We invite you to join the WVUMC Justice and Advocacy team as we visit four of our Historic African American Churches in the Potomac Highlands District.
We will gather May 12th at 5pm at Waldon UMC in Piedmont, to commune together. We will then travel just a few miles to Janes United Methodist Church, Keyser to share a meal and listen to a historic overview of the African American churches in our conference. While there we will also watch part one of the film, This is Our Story, This is our Song by Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. The film begins (and ends) with footage from Waldon United Methodist Church. We will spend the night in Keyser at SureStay Hotel.
Saturday, we will continue to learn together as we visit St Paul’s United Methodist Church, Williamsport and round out our visits with lunch and conversation at Asbury UMC in Moorefield. Our intent in visiting the congregations is to deeply listen to their stories of ministry and learn together.
We will end our retreat time by: 1) processing our learnings, and 2) discussing how we might partner with our African-American congregations to meet community needs and resource congregations for ministry sustainability.
Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball and Rev. Enger Muteteke, Senior Director of Programs and Education from the General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR), will be present in our retreat time to facilitate our work and guide our conversations.
Registration (including meals and lodging) is free – thanks to a grant from the United Methodist Foundation of West Virginia. Reservations are required so that we may have a proper count for meals and lodging. Please follow this link to register: https://wvumc-reg.brtapp.com/JusticeandAdvocacySpringRetreat
To learn more about the historically African American Churches in the West Virginia Conference, please follow this link.