A lawyer once asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" Jesus answered with a story — one that stretched the boundaries of belonging and turned the question back around. This July, we're sitting with that story and letting it ask us the same thing.

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise."Luke 10:36–37

Justice in July is a four-week series of honest, open conversations about what it means to love our neighbors in the fullest sense — neighbors who need a place to live, neighbors whose identities are under threat, neighbors who have left everything behind to make a new home, and the neighbor we sometimes forget: the earth itself.

These conversations invite us to move beyond charity into genuine solidarity — to see, to stop, and to show up. Everyone is welcome. No membership required. Just an open door and a willingness to be here.

Here's What's Happening At Biumc!
Current Worship Series

4 Weeks • 4 Conversations • One Neighborly Theme

Every Sunday in July · 9AM & 10:30AM
July 5 / Rev. John Edgar / Being a Neighbor

In the parable of the Good Samaritan, a wounded man is left on the side of the road, unseen by those who pass by and cared for by a stranger who stops. Today, thousands of our neighbors experience that same vulnerability, not on a roadside, but in the search for safe and stable housing. Rev. John Edgar opens our series by exploring what the gospel calls us to in the face of a housing crisis and what it looks like to be the kind of neighbor who stops.

July 12 / NV Gay / Trans Inclusion

Jesus made the definition of "neighbor" as wide as possible. NV Gay invites us into a conversation about what it means to truly welcome our transgender and nonbinary neighbors — not just to tolerate difference, but to celebrate it, protect it, and build communities where everyone belongs. In a world that often passes by, what does it look like to stop and love well?

Special Event — July 12: Lunch with NV Gay
12PM in the Family Life Center

After worship on July 12, stay to share a free community lunch with our speaker, NV Gay, in the Family Life Center. We'll eat together at noon. It's an open, relaxed space to keep the conversation going over a meal. All are welcome at no cost.

RSVP for lunch is encouraged so we can plan for food.

July 19 / Alejandra Lopez / Love Without Borders

What does it feel like to leave your home, your language, your people, and try to build something new? Alejandra Lopez speaks from her own story about the longing that travels with you across borders, the homesickness that doesn't have a simple cure, and the surprising ways that people who seem so different can share the very same heart. The Good Samaritan crossed every boundary to love his neighbor. What boundaries might we be willing to cross?

July 26 / Mariellyn Grace / The Earth as Neighbor

We've spent four weeks asking who our neighbor is. For our final conversation, Mariellyn Grace invites us to consider the neighbor we walk on, breathe in, and depend on every single day: the earth itself. Creation care is neighbor love — and in a time of climate crisis, it may be one of the most urgent forms of it. Will we be the ones who stop, who kneel down, who tend to what is wounded?