The CORR Action Fund awarded New City Church of the Minnesota Conference $10,000 for the expansion of its racial justice initiatives as part of its 2022 Grant Cycle. For more about the CORR Action Fund and other grantees, visit the 2022 CORR Action Fund Grantees Page.
May 18, 2023
In the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, there is a church that is seeking to expand its racial justice initiatives. The New City Church is a multiracial church with mostly Millennial or Gen Z members. Beyond the physical churchgoers, a digital community is joining them from throughout the country and the world. The church got its name from Revelation 21, which says that there is a heaven in which God lives in a “new city.” In this heaven, all are welcome, there is no more violence, and the Earth is renewed. Their community and their programming aim to reflect this vision.
Since its opening, New City Church has looked for opportunities to help people with healing wounds caused by racism and white supremacy. There are three main components to their healing and racial justice programming: the Incarnation fund, which lets eligible individuals lead a “Community Healing Project”; the Embodied Anti-Racist Practice Group, and the Contemplation & Action course, a 7-week workshop designed by BIPOC for BIPOC to help encourage self-reflection and somatic awareness. With support from the CORR Action Fund, New City hopes to strengthen the connective tissue among these programming components by leaning into how the programs may draw support from each other.
New City Church takes an innovative approach to racial justice by weaving together somatic practices, a body-centered approach to healing past traumas, with antiracism. In this way, they can help practitioners heal from experiences with racism and white supremacy. This healing curriculum sits within a more extensive understanding of transformation as something that originates inside a person and then moves to the outside. This means prayer, worship, and spiritual practices can create internal changes that lead to external changes that are visible to oneself and others.
“It’s not like addressing racism and following Jesus are separate activities, really, just like participating in worship or supporting the poor aren’t considered extra curricular activities for Christians. All of these are about how we use our heart, soul, mind, and strength to follow God’s vision for the world. And what a joy it is to do that work!”
– Tyler Sit, Lead Pastor & Church Planter
Additionally, New City Church hopes to expand its ability to maintain engagement and connection with program participants after their cohorts and courses have ended. They believe that maintaining better relationships with participants will bring previous participants as facilitators to work on current and upcoming projects. This would help the programs reach a point of self-sustainability. This would be aided by organizing more public-facing events that raise awareness about the programs.
