Racial justice will be the focus of a series of Good Faith Forums in July.
The three events will take place at 1 p.m. CDT / 2 p.m. EDT on the next three Tuesdays.
Each forum will be livestreamed to GFM’s Facebook page.
Advanced questions can be submitted here, and inquiries can be submitted during the live event via Facebook chat, as well.
GFM staff will curate questions submitted in advance and during the event that the forum moderators will present to the panelists.
Cory Jones, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Burlington, New Jersey, and a member of the GFM governing board, will moderate the first town hall on July 14.
Panelists Willie Dwayne Francois III, TaNikka Sheppard and Joe Phelps will lay the groundwork by focusing on systemic racism and white privilege.
Francois III is a preacher, teacher and community organizer, who serves as the pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Pleasantville, New Jersey.
Sheppard is a mentor, minister and spiritual leader who serves as the president of Baptist Women of North America, which provides networking, resourcing and leadership development opportunities and experiences to Baptist women in the U.S. and Canada.
Phelps is a retired Baptist minister who serves as justice coordinator for Earth and Spirit Center and as co-chair of Empower West, a coalition of urban and suburban pastors in Louisville, Kentucky, who meet regularly to discuss and address issues plaguing West Louisville.
Starlette Thomas will be the moderator of the second town hall on July 21. Thomas is the minister to empower congregations at the DC Baptist Convention and a GFM advisory board member.
This forum will address racism in the context of nationalism, including white Christian nationalism, and white supremacy.
Panelists include Angela Denker, a former sportswriter turned Lutheran pastor, writer, speaker and author, and Charles Watson Jr., director of education at BJC.
On July 28, the third town hall will be moderated by Terrell Carter, a former police officer, ordained minister, a GFM advisory board member and the vice president and chief diversity officer for Greenville University in Greenville, Illinois.
Policing reform, touching briefly on criminal justice reform, will be addressed by Saint Rice, associate professor of criminal justice at Lincoln College in Lincoln, Illinois, and Bruce Prescott, former executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists from 1998-2014.
The events are free. Advanced registration is not required, but you can note your intention to attend on our Facebook event posts.
A recording of each town hall will be made available on GFM’s Vimeo page and shared via GFM’s social media channels following the event.
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