Seeking Justice
Support our Social Justice efforts by clicking the "Donate" button below, which will take you to our Paypal site. You can indicate which of our programs you would like to support by typing a note after you make your donation.
You can also donate to our church through Zeffy, by using this QR code. Zeffy is our new electronic donation partner. Zeffy allows you to choose if you will pay them a fee for processing your donation. You can set the fee as low as 0%. Please let us know which of our ministries you would like to donate to.
We strive, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to become more like Jesus in our love and support of one another. We seek to oppose and overcome any injustice, oppression, or prejudice that continue in our society, our communities, our church, and ourselves.
Because it is not possible for us to do everything, in our local justice work, we have chosen to focus on issues of poverty (especially food justice), pride, and ecology. We also contribute through the national offices of the United Church of Christ to Our Churches Wider Mission, which allows us to get funds to first responders on the ground in most national disasters.
Because it is not possible for us to do everything, in our local justice work, we have chosen to focus on issues of poverty (especially food justice), pride, and ecology. We also contribute through the national offices of the United Church of Christ to Our Churches Wider Mission, which allows us to get funds to first responders on the ground in most national disasters.
Poverty
We are blessed to have strong community organizations with whom we partner to offer support to our neighbors experiencing poverty.
In 2016 we started a program called Make it a Home to provide support to families moving out of shelter into independent housing. So far we have worked with Churches United for the Homeless, but are looking to expand. Every child moving out of shelter receives a toy or a book and a bike or a sled. We also mentor one family each year, walking with them to increase the likelihood of their being successfully housed. Click here for more information about the Make it a Home mentor program.
In addition, we have two internal funds we use to help people who are in a financial crisis. The first is the Samaritan fund, which Pastor Michelle uses as funds are available and people have needs. This fund is also used to give to Central Cities Ministry, which offers assistance to people who fall through the gaps of other programs. The second fund is the Celebration fund, which is used by Pastor Michelle to offer discreet assistance to church members who are experiencing a financial hardship.
If you would like to make a contribution to either of these funds, you may do so by sending a check to the church office, or putting it in the collection plate on Sunday, with "Samaritan" or "Celebration" written on the note line or by clicking the "donate" button above.
If you need assistance from one of these funds, you can call the church office. Church members should speak directly to Pastor Michelle about the Celebration fund.
We are neighbors feeding neighbors.
We host a 24/7 free pantry that is open to all. Give what you can. Take what you need. It is located in our church garden.
We participate in Minnesota Food Share in March, collecting food and raising money for local food pantries.
Twice a year we spend a week volunteering at the Emergency Food Pantry.
We grow a community garden, from which anyone can pick and eat ripe produce.
We are working towards establishing our grounds as a pollinator garden to increase the sustainability of food gardens throughout Moorhead.
Since 2022-2023 we have worked with PRAIRIE, a local non-profit, on the Youth, Food, & Ecology Initiative, whose goal is to improve the sustainability and access to our local food shed.
In 2016 we started a program called Make it a Home to provide support to families moving out of shelter into independent housing. So far we have worked with Churches United for the Homeless, but are looking to expand. Every child moving out of shelter receives a toy or a book and a bike or a sled. We also mentor one family each year, walking with them to increase the likelihood of their being successfully housed. Click here for more information about the Make it a Home mentor program.
In addition, we have two internal funds we use to help people who are in a financial crisis. The first is the Samaritan fund, which Pastor Michelle uses as funds are available and people have needs. This fund is also used to give to Central Cities Ministry, which offers assistance to people who fall through the gaps of other programs. The second fund is the Celebration fund, which is used by Pastor Michelle to offer discreet assistance to church members who are experiencing a financial hardship.
If you would like to make a contribution to either of these funds, you may do so by sending a check to the church office, or putting it in the collection plate on Sunday, with "Samaritan" or "Celebration" written on the note line or by clicking the "donate" button above.
If you need assistance from one of these funds, you can call the church office. Church members should speak directly to Pastor Michelle about the Celebration fund.
We are neighbors feeding neighbors.
We host a 24/7 free pantry that is open to all. Give what you can. Take what you need. It is located in our church garden.
We participate in Minnesota Food Share in March, collecting food and raising money for local food pantries.
Twice a year we spend a week volunteering at the Emergency Food Pantry.
We grow a community garden, from which anyone can pick and eat ripe produce.
We are working towards establishing our grounds as a pollinator garden to increase the sustainability of food gardens throughout Moorhead.
Since 2022-2023 we have worked with PRAIRIE, a local non-profit, on the Youth, Food, & Ecology Initiative, whose goal is to improve the sustainability and access to our local food shed.
PRIDE
We have been an Open & Affirming member of the United Church of Christ for over a decade and renewed our commitment in May of 2018. We are not just a welcoming place for LGBT people to gather, we partner with the F-M Pride Collective and Tri-State Transgender to help advocate in our community for the full inclusion of all people, no matter where they fall on the spectrums of gender identity and sexuality. First Congregational United Church of Christ seeks to be a place where all people are affirmed to not just participate, but to serve as leaders and policy makers.
We have been outspoken voices in our community for marriage equality. We rejoice that we have become a place for children of LGBT families to find others whose families appear similar to them. Here you will find programs for all ages, including for children and youth, that are intentionally inclusive.
