Many people are still feeling the after-shock of the Covid-19 pandemic that forced them into isolation. One of the significant challenges has been the restrictions on physical interaction. While remote gatherings can provide levels of human interaction, many have found that virtual gatherings are not sufficient enough to fill the relational void caused by isolation. It requires an uncanny type of resilience and creative methods to cultivate authentic friendships and develop new relationships. 

In this week’s blog, we are excited to highlight a resilient and creative group of young people from Young Life Boston who have been intentional about developing genuine friendships even through the pandemic. According to Emma Dickinson, the writer of this blog, “this restricted season has limited our ability to host and lead traditional Young Life programs, and for the greater Church, our ability to gather in typical fashion. But it has by no means slowed our collective ability to tell the people of Boston about Jesus through the bonds of friendship.”

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Can I pull back the curtain and tell you what we are talking about in one of our Young Life high school small groups? 

How to be friends. 

I’m not talking about how to form the elusive high school clique. And I’m definitely not talking about how to grow your Instagram followers, a perceived community based on incomplete windows into each other’s lives.  

We are breaking down examples of friendship that we find in Scripture. We are talking about Ruth and Naomi, Mary and Elizabeth, Jesus with John, Peter, and James. We are asking each other hard questions about exclusion, rejection, and selfishness. We are seeing God’s good design for community, how His way is for us to live at peace with one another, by any means possible. (Romans 12:18). 

We are earnestly praying for every high school student in our city – that they would know of the love Jesus has for them.  And we are humbly praying for ourselves – that we could be a bright light amongst the darkness in our schools. 

We don’t believe that the gospel goes out into our communities of young people because of great programs. It’s because of the Holy Spirit. It’s because of the relationships we are building with students. And it’s absolutely because of the relationships we are empowering them to have with others. One leader received a text from a student that read:

“hey. i just wanted to say thank you for inviting me to young life tonight. it’s exactly what i needed.”

This student, we will call her Julie, reached out to one of our Young Life leaders at the beginning of January with an “enough is enough” attitude. She was done doing high school on her own, done with trying to follow Jesus in her own strength. Julie did not ask for more programs and she did not ask for more resources. She asked for friendship. She asked for someone to walk alongside her as she walked toward Jesus again, after a season of waywardness. 

A consequence of the pandemic has surely been further isolation for our young people. Do you want to know what I’m seeing in a culture that prioritizes self-protection and survival over gospel friendships? I am watching young people and the generations that precede them dive deeper into chosen isolation than ever before. While there are many people in Boston in isolated situations by circumstance, there are potentially many more who are simply but profoundly numb from the trauma of the last year. 

This restricted season has limited our ability to host and lead traditional Young Life programs, and for the greater Church, our ability to gather in typical fashion. But it has by no means slowed our collective ability to tell the people of Boston about Jesus through the bonds of friendship. 

We can be encouraged and motivated by what Paul writes in Philippians 1:12, that his difficult circumstances served him in advancing the gospel. Our pandemic chains are no match for the love of God, displayed through the body of Christ, by laying down our lives for our friends (John 15:13).  

Boston, what would it require of us to continue to press in, brush off discouragement and pursue meaningful friendships? What if the revitalization of our gatherings as vaccines roll out and restrictions decrease only matter if we are fully engaged with one another in a Romans 12 kind of way? 

It can be truly messy. It is most always awkward. It will cost you. You will definitely be inconvenienced. But if friendship is God’s design, and we are God’s people, and this is the city He’s asked us to serve – how else would we spend our days? Who else would we want to be? 

I am praying, Boston brothers and sisters, that we’d be known for the way we pursue one another and the “other”. I am praying we’d be a witness to the friendship God has offered us. I am praying the words of Jesus, that we would be one (John 17:22). 

Hey UniteBoston Community! We recently came across this really cool podcast series by Park Street Church in Boston called “Park Street Dialogues.” It features local Christian leaders from Boston who are making an impact in different sectors of the city. In each episode, Pastor Mark Booker hosts a series of conversations with various guests about their work and ministry in the city to highlight how God is at work in the city. The podcast focuses on strengthening the unity of the church and connecting Christians in Boston and beyond. Read more about the podcast in our blog below and listen to it here: www.parkstreet.org/dialogues/.

