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Dear Justice-Seeker,

This issue of MFSAVoices is jam-packed with resources and information. So much so that it won't all fit in your email message so be sure to click view entire message at the bottom of this email to view the entire issue. Our newsletters are designed to be used all month long. So take a quick glance and take note of important dates to add to your calendar but also come back in the following weeks to work your way through the action items.  

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We continue to see the urgency of our work to make broad systemic change. Change that honors the dignity and worth of all people, puts people over money, and honors the earth and all her inhabitants. Since 1907, MFSA has been shining a light on injustice and organizing to change it.  

You make our collective work possible by your witness for justice every day in your church, community, and Annual Conference. MFSA does not receive any financial support from the United Methodist Church's giving channels. 100% of our budget is funded through your membership dues and your generosity in giving.

Help Support Our Justice Seeking Work

Over the last 116 years, Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA) has strived to uphold the core values of the Christian and Wesleyan tradition, values that compel us to seek justice, promote equity and equality, and embody love and compassion in our church and our world. 

As we reflect on the challenges that our world continues to face, we are reminded of the critical importance of our work. Poverty, inequality, climate change, discrimination, and countless other social injustices remain stubbornly present. These issues demand our continued unwavering commitment to make a difference.

I'm so grateful that we do this work together. Because of your generosity we continue to be able to advocate for more just social policies both in the church and the world, make progress on issues deeply impacting our communities, and offer educational opportunities that deepen our collective analysis and sharpen our lens in order to more effectively organize across our movement. The arc of the universe may bend towards justice, but together we bring it closer to that goal each day. Together we have:

• Completed the MFSA Organizational Racial Audit (an over three year process), presented the report and recommendations to the MFSA Board of Directors and Program Council for adoption, and presented the report and findings publicly to our whole movement

• Formed the Racial Audit Implementation Team to lead the work of implementing the recommendations from the Organizational Racial Audit.

• Worked for justice across our Justice-Seeking Movement (MFSA Regional Communities/Chapters, Justice-Seeking Congregations and communities, members, and coalition partners) 

  • Worked to uphold free speech and democracy

    • Advocated and organized for free speech, spoke out against book bans and censorship, and encouraged our movement to read commonly banned books in our bookstore 

    • Justice Seeking congregation offered space for AP African American Studies to be taught after the course was banned in Florida

  • Organized against gun violence in the coalition wide Wear Orange campaign 

  • Began serving as the fiscal sponsor of our partner the International Coalition on Human Rights in the Philippines- US Chapter to raise awareness about the human rights violations of the Filipino government against their own citizens and the use of US tax dollars to do so. 

  • Continued offering our movement wide educational webinars in partnership with United Methodists for Kairos Response (UMKR)

• Worked in coalition across our denomination to organize towards the 2024 General Conference.

  • Worked across our MFSA Regional Communities/Chapters and coalition partners to pass justice-centered legislation this past annual conference season. 

  • Built support around what we are now calling the 3 R’s. Regionalization, the Revised Social Principles, and the Removal of the discriminatory language concerning LGBTQ people in the Book of Discipline. 

  • Worked in coalition with the Love Your Neighbor Coalition (LYNC) which consists of 14 caucus groups that represent and/or advocate for those that our church pushes to the margins. (MFSA also serves as the fiscal sponsor of LYNC)

  • Supported justice seeking pastors, lay people, and churches across annual conferences in Africa and the Philippines.

While we have been able to accomplish a lot to build our collective capacity to make a bigger impact in the church and the world, we still have more work to do and we need your help to make even more progress together. With your help, we can:

• Organize for General Conference 2024 to ensure that progressive legislation passes, making a more just United Methodist Church

• Support the work of the Racial Audit Implementation team to implement recommendations of the Racial Audit and dismantle and interrupt white supremacy within MFSA and the church at all levels

• Continue to find creative ways to resource our movement to be a more powerful voice of conscience in imagining what the United Methodist Church will be in the future, and advocating for more voices to be present at the table(s)

• Speak as people of faith who are grounded in God’s love, care, and compassion for all people, and train more people to do the same

• Empower organizing in areas without regional communities and help build their capacity to form new regional communities

• Resource our regional communities and their leadership and offer training and support.

• Expand our justice-seeking congregation program

• Participate in more coalition-building work in the church, across the US, and around the world, advocating for whoever isn’t being heard

• Expand the justice-seeking movement of Jesus followers to transform the world

I am so grateful to work for a more just future together with you.  We can't do this work alone. Make a gift to MFSA today!

Seeking Justice Together,

Bridget Cabrera, MDIV
Executive Director, MFSA

Farm Workers & Racism Webinar

Learn how our food system is rooted in racism and how farm workers continue to face challenges connected to this legacy. Watch the “Farm Workers & Racism Webinar” from Community to Community Development and the National Farm Worker Ministry. This webinar is also available with Spanish translations. 