We are not perfect people. Many of us were raised in times and places where prejudice was the norm. But, we are ready to confront, uncover, and change any subconscious bias that we find. Doing so is central to our understanding of the ministry of Jesus.
We have been outspoken voices in our community for marriage equality. We rejoice that we have become a place for children of LGBT families to find others whose families appear similar to them. Here you will find programs for all ages, including for children and youth, that are intentionally inclusive.
We are not perfect people. Many of us were raised in times and places where prejudice was the norm. But, we are ready to confront, uncover, and change any subconscious bias that we find. Doing so is central to our understanding of the ministry of Jesus.
Ecology
The first metaphor for God in the bible is Creator. In the Gospel of John we hear that all things came into being through the light of the word, which was Jesus and was with God in the beginning before anything came into being. As Christians, part of our call is to care for the systems that God created, that came into being through the light of Jesus. As a church, we are as ecological in our decisions as time and money allow. We acknowledge we have a long way to go, but we are on our way.
We converted the largest stretch of our lawn into a community garden. We have unpaved 900 sq feet of our parking lot, replacing it with native plants, and are working on other sustainable projects in our building and grounds.
We converted the largest stretch of our lawn into a community garden. We have unpaved 900 sq feet of our parking lot, replacing it with native plants, and are working on other sustainable projects in our building and grounds.
ANTI-RACISM
Since 2020 we have read through many anti-racism books. In 2022 we had an anti-racism class, which wrote the following as their final project.
Anti-Racism Work for White People
Accept
Act
Advocate
Amplify
Cede Power and Authority
Covenant
Curiosity
Grace
Invest
Listen
Relationships
Self-Work
Show up
Compiled by the 2021-2022 Anti-Racism Class at First Congregational UCC Moorhead from the UCC “White Privilege” curriculum.
Anti-Racism Work for White People
Accept
- Accept that the work will be messy
- People who have experienced racism will be angry. Allow them to be angry
- You will make mistakes. Learn from them and make different mistakes tomorrow
Act
- Speak up
- If you hear or see something racist, object and then advocate to create future change
- Step between a person experiencing racism and the person perpetrating the racism
- Take about racism with people who normally don’t talk about racism
- Disrupt traditions in ways that call attention to racist history
- Be willing to go where needed, when needed
Advocate
- Define your sphere of influence and use the privilege you have in that sphere to raise awareness about racism and advocate for changes that will help ameliorate racism within your sphere.
- Fight for racial equity in your profession. Change policies and advocate for trainings that ensure any organization you are involved in is anti-racist.
- Do something specific about a specific cause you are aware of.
- Speak on behalf of those who are experiencing racism when they ask you to in ways that use your privilege to their advantage
- Use your privilege and influence to create spaces for those who experience racism to share their story
Amplify
- Let your racism be public.
- Tell people who otherwise might not hear about anti-racism work about your anti-racism work
- Make space for the stories of people who experience racism
- Use your knowledge of racism and anti-racism techniques to further the cause
- Invite your network into anti-racism work
Cede Power and Authority
- Step back from power and authority so that those closest to the pain can take the lead.
- Do not attempt to control the agenda or desired outcomes
- Do not assert your agenda, but defer to those being targeted.
- Center the voices of those closest to the pain
- Be humble
- Follow their lead
- Be a servant, not a savior
Covenant
- Make a firm commitment in your life to dismantle racist systems
- Make it generational, include your kids in anti-racism work
- Learn from your mistakes and make different mistakes tomorrow
Curiosity
- Come from a place of learning and curiosity in all situations, especially when confronted with something or someone different from your own experience.
- Audit your life- can you make your business dealings, shopping, education, community participation more racially integrated?
- Take advantage of anti-racist education opportunities
- Use available resources to learn about your own implicit biases, such as the implicit association test implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/taketest/html
- Read books by people who have experienced racism, about history, and about how to be anti-racist
- Accept criticism with enough curiosity to learn from it
Grace
- Give yourself space for Grace. You will make mistakes.
- Give others space for Grace. They will make mistakes.
- Support others in anti-racism work. We will all make mistakes. We all get Grace. We all need support.
Invest
- Do business with minority owned businesses
- Make sure your investment portfolio is consistent with your anti-racist values
- Donate to organizations doing anti-racism work
- Move into a racially mixed neighborhood
Listen
- Stop and think, be aware
- Listen to the voices of those closest to the pain
- Your job is not to provide answers, but to listen to the needs of those closest to the pain and to act on the answers they provide
- When in doubt, listen some more
Relationships
- Build relationships with people doing the work and with communities affected by racism
- Use your current relationships to amplify
- Recognize the little piece of the divine in each person you meet
- Live as if all people are essentially one community
Self-Work
- Do not appropriate the pain of others, make sure you are taking care of your own emotional well being enough to listen to their pain without taking it on.
- Examine your privilege, motives, and emotional baggage so you can hear about racism without becoming defensive
Show up
- Do not come with an agenda, simply show up and see where you are needed
- When invited to advocate or demonstrate or support, go and do it.
- When an action is happening, go and do it
- After the action, when others go home, continue to show up
- Stand side by side with those closest to the pain
- Take to the streets with others
Compiled by the 2021-2022 Anti-Racism Class at First Congregational UCC Moorhead from the UCC “White Privilege” curriculum.
