#ROOTED2RISE

May at Magnolia: Memories, Milestones, and Movement

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This Season of Easter does not let us stay at the empty tomb. It sends us back into the world with a question: now that you have seen what God can repair, how will you live? At Magnolia, May is our answer.

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We are living in a time when the ground is shifting beneath our feet. In the wake of Louisiana v. Callais, we are reminded that progress is not permanent and rights are not self-sustaining. What previous generations secured through sacrifice can be narrowed, weakened, and reinterpreted in a single decision.

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So we cannot afford to be casual. We cannot afford to forget. We cannot afford to stand still. This month, we hold three things together: memories, milestones, and movement. Not as ideas, but as a way of life.

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Milestones: We Mark What Matters

May begins with gratitude, but not the shallow kind. On the Second Sunday, we pause for Mother’s Day. And if we are honest, Black motherhood has never been soft or simple. It has been strategic. It has been sacrificial. It has been a quiet form of resistance. There are women in our lives who stretched what they had, carried what they should not have had to carry, and still found a way to pour into us. They prayed when there were no answers. They held families together when systems pulled them apart. So we do not just say thank you.

We ask ourselves whether our lives reflect what they invested in us. At the same time, we mark a different kind of milestone. This is our first year distributing scholarships from the Scholars Fund. That matters. It matters because it signals a shift in posture. We are not waiting on someone else to open doors. We are building hinges. We are not hoping opportunity finds our children. We are making sure it does.

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Memories: We Do Not Forget

On the Third Sunday, we gather to celebrate 112 years of Magnolia. If these walls could speak, they would tell stories of people who refused to quit. People who built something sacred in a world that did not always see them as worthy of it. They did not have everything they needed, but they had enough faith to begin. They did not have guarantees, but they had grit. They did not have ease, but they had endurance.

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And somehow, through all of that, they left something for us. We honor them best not by looking back with sentiment, but by looking forward with responsibility. Because memory is not about feeling good. It is about staying grounded. 

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This is also a season of graduation. Young people stepping into new chapters, carrying both the weight and the promise of what comes next. In that spirit, Pastor Francys Johnson will carry Magnolia’s witness beyond these walls, speaking at the Stole Ceremony for the Center for Africana Studies at Georgia Southern University and offering remarks at the graduation of the University of Georgia School of Law. These are not isolated moments. They are extensions of who we are. 

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Movement: We Build What We Believe

And then there is the work. Right now, we are renovating our kitchen and fellowship hall. It may seem ordinary, but it is deeply spiritual. Because ministry does not happen in theory. It happens in spaces. It happens where people gather, eat, talk, and care for one another.

We are preparing not just for what Magnolia is, but for what Magnolia must become.

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May also reminds us to care for our bodies. Stroke Awareness Month is not just a public health note. It is a call to stewardship. We cannot carry the weight of calling and ignore the condition of the vessel. So we slow down long enough to pay attention. We make the appointment. We check on one another. May is also Mental Health Awareness Month, and we are working hard at #endingtheSTIGMA.

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And in the midst of all this, we lean into the work of Daniel Black. His writing asks hard questions about identity, memory, and truth.

Because the stories we tell are not neutral. They shape what we believe is possible. If we tell incomplete stories, we live incomplete lives.
But if we tell the truth, we open the door to something deeper, something freer.

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Magnolia, May is not passive. It is a month for people who know where they come from, who recognize what time it is, and who are willing to move with intention. God has been faithful through every generation that carried this church. And now, that same question rests with us. What will we do with what we have received? We remember. We mark. We move. And because we are #Rooted2Rise, Magnolia rises with God.