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By K. Percy Ballah

In my work serving as the Communications Administrator with UniteBoston these past few months, we have been seeking to highlight and elevate the ways that God is at work in our city. I was impressed to see the strong theme of unity and collaboration present within the Park Street Church Dialogue podcast to “connect followers of Jesus in Boston and beyond” so that they can do more together than they can apart. In episode zero, Pastor Booker shares his deep conviction for the Church to function as a unified body. He believes that when the Church expresses unity through collaboration, they tap into a divine power that “demonstrates to the world that Jesus is alive.” According to Pastor Booker, this unity is unique because the Holy Spirit sustains it; it is “a supernatural reality, not just a social phenomenon.”

Throughout the podcast, Pastor Booker has heart-to-heart conversations with a diverse group of local Christian leaders who are making an impact through their churches, non-profits, and parachurch ministries. They discuss various topics ranging from God’s calling to serve in Boston, to racial justice, post-trauma healing, youth ministry, church planting, networking, and much more. Some voices featured on the podcast are Pastor Barry Kang from Symphony Church, Dana Baker from the Boston Trauma Healing Collaborative, Jua Robinson from Boston Collaborative, Reverend David Wright from BMA TenPoint, and Christian and Mary Grant from The Boston Project and Young Life Boston. Their collective voices provide a holistic perspective on how Jesus is working through his diverse body to address the surmounting challenges people face in our city. 

Some of the featured guests on the “Park Street Dialogues” podcast.

Leaning into the honest dialogue between Pastor Booker and his featured guests provides a glimpse into the powerful ways that God is working through the local church in Boston. As the podcast audience listens intently, Pastor Booker hopes that God will speak to their hearts about the active role they are called to play to strengthen the unity of the local Church in Boston. 

If you are a Christian in Boston who is longing to make an impact in your local neighborhood,  I encourage you to check out this podcast. I am confident that you will feel inspired to partner with other Christians in your local community as you learn about the diverse ways God is at work in the city.  The Park Street Dialogues podcast is available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast. Or, just start by listening here: www.parkstreet.org/dialogues/.

This Thursday was the National Day of Prayer, and we’re honored to feature a blog written by the coordinator of the inaugural UB School of Prayer! Anne Freeman lives in Roslindale and works as a free-lance American Sign Language interpreter. She also serves as Coordinator of New England Deaf & Hard of Hearing Ministry under the umbrella of The American Baptist Churches of Massachusetts. Anne is married and has a teenage daughter. Read below to hear about how prayer can be a powerful tool for nurturing spiritual unity across Christians.

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Prayer is a uniting practice that we as Christians participate in, but due to COVID 19, we’ve had limited opportunities to pray together in person. I was feeling a bit frustrated over the lack of places for us to go deeper in prayer, both in learning about it as well as praying together.  To my knowledge, there were no initiatives that provided both learning and praying with others, so I sensed an invitation from God to take the initiative and see what might be done to go deeper in prayer with Christians throughout the city.

After some conversations and prayer with leaders from my house church, I checked with Rev. Kelly Fassett, team leader for UniteBoston, to see if I could serve under that umbrella to offer both teaching on prayer and prayer itself. She agreed to give me a chance to try something new, and the UniteBoston School of Prayer was born!

Ideas came to mind for what this might look like: sessions that offered teachings on a variety of topics related to prayer from a variety of places in the Body of Christ in the greater Boston area. An opportunity for both lay people and professional clergy to do the teachings.  A format for the participants to pray together, using what they had just learned and in so doing, maturing in their understanding, experience and expression of prayer.  

I also strongly value the mission of UniteBoston, which encourages unity by encouraging us to focus on what we all have in common.  I think praying together and sharing what we’ve learned with each other is a way to pursue God’s dream for unity as we “major on the majors.” Above all, I recognized that the way we grow in prayer is by praying!

