“ALL GOD’S CREATED ONES”
Massachusetts Council of Churches Annual Gathering
Rev. Dr. Almeda Wright, Keynote Speaker
Tuesday April 9, 2024 6:30pm- 8:30pm online
“ Change is uncomfortable and rarely welcomed. Usually it is resisted overtly or covertly, Therefore, it must be planned for if it is to occur… [but ] our faith, our Black people and all God’s created ones, require and demand that change come, and that this oppressive and unjust society become The Kingdom of God on Earth.”
Rev. Dr. Olivia Pearl Stokes, Director of Religious Education at the Massachusetts Council of Churches, 1953-1966
~ Rev. Dr. Olivia Pearl Stokes, Director of Religious Education at the Massachusetts Council of Churches, 1953-1966 and the first African American woman to earn a doctoral degree in religious education in the United States. 1974 from the new book “Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators, and Radical Social Change” by Rev. Dr. Almeda Wright
Dear Church,
You are invited to join us on Tuesday April 9, 2024 beginning at 6:30pm online for our Annual Gathering under the banner “All God’s Created Ones.” This phrase comes from the writing of Rev. Dr. Olivia Pearl Stokes, a former employee of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, and the first Black women in the US to earn a doctoral degree in religious education. We’ll learn more about Dr. Stokes, and the prophetic role of Black Church activists-educators from our keynote speaker, Yale Divinity School Professor Rev. Dr. Almeda Wright.
“All God’s Created Ones, require and demand that change come,” and that is the work that Massachusetts Council of Churches is about. When you join us on Tuesday April 9, you’ll hear about how we’re both requiring and demanding that change come, through:
- Support for New Migrants
- Clergy Mental Health, including Tuesday May 14 12pm with Dept of Mental Health
- Bivocational Leaders
- Racial Justice Ministry
We’ll also welcome new Board members and thank those who have guided MCC faithfully through COVIDtimes, particularly outgoing President Rev. Jennie Barrett Siegal. You’ll also connect to other local church leaders who are, like you, looking to end this unjust and oppressive society, and bring about The Kingdom of God on Earth.
Join us on Tuesday April 9, 6:30pm. Registration is required. All are invited.
To order the book Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators, and Radical Social Change (Oxford University Press) please purchase from your local bookstore, Oxford University Press, or local Boston Black-owned bookstore, Frugal Books.
About our Keynote Speaker: Reverend Almeda M. Wright, Ph.D.
Rev. Dr. Almeda M. Wright is the tenured Associate Professor of Religious Education at Yale Divinity School. Dr. Wright’s research focuses on African American religion and education, Womanist spirituality, adolescent spiritual development, and the intersections of religion and public life. She also directs the Communitas Initiative, a five-year practical theological research project on young adult spirituality. This work centers BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of color) young adults and attempts to create working space for the creation of spiritual communities connecting young adult leaders with congregations and community partners.
Prior to her arrival at Yale, Dr. Wright served as assistant professor of religion and youth ministry at Pfeiffer University, and before that as a visiting faculty member and teaching assistant at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. At Candler, she also served as program director of the Wisdom of Youth Project and in various positions with the Youth Theological Initiative. She has served as a consultant to the Women’s Theological Center in Boston and has taught at several schools in the Greater Boston area, including Shady Hill School, the Young Achievers Science and Math Academy, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Open School.
Professor Wright’s publications include: Teaching to Live: Black Religion, Activist-Educators, and Radical Social Change (Oxford University Press) and The Spiritual Lives of Young African Americans (Oxford University Press, July 2017); a coedited book with Mary Elizabeth Moore, Children, Youth, and Spirituality in a Troubling World; a special issue of Religions Journal; and various articles in scholarly journals. She has also contributed to several edited volumes, including Albert Cleage, Jr. and the Black Madonna and Child (Palgrave 2016); Faith Forward: A Dialogue on Children, Youth and a New Kind of Christianity (Woodlake 2013); Adoptive Youth Ministry (Baker Academic 2016), and wrote introductory essays for the Common English Bible-Student Edition.
Professor Wright has been privileged to deliver the Anna Julia Cooper Lecture (at Emory University), the Princeton Lectures on Youth, Church and Culture and to deliver keynote addresses at the University of Vienna’s Religions at School Conference, the Trinity Wall St. Institute, and the Faith Forward conferences. She has given research presentations at numerous conferences, including the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Childhood and Spirituality.
Her research has been supported by the Lilly Endowment, Inc., the John D. Templeton Foundation, the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning, the Forum for Theological Exploration, and the Louisville Institute.
Dr. Wright completed her doctoral studies at Emory University. Dr. Wright also studied at Harvard University Divinity School (M.Div.), where she concentrated on Religion & Culture and History of Biblical Interpretation; Simmons College (M.A. in Teaching); and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. in Electrical Engineering).
Professor Wright is an ordained minister of the American Baptist Churches and has served on the ministerial staff of various churches, including Union Baptist Church (Cambridge, Massachusetts) and Victory United Church of Christ (Stone Mountain, Georgia).
