The Council is excited to introduce you to one of our newest staff members, Meredith Rawls. Meredith joined us in January as the Program Engagement Coordinator for our Partners in Health and Wholeness initiative. Read more about Meredith:
It is with great joy that I join the staff of the North Carolina Council of Churches as the new Program Engagement Coordinator of the Partners of Health and Wholeness (PHW) Initiative! I am thrilled to join this team as a bridge builder and connector between churches and communities across the state.
While I am genuinely excited to join the PHW team and participate in the ways God is already at work in our communities, I’d be remiss if I did not acknowledge the irony in timing—the reality of wildfires tearing through the Los Angeles watershed feels metaphorical on a larger and deeper scale. In the past few days, many of our immigrant, LGBTQ+, and marginalized siblings in Christ have had their rights stripped or identities threatened by new Executive Orders. It seems that I am not alone in feeling angry, nervous, terrified, concerned, and holding grief.
And yet, I simultaneously acknowledge that joy and hope are rooted way deeper than the circumstances which may shake us. I enter this work as a part of the NC Council of Churches team with a commitment to resist oppression and injustice, and pursue love, shalom, and freedom in every crevice of my life and the communities and churches I will be serving across North Carolina.
Imagine what it looks like to be communities of faith who feast more around a table together, hold space for our grief and not run from it, while also claiming joy and not letting the powers and principalities destabilize us? How can we plant more seeds in the soil, or pick up our art supplies or creativity outlets more often? What does it look like to be gentle with ourselves and those in our midst while also speaking truth to power and holding those in power accountable when they threaten God’s beloved creation?
I come to the PHW team most recently having served as a chaplain at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh. For the past few years, I have had the privilege of walking the liminal space between life and death where I often confront the hard realities of health systems day in and day out.
Since the onset of the pandemic, I have entered into the magical world of gardening, which has changed my life and expanded the ways I encounter God and feel called by God to be and move in the world. I have also leaned into and claimed my identity as an artist, discovering that creating beauty is one of the most radical and important ways of resisting oppression. The healing I’ve experienced in the soil and with my paint brushes have complimented my emotionally rigorous work of accompanying folks in the hospital who often are asking ”Where is God?”, “How could God…?”, “Why would God….?.” I have cherished the opportunity to hold up a mirror to patients, families, and staff, helping them to connect with and wonder about the Divine.
Almost fifteen years ago when I was pursuing a degree in social work, I remember connecting the dots and realizing that Jesus befriended, healed, and journeyed with those who are most harmed by systemic injustice, those that theologian Howard Thurman deemed as “living with their backs against the wall.” In my journey of becoming a pastor, I have come to resonate with Jesus’ practice of walking and journeying with his friends, who often were those who were sick, outcasted, or forgotten about. I am called by God to journey with, to build bridges, to create community, and to hold the mirrors up to those who don’t recognize their own belovedness.
I feel curious a lot these days about how we are interconnected beings, yet how everything is tied together, and tethered to something deeper. As I enter into this work of the North Carolina Council of Churches as the PHW Program Engagement Coordinator, I come holding a lot of curiosity about how our holistic health and wellbeing are more pertinent now than ever, especially amidst this political pivot that has threatened a lot of people’s sense of safety and wellbeing. I wonder how health is not solely mental, physical, or spiritual, but rather, all intersectional and inextricably bound. I think about how our efforts to promote holistic health and wellbeing both in churches and communities are inherently tied to trauma, the environment, race, and economic justice. To talk about health and wholeness is to talk about the big picture, the whole picture. I’m excited to see what God has in store for me and for us as I embark on this journey with the Council. I look forward to bringing my heart for people and my passion for community. I trust that God will move and that the Spirit will guide, reminding me each step of the way that my liberation is bound to that of my neighbors.