A pastoral response as wildfires threaten Spokane and gun violence disrupts Twin Falls

Beloved friends in the Greater Northwest Area,

Our hearts continue to ache as disaster unfolds in our communities once more this week. 

While lives are still shattered in Seattle from gun violence last week, today’s message comes amid wildfires forcing mass evacuations of Spokane, including a few of our UMC churches, their pastors and parishioners.

That alone, is too much. And yet, we’re reeling from another act of gun violence in Twin Falls, Idaho, where three people are dead and seven are injured.

I call on everyone reading this to pray – for those fleeing their homes, for those whose lives are yet again shattered by senseless gun violence – and take action in support of one another in these challenging days ahead.

As I wrote last week:

Prayer cannot become a substitute for the difficult work of change. That work also comes closer to home.

Our faith teaches us that every person is of sacred worth and that we belong to one another. When one suffers, we all suffer. Therefore, we must continue to show up.

As of this writing, we know the following about what’s happening in Spokane:

More than 640 structures were decimated as the Old Trails Fire – one of three burning near Spokane – crept into the city limits of Spokane on Saturday. More than 60,000 people have been evacuated in areas of Spokane and more than 14,000 structures have been threatened, according to local and state officials. None of the fires are contained at this moment.

The Governor has declared a state of emergency and we are hoping and praying there has been no loss of life, but the Old Trails Fire alone is being described as the worst one in Washington State history.

Rev. Cody Natlund, one of our Inland and Seven Rivers District superintendents, reports that a few of our pastors have had to evacuate their homes, and an undetermined number of local parishioners have evacuated, with at least one reportedly losing their home. 

None of our churches are in the current evacuation (or impact) zones, but Audubon Park and Covenant UMCs are both on the edges of two of the fires. Rev. Natlund reports that Covenant UMC is right across the street from a level 2 evacuation zone in north Spokane.

I am working with our PNW Conference Disaster Response ministries to secure a $10,000 UMCOR Solidarity Grant to work with superintendents in the area to distribute, among other things, grocery gift cards to survivors.

Kathy Bryson, our PNW Conference Disaster Response co-coordinator, offers these tips on how to show up for those in Spokane impacted by wildfires:

1. Pray: For the survivors, for the first responders, for everyone impacted
2. Answer the call with your congregation when relief supplies are requested.
   1. Relief supplies include things like hygiene kits, period packs, and soot sponge kits.
3. Donate. Give to the UMCOR advance or more directly to the PNW Conference Disaster Response Fund, which helps our disaster response coordinators in times like these.
4. Train and learn when the opportunities arise:
   1. Help your congregation be ready to respond in times of strife through the Connecting Neighbors program. The next training will take place Sept. 19 at Beaverton First UMC in Oregon and is open to anyone in our conferences.
   2. Consider becoming an Early Response Team (ERT) member. Attend the basic training course Sept. 26 at Des Moines UMC in Washington. The invitation is open as well (more details to come).

When it comes to the gun violence on display in Twin Falls, I’m leaning on the wisdom of our local pastor, Rev. Bo Sanders, to know what is best needed in this community right now.

The United Methodist Church stands opposed to gun violence, and so I’d ask you to consider the following resources for your understanding and advancing calls to action for policies and practices that might bring about an end to this epidemic in our country:

1. What our UMC Book of Resolutions says about gun violence
2. Join the General Board of Church & Society’s call to end gun violence through action and activism.
3. Participate in the “Kingdom Dreams Violent Realities” bible study created by GBCS reflecting on Micah 4: 1-4.

All of this is terrifying. The smoke is heavy. The grief is heavy. The fear is real. But fear is not our calling, and despair is not our inheritance.

Even when fire forces us to scatter, our love can still gather us. Even when gun violence causes us to question the safety of being together, we must not surrender the human connection that violence threatens to destroy. We will open our churches, our homes, our hands, and our hearts. We will check on our neighbors, make room for those who have been displaced, and accompany survivors long after the headlines have moved elsewhere.

Last week, I reminded us that we belong to one another. This week, that truth must take on flesh. We belong to those fleeing the fires. We belong to those waiting for news. We belong to the injured and the grieving. We belong to the firefighters, first responders, pastors, and community leaders carrying more than any one person should have to bear. Their fear is not theirs to carry alone. Their recovery is not theirs to build alone.

So let us pray—and then rise from prayer ready to serve. Let us give, advocate, shelter, comfort, and show up. May God receive those who have died, comfort all who mourn, heal the wounded, protect those in the path of the fires, strengthen those responding to these crises, and steady every person who does not yet know what tomorrow will bring.

We belong to one another. We need one another. And in days such as these, God calls us to become shelter for one another.

Bishop Cedrick D. Bridgeforth
Resident Bishop, Greater NW Episcopal Area