A Day of Education, Witness and Action in Phoenix

Thank you very much for your interest in my trip this week to Phoenix, Arizona. I know I have told several people about this trip. Others are learning about it from this note. I thought it would be good to let people know why we are going to Arizona.

Tuesday, January 26 will be a day of education, witness and action around immigration reform. Our vision is to see Christians acting together around the injustice faced by immigrants and to allow ourselves to be transformed in the process.

The day will begin with biblical teaching from Dr. Danny Carroll, author of Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church and the Bible and Old Testament professor at Denver Seminary. A meal will be shared with local immigrant families and hear firsthand their stories and struggles of life in the United States. In the afternoon we will continue with a witness and liturgy in front of a temporary immigrant detention center in downtown Phoenix and conclude our day with a public gathering to proclaim our commitment to the dignity of immigrants among us by insisting that immigration reform adhere to moral and biblical values.

National organizations including Sojourners, World Relief, and Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education (SCUPE) will join with local community organizations hosted by Neighborhood Ministries of Phoenix, Arizona to support this event. We hope to gather over 100 Christian leaders in Phoenix, and ask that you would prayerfully consider joining us for a powerful day of learning, relationship-building, prayerful witness and collective action. Others are convening in Santa Ana, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and other geographies on the same day. I can connect you to information on those meetings if you are interested.

I will be traveling with leaders of some faith-based organizations from Los Angeles, Bellflower, Pasadena, Fullerton, Whittier, and Costa Mesa. These are leaders of organizations where missions and community engagement interface with a wide variety of immigrant people. Some of us sense that this issue is comparable with the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. As Christians, we do not want parts of the church to miss understand to dismiss this work of God.