We are excited to invite you to participate in Social Justice Summer, the first major initiative of the FaithJustice Foundation.
Social Justice Summer is a national call to action to people of faith, congregations, and communities to spend a dedicated amount of time (6 weeks) studying, organizing, and taking action on an important social justice issue. Social Justice Summer was created for the many people of faith who want to be involved in social justice but do not know where to begin. Through Social Justice Summer, we invite you to start with discipleship and move to informed, inspired, faith-based action for social justice.
We invite congregations and other faith communities to commit during Summer 2018 to
For Social Justice Summer 2018, our book study is Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. Just Mercy is a powerful true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to fix our broken system of justice from one of the most brilliant and influential lawyers of our time. We have designed a sermon series based on scripture and the book, and we have a FaithJustice study guide in the works. The publisher’s study guide is also available.
Social Justice Summer runs from June 15 to August 16. However, congregations are free to schedule a 4- to 6-week period that works for them. If you have already studied Just Mercy, we invite you to select another book from our Social Justice Syllabus.
Social Justice Summer is designed based on a familiar discipleship model of church-wide studies. Similar to a church-wide Lenten or Advent study, Social Justice Summer combines worship and small group discipleship and adds social justice action.
Social Justice Summer is also being offered in the spirit of Mississippi Freedom Summer, a 1964 voter registration drive sponsored by the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and other civil rights organizations. Therefore, we are including voter registration as one of our recommended social justice actions.
The FaithJustice Foundation is a new nonprofit organization formed to equip and empower faith communities to take action for social justice in cities, states, and on the national level. Our goal is to provide education, training, resources, and eventually grantmaking to churches and faith-based organizations engaged in grassroots, social justice ministry, action, and advocacy.
We are grateful for funding from the United Methodist General Commission on Religion and Race and for our partners, the Seventh Episcopal District of the CME Church, Just Neighbors, and Annandale United Methodist Church.