Practicing Resurrection 

Take a listen to this lively conversation, and be prepared to be challenged and changed as the Rev. Janet Wolf, a public theologian, joins Bishop LaTrelle Easterling in confronting some of our traditional beliefs about church and what it means to live as followers of Christ. Christian charity, Wolf says, may be doing more harm than good. What is needed is to be boldly authentic, proximate, and engaged in profound relationship.

Giving Tuesday

Mark your calendars for Giving Tuesday coming up on November 28th! Giving Tuesday imagines a world built upon shared humanity and generosity. We come together to stretch our impact, grow the movement towards justice, and change the world for the better.

Several generous donors will match the first $5,000 raised for Giving Tues. You can give through social media on Facebook and Instagram from Nov 20 - Dec 5, online through the link that will be shared during that time, or by check with Giving Tues written in the memo.

Reading Banned Books as An Act of Resistance

"Over the last several years, the American Library Association (ALA) has seen an increase in book bans and challenges. In 2022, the ALA reported 1,279 book bans and challenges reported to the association. This number nearly doubled from 2021, when the number of challenged and banned reports was 729. A majority of these challenges come from organized groups such as Moms for Liberty, who organize and circulate lists of multiple titles they aim to ban or censor in public and school libraries. Of the overall number of books challenged, 90% were part of attempts to censor multiple titles using one of these book lists circulated by organized groups. As the United States heads into an election year in 2024, we may continue to see challenges rise across the nation’s public libraries. This culture war of banning books has put librarians on the frontline more than ever to advocate for people’s freedom to read."

Our Development and Communications Coordinator, Jenn Meadows, is currently pursuing her Master's in Library and Information Science. She shares some things you can do as a library user to support your local public library, as book bans are on the rise. This year, Banned Books Week is October 1st-October 7th. You can support people's freedom to read by reading a banned book from the list that we have cultivated on our Bookshop! 

Racial Audit Implementation Team Announced

In 2017, MFSA committed to becoming an intentionally anti-racist organization. We worked to recruit people of color (POC) to serve on our Board of Directors and staff. At the end of 2019 we continued on our journey towards becoming a more anti-racist organization by forming a Racial Audit Team and partnering with Crossroads Antiracism and Training, a non-profit that focuses on dismantling systemic racism and building anti-racist multicultural diversity within institutions and communities, to conduct a full organizational racial audit. This Racial audit was completed/adopted in Jan 2023 and presented publicly in Feb 2023. In June 2023 the MFSA Board of Directors created the MFSA Racial Audit Implementation Team to implement the recommendations of the Racial Audit. Our goal is to be better structured to perpetuate justice and equity throughout MFSA, our church, and our world.

Now's the Time for Action

Here are a few ways you can seek justice and work for broad systemic change:

1. Don’t allow U.S. aid to fund Israeli human rights abuses. Sign our partner UMKR's petition to urge Congress to support H.R. 3103 in the House and bring a companion bill to the Senate. 

2. Check your voter registration to confirm that you are still registered and your polling location. Encourage your friends and family to register to vote! 

3. Are you curious about what laws and regulations your state has in place to promote suicide prevention? The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has broken down this data state-by-state. Find out more information on what your state is doing to address this public health problem and find ways you can be an advocate for suicide prevention.

4. Pay discrimination is a persistent problem in our country that perpetuates poverty and robs women of what they've earned. The Paycheck Fairness Act would update and strengthen the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to ensure that it provides robust protection against sex-based pay discrimination. Contact your congressional representatives today and demand they pass the Paycheck Fairness Act.

5. Sign this petition to urge the Biden-Harris Administration to ensure access to the FDA approved medication, mifepristone, and to take all necessary action to protect patients and providers

6. Help defend reproductive rights by telling Congress to support legislation that safeguards the right to access abortion and all reproductive health care nationwide.

7. Sign this petition to tell Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas today to decisively end its collusion with Operation Lone Star and do everything in its powers to remove Gov. Abbott's dangerous barriers in the Rio Grande.

8. Protect and support Climate Justice by joining your voice to calls on Congress to prioritize protecting our environment.

9. Support the Paycheck Fairness Act and protect workers from pay discrimination.

10. Protect Native Families in your state by pressing your state legislature to pass a statewide Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) law.

In Case You Missed It

1. Access the latest recording and resources from MFSA and UMKR's webinar, "Storytelling as Resistance: Palestinian Identity and Resilience in Literature for Young People"
2. Visit the Racial Audit Report page on our website. 
3. Access all five sessions in the Stealing the Earth webinar series, and explore the Dismantling the Doctrine resource list.