Libby’s Experience at the Brown Church Seminar
Above: Photos from Libby’s walk through Calvin’s Ecosystem Preserve
Note: This seminar was held on Monday, July 27 thru Friday, July 31, 2026.
Kyron Walker, Director of Worship Arts at NCEL:
Hey y’all,
The Worship Arts ministry sent Libby (Assistant Director of Worship Arts) to Grand Rapids, Michigan to learn about the “Brown Church”. I asked her to share her some her experience and what’s she’s still chewing on from the seminar:
Libby: I had a really awesome opportunity last week to attend a seminar put on by the Calvin Institute of Worship. It was called “Brown Church” after the speaker’s book on the history of the North and Central American Latina/o contribution to the global church.
So, I just got back from Grand Rapids, Michigan where I got to be in a room with 17 other believers. No two of us are from the same church tradition and it was pretty amazing to learn about the latino/a church in the context of people in ministry from all over the country from so many different backgrounds. There were so many pictures of faithful service in the room as we learned together about a rich tradition of carrying faith alongside justice.
There was a Southern Baptist pastor, a United Methodist pastor, an early church history professor nun from the Vatican, several non-denominational worship leaders, an IT professor, a Lutheran composer, and many more ministry leaders.
I left that week of study and discussion more encouraged than I have felt in a while. I don’t think I realized how wearying it has become to feel like I have to explain why I care about both my faith and issues of justice in my community. There are groups where caring about justice is a common value where my faith doesn’t seem welcome and groups where faith is a common value but the way I speak about justice gets labeled as “woke.” The first day we talked about that dynamic and it was an experience that we all shared.
As the week went on, I learned about more and more Christians through five centuries who also wrestled with this question. One of the things that Robert Chao Romero emphasized was that we didn’t need to come up with something new: others have gone before and we could follow their lead.
I came home with a pile of books: several of them connected to the time our church is about to spend in the Psalms, but three specifically influenced by my week of study. Mañana by Justo González,Christianity and Critical Race Theory by Robert Chao Romero (the facilitator of the seminar) and Jeff M. Liou, and Fount of Heaven: Prayers of the Early Church edited by Robert Elmer.
Kyron: Church, thank you for supporting learning like this. Libby will share more about her trip as she has had time to marinate on some of the ideas. In the meantime, we’ve included a video below from Robert Chao Romero talking about the “Brown Church”. Enjoy! : )
