Allendale United Methodist Church

Please invest in repairing our sign so that we can continue to share messages of solidarity with those oppressed. Our sign has been one of the best ways for us to express messages of repentance and solidarity with people of color, LGBTQ persons, and people of other faiths. 

Whatever money raised over the needed sign repair will be used to improve rooms that Allendale gives to the community for free meeting space.

Someone threw a brick through our church sign that carried the words of a man who knows firsthand the sting of violence. The quote on the marquee was from Congressman John Lewis, who in Selma in 1972 on Bloody Sunday suffered a skull fracture at the hands of a state trooper. Our sign is in good company.

To the sign vandalizer: You are forgiven! Come and join us in Tikkun Olam, repairing the world.

Hear now other good words from Congressman John Lewis:

“You are a light. You are the light. Never let anyone—any person or any force—dampen, dim or diminish your light. Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates... Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won. Choose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don't be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice. And if you follow your truth down road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself.”

“Take a long, hard look down the road you will have to travel once you have made a commitment to work for change. Know that this transformation will not happen right away. Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once. In the movement, we didn't know how history would play itself out. When we were getting arrested and waiting in jail or standing in unmovable lines on the courthouse steps, we didn’t know what would happen, but we knew it had to happen. Use the words of the movement to pace yourself. We used to say that ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part. And if we believe in the change we seek, then it is easy to commit to doing all we can, because the responsibility is ours alone to build a better society and a more peaceful world.”