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Pride Month, for me, is both celebration and survival. It is sacred remembrance and embodied resistance. As a Queer Black man, Pride represents the beauty of people who were told they should hide, shrink, or disappear, choosing instead to live loudly, lovingly, and truthfully. Pride is not simply a parade or a party, though joy itself is holy. Pride is what happens when a people pushed down for generations refuse to remain buried beneath shame. In many ways, Pride reminds me

With a deep sigh, she asked, “Where is everyone?” It is a question I’ve heard in several contexts, especially small churches. Countless individuals put energy, time, and monetary resources behind spiritual movements of love and justice. Yet, in so many small communities, like churches, organizers and members meet moments of frustration and exhaustion. The reasons are multifaceted, but the question reveals a deeper reality. Momentum is fragile. It flickers like a candle in the

I have the privilege to serve alongside a beautiful and vibrant community in the city of Whittier. Our ministry is dedicated to creating a safe space for all people to develop an authentic and meaningful relationship with God and with one another. We provide and share resources that cultivate dignity and belonging. In the summer of 2025, our community began to live through an all too familiar experience. Every step outside their homes was shadowed by uncertainty, “Con Cuidado

NOTE : This excerpt is from Transforming Communities , chapter 9, published by Chalice Press. This chapter focuses on the community organizing model called “Faith Rooted Organizing,” which borrows from the strands of the Gandhian independence movement, the US civil rights movement, Latin American liberation theology, and the Filipino workers’ movement’s principled resistance model. If you're interested in other tools Sandhya has found helpful in their organizing work, check

Community organizing has always been about relationships — people coming together, grounded in shared values, to build power for the common good. While tactics have changed over time, the strategic heart of organizing remains deeply local, relational, and rooted in trust. In an age that pulls us toward speed and the digital, the most transformative organizing still happens in analog spaces: face-to-face in living rooms, around tables, in sanctuaries, and in the everyday space

When I was in seminary at Pacific School of Religion, then Spirituality Professor and Dean of DSF Joe Driskill taught me the Greek word anamnesis . It is often translated as remembering, but its meaning is more precisely bringing the past forward into the present. Literally, it is fighting “against amnesia.” Joe shared this concept in the context of communion, the weekly ritual when we Disciples remember the Last Supper before Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection, the ritual