✊🏾 Racial Justice Sunday: The Gospel Is Not Neutral — Worship as public witness: a call to moral courage, deep belonging, and the dismantling of racism as sacred work.

Worship Service – February 8, 2026 | Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany (Racial Justice Sunday)

Bulletin – 02-08-2026

This Sunday at Holy Covenant United Church of Christ, we gathered on the Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany for worship centered on truth-telling, belonging, and the holy urgency of justice. In the heart of Black History Month, our service proclaimed that Christian faith cannot be neutral in the face of injustice—and that the work of racial equity is not peripheral to the gospel, but central to it.

From the opening welcome through the closing blessing, worship held a steady thread: we are called to live a faith that restores dignity, disrupts harm, and builds beloved community. The Centering Prayer invited each of us to bring our whole selves—doubter and believer, sinner and saint—into God’s presence, awakening to compassion and readiness for courageous love.

In the Call to the Heart, we named aloud what many systems prefer we keep silent: that racism still divides, that repentance must be more than words, and that God calls us to dismantle oppression with sustained commitment. Worship did not ask us to look away. It asked us to look clearly—and to respond.

During the Black Christian History Moment, we honored Richard Smallwood, celebrating his enduring contribution to the life of faith through sacred music. His song, “I Love the Lord,” became both testimony and prayer—reminding us that Black faith has long carried hope through struggle, and praise through pain.

Our Modern Lesson, drawn from Kelly Brown Douglas’ Stand Your Ground, named racism as a theological distortion that denies the image of God in Black bodies—and insisted that faithfulness requires moral courage and public witness. The message was clear: the church’s mission is not comfort that maintains the status quo, but justice that aligns with the God of life.

We were deeply blessed to welcome Bishop Tonyia Rawls to proclaim The Good News. Her presence and voice reinforced the day’s spiritual center: that liberation is not an add-on to Christian life, but part of its heartbeat. Through prayer, proclamation, and song, worship affirmed a gospel that stands with those most harmed—and calls the church to stand there too.

Even our generosity was framed as discipleship. In the Invitation to Generosity and Prayer of Dedication, we remembered that justice requires more than intention—it requires investment, repair, and the courage to build a world where all can thrive.

📖🙏 Order of Worship Highlights:

• Prelude: “Give Me Jesus” (arr. M. Hassell)
• Centering Prayer: A welcome to the whole self and a call to courageous love
• Introit: “Salaam” (M. Samir – Egypt)
• Call to the Heart: Confession, repentance, commitment, and public witness
• Hymn: “Come, All You People” (UYAI MOSE – Zimbabwe)
• Black Christian History Moment: Richard Smallwood
• Song: “I Love the Lord” (R. Smallwood)
• Stories for All People
• Song: “Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying” (K. Medema)
• Modern Lesson: Adapted quote from Kelly Brown Douglas
• The Good News: Bishop Tonyia Rawls
• Offertory Anthem: “Kum ba Yah” (arr. J. Carter)
• Hymn: “We’ve Come This Far by Faith” (arr. R. Smallwood)
• Postlude: “Deep River” (arr. T. Osman)

“The gospel is not neutral in the face of injustice. It stands on the side of life, dignity, and liberation.”