Alka's Angle

I am writing this message to you from Schaumburg where Paula Roderick (your lay member/leader) and I have been attending the 2022 Annual Conference session of the Northern Illinois Conference. It is wonderful to be back in person, to sing together and conference with one another.

June is always a special month at Broadway! It is PRIDE MONTH!!! For the last 2 years we have not been able to celebrate the month with full energy, but now we are BACK IN PERSON!!! Let us join for all the celebrations, and fun activities.

I am sure many of you have recently seen these memes/quotes on social media platforms. These are a reminder to me that as Christians we are called to walk the talk, that our faith without actions is nothing, that along with prayers we need to also think of solutions. These are in response to the recent mass shootings that our country has experienced. We all know of the ones in Buffalo, Chicago and Uvalde, TX, but did you know there have been more than 200 mass shooting in 2022, and 27 school shootings.

As we get closer to the end of this month of remembering and celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I want to remind us of a few things:

Some of you, who are involved at the Annual Conference or denominational level, know that one of the ways I serve our connectional church is by serving on the Board of Directors of the UM General Commission on Religion and Race - a commission that was established in 1968, in the newly formed United Methodist Church, to hold the denomination “accountable in its commitment to reject the sin of racism in every aspect of the life of the church.”  And while our primary focus continues to be the racial disparity with the church and beyond, our work now extends to a broader context - nationalism, homophobia, disability awareness, gender bias - because we know that all oppression is connected, and therefore cannot be dismantled in isolation.