I created a flyer and was able to line up six great teachers from a broad spectrum of Christian backgrounds to lead the first six meetings: Joy Niemiera, Doreen Bennett, Pastor Dave Hill, Lorienne Schwenk, Pastor Kathleen Verna, and myself.  We covered our own personal prayer histories, intercessory and contemplative prayer, Lectio Divina, going from duty to delight, praying the Word, and the ACTS acronym.

 In the survey that I sent after the sessions were over, I learned that many appreciated the chance to be part of the meetings and thought it made for greater learning to move out of the circles they normally fellowship in.  They felt enriched in their understanding of the aspects of prayer that were covered, and found what we were doing to be refreshing.  These are exactly the things I was hoping for!

It was truly a pleasure for me to see teachers in action. They told me it was an honor and blessing to get the invitation to lead.  I felt like a producer, getting to use my administrative and networking skills to plan and organize these meetings. Zoom proved to be a useful tool because we could not have done this in person.  I suppose I can consider it a pandemic “silver lining”!  

Because all participants were interested in prayer in the first place, they brought a lot to the table regarding knowledge and experience.  These were not rookies! Most of them serve as leaders either in their home churches or in a parachurch organization, however, their humility in realizing that they still have more to learn was evident. 

The first woman to register told me that she felt this was an answer to prayer.  She was just telling God her prayer life was weak and then got the flier about the School of Prayer! 

John Bumyan said “You can do more than pray after you pray, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” I am convinced that prayer is a primary component of God’s kingdom coming to our city. I was inspired by how God worked through this initiative and am looking forward to hosting another School of Prayer soon!

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We are grateful for Anne taking the initiative to launch and organize the School of Prayer! You can read a summary Powerpoint from each of the sessions here. If you’re interested in being notified for future opportunities such as these, you can contact Anne Freeman at annefreeman14@gmail.com

Today, we’re featuring a reflective piece by UniteBoston’s Team Leader, Rev. Kelly Fassett. Here, Kelly shares a reflection on the jury results this week of the murder of George Floyd, from her perspective as a White person and a mother.

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This week, I’ve been thinking a lot about justice lately and what it means for justice to be served. I recently found a moving poem and painting created by people of color and I wanted to highlight them here.

While a jury in Minneapolis found Derek Chauvin guilty on all counts, this is not the end but a beginning. Attorney General Keith Ellison described that “I would not call today’s verdict justice, however, because justice implies restoration. But it is accountability, which is the first step toward justice.”

Derek Chauvin being held accountable for the murder of George Floyd is just a small drop in the bucket; the racism that people of color face on a day-to-day basis continue to endure, and the struggles remain. It seems like every morning, I wake up and there is another story on the news about a black or brown brother or sister getting shot, or another story about violence towards Asian-Americans. I lament this reality and long for God’s kingdom of holistic peace and justice to come forth in our world: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream…” (Amos 5:24).

Here is a poem by Chicago-based poet Leslé Honoré that describes raising her Black son in our world today. This hit me deeply as a new mother, recognizing the injustice of how differently my daughter’s experience in life will be, purely based on the color of her skin.

Today we want to highlight the “Hope Rising Gallery” that was installed this weekend in the Boston Common as part of the Embody Conference 2021. Coordinated by the Ministry of City Engagement at Park Street Church, there were 13 different neighborhoods and 39 “neighbors” within a 1-mile radius of Park Street Church featured in the art installation. The conference website describes: “The Son of God put on flesh and moved into our neighborhood. This is called incarnation. Christianity can become an intellectualized set of ideas rather than a way of life. This is called excarnation. Jesus of Nazareth invites us to embody his life in the world.”

The purpose of this gallery is to highlight the stories of the variety of “neighbors” who live within a 1-mile radius of Park Street Church in order to spotlight the “courage and resilience of our community to rise beyond the effects of COVID-19 and to have hope to see justice persist within our city.” Participants could scan the QR codes to hear stories told in their own voices. Whether or not you were able to attend the art installation, we wanted to share with the UniteBoston community a few of the stories that were featured, in hopes that you, too, might see how “hope is rising” in our city.

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