"Boston Sankofa Journey" Affinity Working Group
2020-21: UniteBoston worked on a capacity-building initiative to fund a part-time administrative staff person and a dialogue across difference training. For the past ten years, UniteBoston’s united worship events, website, and neighborhood dinners have brought together Christians across historic divisions of race, denomination, and generation.
2021-22: UniteBoston continued to work in a capacity-building initiative to fund a part-time administrative staff person and a dialogue across difference training. This is a renewal grant.
2024-25: The “Boston Sankofa Journey” Affinity Working Group will delve into Boston’s history of racism, aiming to reconstruct a shared memory for Christians in the city. Through communal learning and practice, members will share personal narratives, explore historical contexts, interview local leaders, and consider implications for Christian discipleship in Boston. Key inquiries will focus on Boston’s involvement in the North Atlantic Slave trade, including the role of churches in perpetuating or opposing slavery, as well as identifying stories, content, and experiences to foster collective racial healing, reconciliation, and shalom.
The Affinity Working Group initiative aims to provide time and space for HUB learning network members to engage in focused ways with others interested in a similar topic and questions around ministry in the city. We anticipate working group members to explore, deepen, and assess their own vocation, urban context, and church life; gain clarity about vital questions and issues in a particular focus area (eg. youth, arts, etc), and learn from group members’ lived experiences and other sources of knowledge and wisdom.
