The Mission Institute is committed to inspiring, catalyzing, and equipping people to advance social and racial
justice. We believe how we teach, learn, and work together directly shapes our outcome. We seek to advance
personal and collective justice and healing through participatory learning processes, creating and curating
resources, and nurturing a community of courageous leaders.
We believe liberating ourselves from racism is a spiritual practice.
- Structural racism is an evil being done on our behalf. It infuses our social fabric, creating and maintaining
inequities through our social, cultural, political, economic, and religious institutions. - Racism robs us of our humanity, diminishing oppressor as well as oppressed.
- As we seek change, we will make mistakes.
- We cannot do this work alone but are sustained by a community of people who share our commitment.
Our faith guides and deepens our spiritual practice: as we confess our repentance “of the evil that enslaves
us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf” (Enriching Our Worship, 56), when we promise “to
persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord” (Book of Common
Prayer, 293), and when we draw on scripture, lament, and other wisdom passed down through our faith.
We have made assumptions in choosing how to expand racial justice and healing.
- We believe racism and white supremacy are not simply a problem of individual prejudice, but are
foundational to how our country was founded, are enshrined and maintained through institutional and
cultural practices, and create devastating racial inequities. - We believe a small band of committed people –3 to 10 percent of any group -is the tipping point for
catalyzing change within our congregations, organizations, structures, communities, and society. - We believe racism and white supremacy will only be dismantled through the active involvement of we
who are white. - We believe we who are folks of color will shape and lead our own healing from internalized racism and
white supremacy.
The story of the early followers of Jesus told through the gospels and the writings of St. Paul inspires us,
reminding us our strengths and frailties as we seek to be courageous and beloved together and in our wider
communities.
We hold core beliefs about how we do our work.
- We believe that listening is a sacred activity, and that deep listening creates the space for us to hear the
stirrings of the Spirit. - We believe we all carry knowledge and are wiser together. Learning from and with a group takes us
beyond our own experiences and senses and enriches us through the perspectives and learnings of
others. - We believe that transformation comes most readily when people are engaged in active experience and
reflection, sharing what they know, listening to others, and figuring things out together. - We believe that transformed behavior around racism–overcoming our fears, having greater courage,
seeing with new eyes–occurs when we engage our hearts, bodies, and spirits, not just our minds. - We believe we inspire creative, positive action when we accompany groups rather than instruct them:
getting to know each group’s particular context, experiences, strengths, challenges, and desires, and
being open to learning and growing together.
Scripture strengthens our core beliefs: how Jesus made no assumptions but asked the blind man “What do
you want?” (Mark 10:51), how he learned from the Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:21-28), how he engaged and
accompanied the believers on the Emmaus Road (Luke 24:13-25).