#ethel lance

[canonizedandotherwise]

“When I was a child, I heard stories about Christian Martyrs who were set on fire, who were crucified upside down, or who were attacked by lions in the arena. My child-like faith couldn’t conceive of what that kind of suffering might be like. Neither could I understand at that age why these martyred saints still matter to our Christian witness today. It seemed like all that martyrdom stuff was forever stuck in the past as a distant memory of church history.

But then on June 17, 2015, when the Rev. Clementa Pinckney and Rev. Daniel Simmons and the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton were shot and killed along with Cynthia Hurd, Tywanza Sanders, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, Depayne Middleton Doctor and Myra Thompson while attending a Bible Study on the sower and the seed, I began to grasp the incredible costly witness of all the martyrs over the ages. I began to realize that dying for one’s faith in Jesus Christ still happens today and that somehow we are connected to their lives and are being taught the kind of love and forgiveness through Jesus Christ that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.” This is the kind of love that never ends. This kind of forgiveness has no limits placed upon it.

So as we stand today at this 2-year remembrance, the invitation we have from God is to not to harden our hearts towards those we disagree with. It is not to hold onto grudges and resentments in our family or with our co-workers and acquaintances. It is not to shrug our shoulder in apathy about the racial struggle and injustices we still witness today. Rather God invites us to surrender, to let go, to give into God’s grace and forgiveness in Jesus Christ so that we may become instruments of God’s reconciling peace in our hurting world.

You are invited to join now in a prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

Amen.

---By The Rev. Herman Yoos, Bishop of the South Carolina Synod

[fade-a-way]

The Charleston the 9!

[urbanchristiannews]

The Gospel Music Association, Christian Artists Respond to Church Shooting In Charleston, S. C.

The Gospel Music Association, Christian Artists Respond to Church Shooting In Charleston, S. C.

The GMA on behalf of the Christian and gospel music industry mourns the senseless loss of Reverend Clementa Pinckney, pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and his parishioners: Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, Rev. DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., Rev. Sharonda Singleton and Myra Thompson. (more…)

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[1515ave]

No Church For The Wild

There's a war going on outside no Black is safe from No reason, when it comes to excuses they'll make one Since when do we do background checks on victims  Even though the one's behind the triggers are the sick ones Like Dave Duke, Klux Ku... the media never mention the real Instead these killers are labeled as mentally ill Fear for they life with a gun a side  At times with a badge on they chest, in their heart is pride White, as pure as the driven snow White, as pure as Colombian blow Y'all not understanding the depth of the situation Rinse and repeat while we just sit and waiting For the next Malcolm, Martin, or Garvey Here today gone tomorrow, word to Steve Harvey Family Feuds turn into the next Civil War of the Roses But the best part of waking up is waking up forget Folgers Now I'm waking up to headlines that dead my People everyday, like its deadline Black Lives Matter, and Black Death equal ratings While our bodies on ice, news outlets are skating What happened to just the facts Too much opinion CNN can't admit to that Fox News claim the killer just slipped through the cracks Plus they throw Black and Thug together because to them its a match Well I can play the memory game too I remember my people didn't want to come through I didn't forget half the shit you use to do Free labor paid for with a whip and a noose We don't talk about those truths they'll lose a roof And when its brought up, then you want a truce? But we don't want chill and smoke with you When it comes to cigars and cigarettes, we know what you do See we were on your street, so you got us before the tobacco got us first But my God, now you brought the wild into the Church...

[gifnews]

Say their names, remember their lives. Our thoughts are sincerely with the family and loved ones of all those who lost their lives in Charleston in Wednesday's tragedy.

[revolutionarykoolaid]

every black church has a “sis. ethel” and for some reason, just reading her name, and eventually her story, has me fucked up. this can’t go on. how many ways are they going to try to break us?!

[gehayi]

And the choirs kept singing of freedom...

Rev. Clementa Pinckney, 41, was the church’s pastor and a South Carolina state senator. 

Depayne Middleton Doctor, 49, sang in the church choir, the Charleston newspaper reported.

Ethel Lance, 70, worked for 30 years at the church, a relative told the Post and Courier. 

Susie Jackson, 87, a longtime church member, was Lance’s cousin, the newspaper reported.

Cynthia Hurd, 54, was branch manager of the St. Andrews Regional Library, just a few miles from the church where she was killed. 

Tywanza Sanders, 26, was a 2014 graduate of Charleston’s Allen University.

Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45, was a church pastor and high school track and field coach, according to the Post and Courier.

Myra Thompson, 59, was an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority,according to the Greenville News. 

Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr., 74, who died at a hospital, was a retired pastor from another Charleston church, ABC News reported.

Source (spacing mine)

[stephanbroadus]

AME shooter left one woman alive to report tragedy, family of victims speak out

AME shooter left one woman alive to report tragedy, family of victims speak out

http://embed.newsinc.com/Single/iframe.html?WID=1&VID=29247511&freewheel=91573&sitesection=senewsone&height=338&width=600

A survivor of the Emanuel AME shooting in Charleston, South Carolina says she was left alive to retell the incident, The Post Courier reports.

Dot Scott, President of the NAACP in Charleston, spoke to reporters about the woman and the nine other victims. Three men and six…

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