Social Concerns

People pick up battery-operated votive candles and write their prayers during a Jan. 9 prayer vigil hosted by Minneapolis’ Park Avenue United Methodist Church. The church is just two blocks from where a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good. At Sunday services, worshippers at Park Avenue and other United Methodist congregations remembered Good, mourned the week’s violence by federal officials and took comfort in God’s presence. Photo courtesy of Park Avenue United Methodist Church.

Countering federal violence with neighborly love

United Methodists across the U.S. led prayer vigils and joined protests in solidarity with their neighbors after federal immigration enforcement agents killed Renee Good in Minneapolis and shot two people in Portland, Oregon.

Human Rights

A plea for ‘costly solidarity’ in Middle East

How is God calling us to respond to the ongoing violence in the Middle East? A pastor shares insights from the West Bank.

Immigration

In a Nativity scene at Oak Lawn United Methodist Church in Dallas, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus are depicted being held in a detention center, as a protest of how immigrants are being treated in the United States. “We feel it’s important to depict the parallel of what’s happening in our world with what we understand to have been happening in the biblical story of the birth of Jesus,” said the Rev. Rachel Griffin-Allison, senior pastor of Oak Lawn. Photo courtesy of Oak Lawn United Methodist Church.

Nativity scenes, art spotlight immigration

Some United Methodist churches are reimagining their annual Christmas Nativity displays to protest the federal government’s raids on suspected undocumented immigrants.

Immigration

Task force responds to growing needs facing immigrants

The United Methodist Immigration Task Force has reorganized and issued an Advent call to the church to welcome and support migrants.

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