Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr wrote that the purpose of the Montgomery bus boycott “is reconciliation, redemption, the creation of the beloved community.” King’s was a vision of a completely integrated society, a community of love and justice wherein brotherhood would be an actuality in all of social life. In his mind, such a community would be the ideal corporate expression of the Christian faith.
As King said, desegregation will only produce ‘a society where men are physically desegregated and spiritually segregated, where elbows are together and hearts apart. It gives us social togetherness and spiritual apartness. It leaves us with a stagnant equality of sameness rather than a constructive equality of oneness.’
Cookman’s Beloved Community Coalition strives to engage this vision of Beloved Community through the following ministry initiatives:
Neighborhood Joy Ministries – outreach ministries with children and youth striving to overcome poverty, illiteracy, homelessness, violence and family disintegration.
Cornerstone to NJM is the concept of Restorative Practices: “practices are the study of building social capital and achieving social discipline through participatory learning and decision-making. Through the advent of restorative practices, using its common perspective and vocabulary, there is now the potential to create much greater visibility for this way of thinking, to foster exchange between various fields and to accelerate the development of theory, research and practice.” (International Institute of Restorative Practices [http://www.iirp.org/whatisrp.php])
Cookman’s Beloved Community Coalition strives to engage:
PATCH
For young men, truancy is the number one predictor of future criminal activity; for young women it is number two. Together we can ensure that our kids graduate from school and lead successful lives. That means getting them to school ALL DAY, EVERY DAY.
PATCH is a family empowerment, restorative process, implemented by Cookman and developed through the Philadelphia Department of Human Services Truancy and Delinquency department. We undertook the administration wide because we believe that YOU KNOW BEST what will work for your child. Through PATCH, you and your child can sit down with all the resources available to you to come up with REAL SOLUTIONS to your child’s truancy problems.
Why Truancy Prevention?: Students learn best when they attend school every day. When young people miss school, they miss learning important lessons that can help them in class and in life. Beyond that, there are studies that show that the more kids are truant – that is, the more they have unexcused absences from school – the more likely they will engage in criminal activity in the future.
Alternative Learning Communities for Youth :
Funded by the Department of Human Services’ Office of Truancy and Prevention, we are able to provide wrap-around preventative services for 50 youth at-risk for delinquency because of chronic truancy between the ages of 14 to 21. We serve youth who were chronically truant, and were not able to succeed in public academic and social settings. Our services include on-site qualified social workers, therapy and counseling services, an extensive high school diploma completion program, and family services.
Transitional Journey Ministries
Relief:
Community Cares —Every Friday night, we serve a hot, nutritious dinner to members of our community who are homeless, live in boarding homes, or suffer with addictions to drugs or alcohol. This is an opportunity for us reach out to the members of our community who are at the outer fringes of society, and who possibly have the least amount of access to resources and services within our community .
Food cupboard
Clothing bank
Advocacy:
Economic Development through Green Job Creation
Livable Wage (vs. minimum wage)
Restorative Practices
Public Education Reform for Youth-at-risk for delinquency due to poverty, truancy, family destabilization
Christian Education
Education and training of advocates (link to Alternative Seminary)
Sabbath Economics
Peace Making
Peace Gathering – January 14-17, 2009 (Event) We’ve Got Work to Do! A Multigenerational Collaboration of Faith & Action
As people of faith, we embrace Martin Luther King’s legacy of hope for a beloved community in which we live together in peace and safety. We unite to bring God’s vision of a peaceable kingdom, that we might end the violence killing our families, our friends, and our neighbors. We resist the effects of racism and poverty against which Martin Luther King struggled, and apathy in the face of an epidemic of violence that took over 400 lives last year in Philadelphia alone. Fear, closed doors, and separation will not end this epidemic. We must come together and in a bold movement of faith and action to do something to make a real difference. We act to end the violence, beginning with a focus on ending gun violence in the greater Philadelphia area.
The Invitation:
Faith communities in the greater Philadelphia area — city and suburb, rich and poor, young and old, are invited to come together this Fall:
To participate in a project to bring together urban and suburban faith communities, from all religions and denominations, to learn from each other, discover our diversity and common ground, and develop the ideas and networks necessary to take effective action to reduce the gun violence in our city.
To join with over 500 faith-based activists for peace and social justice from across the nation, and nearly 1000 others from Philadelphia area congregations on January 17, 2009 to worship together and witness to the power of faith in action.
To create positive energy, take positive action, and make positive change!
The Worship & Witness:
In the afternoon, participants from all partner congregations and will come together to raise our hands, our hearts and our voices in worship and song. We’ll hear from inspirational preachers and teachers, and we’ll take our witness to the street in support of grassroots, faith-based engagement in building peace in our communities.
Strengthening our witness and work for peace in the world by inspiring hope, raising voices, and taking action.
Bridge Walk for Peace (Event): April 4 of each year, commemorates the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As one who has connected to so many others and crossed many bridges in bringing people of all walks of life together, we are honoring his legacy by holding the Bridge Walk for Peace.
Why April 4?: This date marks the anniversary of Dr. King’s Riverside Speech in which Dr. King outlined the triplets of evil: Racism, Militarism and Materialism.
Excerpt: “ We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The "tide in the affairs of men" does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: "Too late." There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. "The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on..." We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.
“We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world -- a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.
“Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter -- but beautiful -- struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history. ” (A Time to Break the Silence, delivered on April 4, 1967, Riverside Presbyterian Church, New York by Dr. martin Luther King).
Alternative Seminary (needs an external link, not a ministry of Cook man)
The Alternative Seminary is a program of biblical and theological study and reflection designed to foster an authentic biblical witness in the modern world.
It began as an informal, grassroots program that started about 14 years ago, when a small group of people who were involved in social justice and urban ministry work all felt a need to get re-grounded in biblical values. The seminary brings together people seeking to unite socially committed discipleship with serious intellectual study of the Scriptures. In weekly classes, we try to grasp the historical, cultural, and literary dynamics of the biblical texts, while also seeking prayerful personal applications of the Scriptures in our lives and our world. We question the text--and let it question us. Along the way, we seek to develop skills of "biblical literacy"--skills that I fear are greatly lacking among many Christians today. Biblical literacy is a dynamic process that includes all of our lived experience of faith and discipleship. While I would hardly claim to offer a full-fledged program of biblical literacy, I believe our study groups have gleaned some lessons that can help other Christians toward a faith more firmly rooted in the living Word.
