21 Day Challenge
On June 17, 2020 the Fran Park Center for Faith and Life hosted a live webinar about racial inequality and on June 25, we launched a 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge which includes suggestions for readings, podcasts, videos, observations, and ways to form and deepen community connections. We invite you to challenge yourself!

The Bush Was Blazing But Not Consumed
by Eric H. F. Law
Developing a multicultural community through dialogue and liturgy. Best-selling author Eric Law shows how to work with the dynamics of diverse cultures to create a truly inclusive community.

The Courage Way
by Center for Courage & Renewal and Shelly L. Francis
Shelly Francis identifies key ingredients needed to cultivate courage, the most fundamental being trust--in ourselves and in each other. She describes how to build trust through the Center for Courage & Renewal's Circle of Trust approach, centered around eleven "touchstones," poetic and practical operating guidelines for holding the meaningful conversations vital to trust building.

The Open Broken Heart
by Parker Palmer

Habits of the Heart (a phrase coined by Alexis de Tocqueville) are deeply ingrained ways of seeing, being, and responding to life that involve our minds, our emotions, our self-images, our concepts of meaning and purpose. I believe that these five interlocked habits are critical to sustaining a democracy.
couragerenewal.org/habitsoftheheart

Brother to a Dragonfly
by Will Campbell
In Brother to a Dragonfly, Campbell writes about his life growing up poor in Amite County, Mississippi, during the 1930s alongside his older brother, Joe. Though they grew up in a close-knit family and cared for each other, the two went on to lead very different lives. After serving together in World War II, Will became a highly educated Baptist minister who later became a major figure in the early years of the civil rights movement, and Joe became a pharmacist who developed a substance abuse problem that ultimately took his life. Brother to a Dragonfly also serves as a historical record. Though Will's love and dedication to his brother are the primary story, interwoven throughout the narrative is the story of the Jim Crow South and the civil rights movement. Will's accomplishments, however, never take the spotlight from his brother, and as his relationship with Joe evolves, so does Will's faith. Featuring a new foreword by Congressman John Lewis, this book brings back to print the combined lives of Will Campbell--Will the brother and Will the preacher.