Season of Pentecost – Saturday, June 6
Family,
A few notes.
If you would like a copy of the Secret Place Devotional for June-August please call Kay or email her at kay@labcoakland.org.
If you use are contributing online via PayPal and are designating your gift to the Hunger Walk (or another program or ministry) please also email Kay to let her know. This will help us make sure that your designation is properly recorded.
Our newly formed “Re-opening Our Buildings Task Force” will meet for the first time on Tuesday evening at 7:15. Your prayers and input are appreciated.
Communion will be part of tomorrow’s Zoom worship. Please provide your own bread and beverage.
We are recording a short service in the Sanctuary at 1:00 on Saturday’s. Let me know if you would like to observe. The recordings can be found at www.labcoakland,org. This effort in preparation for livestreaming our services when we return to in person worship.
As always, thanks for your ongoing support of the ministry of LABC.
Peace,
Jim H.
Thanks to Dale Edmondson for preparing this update from the Pacific Coast Baptist Association
Thanks to Alean Saunders-Coffey for this honest reflection.
COMMENTARY IN THE AFTERMATH OF GEORGE FLOYD’S DEATH
Violence is as American as cherry pie
H. Rap Brown
Fifth Chairman
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
Since the births of my father, Alfred Clyde Tennyson Saunders in 1902, my grandfather, John Quincy Adams Saunders In 1875, and our descendants and ancestors who first arrived onto the continents and islands outside of their native territories in Africa, and, my people who stayed behind and were colonized, white men have always reigned supreme.
Since it’s formation, the United States of America has been led, governed, controlled, dominated, consumed and destroyed by white men. So, I pondered recently, why is it necessary to name a person a “white” supremacist?
For the entirety of my almost eighty years, I’ve not had the pleasure of experiencing long-lasting effects from brown, red, yellow or black supremacy. The necessity to survive in parallel cultures was memorialized by the rhyme my black friends and I learned: “if you’re white, you’re alright; if you’re black, stay back.” Our place in the world in which we lived was inculcated early in life.
So, I find “white” supremacist to be an oxymoron, and from today forward, I will describe individuals so defined as extremists.
White men are now and will continue to be in the foreseeable future, supreme in perception, power, influence and control of people, places and possessions. Nevertheless—afraid and concerned their majority is diminishing—they continue to kick and scream into the 21st Century.
Alean Saunders-Coffey
May 30, 2020
A Time For Prayer gathers this morning at 10:00.