\t\t\t\tBy Gimbiya Kettering<\/p>\n
After tragedy comes prayer. What comes after prayer?<\/strong> I may never find the words for the prayers that I want to articulate. But, in my silence, I am also preparing for the strength and courage for the actions I need to take next week and the week after that. The actions that will make a difference.<\/p>\n What have you done or said in response to the shootings at the Emanuel AME Church?<\/em><\/p>\n How have people received your contributions?<\/em><\/p>\n What actions do you think we could take as individuals, as congregations, and as a denomination to be part of the healing after these shootings and other incidents of racialized violence in our community?<\/em><\/p>\n Please share your stories so that they can inspire me and others who are seeking a ways forward in our broken, beautiful world. You can send your stories to gkettering@brethren.org<\/a> or call me at 1-80-323-8039 xt 387.<\/em><\/p>\n Gimbiya Kettering<\/strong> is the director of Intercultural Ministries \u2014 and this blog series is a way of continuing the conversation about how race, culture, ethnicity, and language impact our relationships with one another and how we do ministry. If you have a question or comment to share, please email her directly at gkettering@brethren.org<\/a>. More about Intercultural Ministries at:www.brethren.org\/intercultural<\/a><\/em>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Gimbiya Kettering After tragedy comes prayer. What comes after prayer? Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. \u2014Romans 8:26 (KJV)For the past month, people have shared articles and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[16,284,295,401,550,620,627,773,921,954,1082,1185],"class_list":["post-4292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intercultural-ministries","tag-gimbiya-kettering","tag-courage","tag-cross-cultural","tag-ethnicity","tag-healing","tag-intercultural-ministries","tag-interracial","tag-multicultural","tag-prayer","tag-race","tag-south-carolina","tag-violence"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/blogtest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nLikewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.<\/em> \u2014Romans 8:26 (KJV)For the past month, people have shared articles and essays and online photo albums with me on every possible social media platform about the shootings, about the shooter, about South Carolina\u2019s flag, and about the complicated, terrible story of race in our country. I have been grateful for every day that has passed in peace\u2014without protests turning violent and self-destructive. I have stopped mid-step to listen to the radio reports about Charleston. I have read articles and editorials and tweets but I have not known what to say.For the past month, I have been praying\u2014or trying to pray for the grieving families of those killed, the congregation of Emanuel AME Church, for the people of Charleston, the leaders of South Carolina, for the wider African Methodist Episcopal denomination, for all of us as Americans. Often words have failed me in the rising tide of my grief, rage, and confusion. I have wanted, perhaps more than anything, to be able to push back time. But I cannot continue to pray for a return to the week before last week, before any of this happened, and to pray for something different. That is not the type of intercession God does.<\/p>\n