Dismantling Racism

Dear Friends,

We, the North Alabama Conference Leadership Team, are dedicated to leading clergy and churches in addressing racism in ongoing and meaningful ways. We know that this begins with first recognizing our own racial biases and attitudes.

We have committed to journey together over the next year as we increase our awareness, build interracial relationships and develop a lifelong commitment to racial justice. We invite you to join us on this journey.

In partnership with the Ethnic Ministries Team and thanks to the skills of our Communications staff, a resource page entitled Dismantling Racism has been added to our Conference website. It includes suggested books as well as links to articles and videos. The list of books and links are a sampling of the many excellent materials available to us. We hope that they will be helpful to churches and individuals in taking next steps in increasing awareness of a variety of perspectives, building relationships with people from diverse life situations and developing a lifelong commitment to racial justice.

We invite you to visit the resource page www.umcna.org/dismantlingracism on a regular basis for updates and new ideas. Thanks for all that you do.

Sincerely,
The North Alabama Conference Leadership Team

Rev. Terry Bentley, District Superintendent, Mountain Lakes District
Rev. Kelly Clem, District Superintendent, Northwest District
Rev. Sherill Clontz, District Superintendent, Cheaha District
Linda Holland, Director of Connectional Ministries, Leadership Development and Church Health
Rev. Suzanne Katschke, Executive Director of New Church
Steve Lyles, Conference Lay Leader
Rev. Rick Owen, District Superintendent, Central and South Central Districts
Rev. Tom Parrish, District Superintendent, Northeast District
Rev. Sherri Reynolds, District Superintendent, Southwest District
Rev. Ron Schultz, Executive Director of the Board of Ordained Ministry
Scott Selman, Chief Financial Officer, Conference Treasurer, Director of Administrative Services and Benefits Officer
Rev. Donald Smith, District Superintendent, Southeast District and Executive Director of Ethnic Ministries
Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett, Resident Bishop of the Birmingham Area