Trying to get more integrated into Kirkwood

Trying to get more integrated into Kirkwood

It has been a violent month. First the shootings in Kirkwood. Then a week later more shootings at Northwestern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL.

On Thursday, February 7th, the massacre in Kirkwood occurred. I was in a meeting with the Lead Ministers Relations Committee (Kim Fitzgerald, Kathy Mead, Luis Ortiz, David Seidensticker, and Julie Triplett).

Within 24 hours, the Kirkwood Ministerial Alliance (KMA) organized a prayer vigil for that Friday night. Unfortunately, they didn’t notify us. We found out about it anyway, but by the time I found out I was most of the way to Bloomington, IL for a district board meeting and wouldn’t be able to make it back in time.

We were able to get our intern and Reverend Bonnie there. Rev. Bonnie wore her stole and stood toward the front, and I understand one of the TV stations showed her a few times. I also heard from a few of you that it was hard to hear the prayers through all the noise of the generators for the TV crews and the helicopters above. And that what prayers were heard were very much in line with evangelical Christianity, and it would have been nice to hear something a little more in keeping with liberal religion.

So, the KMA has changed its meeting time (which conflicted with another monthly meeting I have) and will now meet once a month on Saturday at 8 am. Why the change? In the years I’ve attended KMA meetings (off and on), there haven’t been any black pastors, because unlike the white pastors, the black pastors have day jobs and can’t afford the luxury of attending a mid-day meeting.

You can be sure we will be attending the March meeting, and trying to make sure we get called in emergency pastoral visits– if they will let us!