Dear FBC family, I know many of us are still grieving the violence and loss of life yesterday, just two blocks from where we worship each Sunday. The death of James Stuart by homicide; the shooting of five others, one critically; the terrifying disruption of an entire neighborhood; and the death of Dr. Matt Lambert by suicide are a collective tragedy. The reality that the motivation for the violence was an ongoing legal dispute leads me to wonder if the shooter had any kind of spiritual resources or community to lean on in his distress—and whether a circle of care might have turned him toward another way.
Yesterday afternoon, when the shelter-in-place order had been lifted, FBC’s invitation to come and sit and pray in our sanctuary and to work from our café area brought a dozen or so people through our doors, including reporters from the Washington Post and Reuters who stayed through the afternoon. Last night, Pastor Eric organized a prayer walk from FBC to the site of the shooting on 15th Street. A handful of us carried flowers and candles to the site and prayed these words: “God, this morning, blocks from our doors, violence broke upon an ordinary day. We abhor and denounce it. We want to help, yet we don’t know what to do. And so, we cry out to you…”
The presence of Christ was palpable as we gathered. Friends, faith matters. Community matters. Sometimes the simple act of coming together to declare our faith in the face of violence and death is enough to sustain us in that moment. I’m grateful we share this together here.
FBC was included in several articles and newscasts last night, including these two:
RECKONING AND RENEWING THIS SUNDAY
That same conviction, that we are better together and that telling the truth is part of faith, is what carries us into this Sunday. After months of preparation, this is the day we’ve been walking toward.
First Baptist’s complicity in the owning of human beings was never a secret. It was just part of our story that we hadn’t said out loud. This year, we have been saying it.
It began on Juneteenth Eve with a dinner in Fellowship Hall, where historian Kristofer Roberts, who spent months in our own archives, told us what he found in our church records. A time of lament followed, led by jazz vocalist Ruth Naomi Floyd and her quartet, including our own Mark Prince. Since then, many of us have been reading books, watching films, and talking together about racial justice. Our sermon series began September 27, and on October 4, Rev. Kevin Lamar Peterman, senior minister of Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, preached in our pulpit.
This Sunday, November 15, in morning worship, we will officially acknowledge and confess the truth of our past and commit ourselves anew to honor the image of God in every person. (Our celebration meal with our friends from Nineteenth Street, once planned for that evening, will move to a date in 2027. We’ll share the new date as soon as it is set.)
Many thanks to our Reckoning and Renewing Team, who have been at this for more than a year: Lilia Abron, Clayton and Jesse Carmon-Seales, Rob Marus, Janice Osborn, and Becky Waugh, who has led this effort. Pastor Eric and I have had the good fortune of working alongside them. Thank you all.
We are doing this work because the grace of Jesus Christ invites us always to be honest, about our own sin and about our church’s. And we do it because we believe in redemption, which says a community’s past does not get the last word on its future.
Please join us Sunday, in the sanctuary or online, as we take this next faithful step together.
In peace and hope,
