the racial inequalities we face today, whether in education, the criminal justice system, the workforce, or even in church life. Though we focused specifically on enslaved Africans and their descendants, this program will open participants’ eyes to patterns of injustice that affect other communities across the nation.

Through the one-day opening retreat, immersion experience, and eight sessions, your group will emerge from Faith and Racial Healing better equipped to work toward restoration.

Program Goals

Goals for Faith and Racial Healing: Embracing Truth, Justice, and Restoration include:

Learn about the history of racial injustice in the U.S., so that we might better understand and more effectively eradicate modern-day racial injustice

Learn how faith communities responded to racial injustice in the past, so that we might learn from their mistakes and successes

Learn from the faith and spiritual wisdom of those who endured injustice and stood for freedom

Sessions

Faith and Racial Healing: Embracing Truth, Justice, and Restoration consists of eight two hour sessions, as well as an opening retreat (three hours for groups meeting virtually; six hours for in-person groups) and an immersion experience

Recommended group size is 8-14.

Program Framework & Session Topics

  • One-Day Retreat: Community-Building & Self-Reflection

  • Session 1: Review of History of Racial Injustice

  • Session 2: The Middle Passage

  • Session 3: Reading and Discussion of Slave Narratives

  • Session 4: Convict Leasing

  • Session 5: Confessing Our History of Lynching

  • Session 6: Civil Rights and the Struggle for Equal Education

  • Immersion Experience (to be determined by the group)

  • Session 7: Theology of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

  • Session 8: Guest Speaker and Discerning Next (Action) Steps

Sessions include:

Prayer and reflection
Discussion of reading
Videos & group activities
Spiritual practices
Integration of faith

Want to know more?

An overview, sample session, and program booklet are available for free download.

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Program Promotion

Need help inviting people to your small group?

This program promotion kit contains sample social media posts, bulletin announcements, email invitations, and more.

Cost

We believe strongly in making our programs inclusive and available to everyone

Cost should never be a barrier to participation, and we are committed to working with individuals and organizations to ensure meaningful access through flexible pricing options. Why do we use a sliding fee scale?

There are Two Registration Options:

Option 1: Individual Participant Registration

Participants register and pay individually using a sliding-scale fee of $45, $60, or $75 per person, based on ability to pay. If $45 is still inaccessible, participants can choose the Pay-What-You-Can option to choose a price that is right for them.

  • There is no charge for up to two facilitators.
  • A minimum of 8 participants is strongly recommended.

Option 2: Organization-Sponsored Registration

A church or organization may choose to cover registration for all participants using a sliding fee scale of $45, $60, or $75 per person, based on ability to pay.

  • The organization will be billed a flat rate of the amount chosen below, which covers up to 8 participants.
  • For groups larger than 8, the organization will be invoiced an additional $45, $60, or $75 per participant when the group begins, price depending on the chosen amount below.
  • If the lowest fee is inaccessible to your organization or ministry, choose the Pay-What-You-Can Rate to learn about shared-cost or reduced-fee options.

What the Registration Fee Includes

  • Comprehensive materials for each session (instant download upon purchase)
  • Facilitation scripts, guidance, and training resources
  • Retreat and immersion planning assistance
  • Adaptations for virtual groups
  • Direct access to program staff for ongoing support
  • Books are an additional cost and may be purchased separately through the bookstore.

To ensure our programs remain accessible while remaining sustainable, we utilize a sliding fee scale of $45 to $75 for our registrations. We invite you to choose the registration tier that best reflects you or your faith community's current financial reality. Paying on the higher end allows us to keep the program affordable for all.

We also offer a Pay-What-You-Can Rate. If the lowest rate does not seem accessible to you or your church at this time, don’t let this be a barrier to participation. Contact our staff here to learn about shared-cost or reduced fee options.

 

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What our program participants are saying

It has been an honor to work with Rev. Kristin Dollar and the JustFaith Ministries Team to develop a module that boldly wades into the painful history of systemic racism. I sincerely believe the only way to build a better future is by creating partnerships across the lines of race that re-educate people about issues they were socialized to ignore. This module will provide what I call “new learning that transforms and informs” the kind of justice work that sets us on the path to healing and reconciliation.

Dr. Lewis Brogdon   ·  Visiting Professor of Preaching and Black Church Studies - Baptist Seminary of Kentucky

This module impacted me by opening my eyes and heart to the ongoing effects of white privilege. It moved me to be more aware of the long-term damage done to African Americans by historic systemic suppression and slavery.

Rosetta Fackler   ·  Louisville, KY