Deacon Sandy Richter shares with us what the last 9 months have looked like, as she and Ian have followed the Lord’s calling on their life.
When a small group of us began meeting in January 2020 to dream and pray about a new church in Oak Park, we had no idea what the next few months would hold. We gathered around the idea that God was at work in Oak Park and seemed to be stirring our hearts to join him. Looking back 9 months later, so much has shifted and changed, but that conviction has remained.
Here’s how we have seen God at work over these past few months...
Building Our Team
We now have 11 adults and 8 children as part of our core team. After meeting a couple of times in person before the lockdown, we decided to move ahead with meeting weekly via Zoom. What at first seemed an unfortunate necessity showed itself to be an unexpected gift. Our schedules were all clearer, our hearts more open to God and one another; and it was a relief to work together on something constructive in the midst of so much uncertainty and loss.
Clarifying Our Vision
Over the summer, individuals on our team faced various personal hardships and together we grieved over the loss of Amaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other black image bearers. Through this collective grief, God knit our team together and further crystallized the desire for our church to embody the values of: Spirit-led hospitality, vulnerability, truth telling, and a commitment to racial justice.
Out of this came our new name--Christ Our Peace Anglican Church. Christ’s Peace is what creates hospitality; frees us to tell the truth about ourselves, God and our world; and opens the way to eternal peace through reconciling us to God and one another.
The Call to Racial Justice
A few things are clear to us:
The Church, and in particular the white church, has often served to perpetuate rather than overcome racism within our country. One result of this is that the American Church is largely segregated.
Oak Park is a multiethnic, multiracial village and our desire is that our church would reflect this diversity.
We believe we are called in this season to examine ourselves, to repent of our racial malformation and be led by the Spirit to new internal and external expressions of his love and justice in Oak Park.
What we don’t know is where God is taking us. In the next few months, as our all-white core team works through books like White Awake and curriculum like Be the Bridge 101, we are also praying for a black pastor to join our staff and persons of color to join our team. If this is going to be a multiethnic church, it is imperative that this early work of vision and gathering be done in a multiethnic culture of mutuality and togetherness.
At the same time, we’ve heard many stories of how multiethnic churches have been a source of further wounding rather than healing for persons of color, and we strongly believe in the power of minority churches to create safe places for kingdom work, healing and restoration. How our dreams and convictions fit into all of this, we still aren’t sure. We are holding these questions before God and waiting to see where he will lead.
Christ Our Peace and Our Hope
Early on in our time together, a wise mentor called to share with our team a word he had received when in prayer for us. You may think, he said, that this is a strange time to build a church, with so much uncertainty and so many limitations, but the reality is, this is the perfect time. You will join Moses, Esther, Elisha, Mary, Peter and so many others who heard God’s call but had no idea how he would lead them. You will see from the beginning that this is truly a work of God.
That really is our only hope: It is Christ who builds his Church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it. (Matthew 16:18)