Healing the child and "Praying with our Feet" -- joining what God is already doing.

The Rev. Traci Blackmon prays over Gov. Jay Nixon last week.

Yesterday, in my sermon, I named four areas where "all of us working together, with God's help" can help with the long work of healing the child crying out in Ferguson.  We're calling it "Praying with Our Feet," and I want to take a little time to unpack each of those and let you know about some wonderful organizations and people that are already doing this work that you can connect with.

"All of us working together, with God's help, can close the gap of educational opportunity in St. Louis."

This is exactly what we are trying to do in hosting Lafayette Preparatory Academy in our building -- provide excellent public elementary education to children who have no educational choice and are trapped in failing schools. LPA certainly needs your help -- they take financial donations and they also can use volunteers. For more information, email head of school Susan Marino.

There are some other excellent schools that are doing great things at the mission of closing the educational gap. Please check out their websites and consider if you are called to help.

*Loyola Academy - "a Jesuit middle school for boys who have the potential for college preparatory work, but whose progress may be impeded by economic or social circumstances." Their head of school, Eric Clark, is an absolute visionary.

*City Academy - In North St. Louis, the only private, independent elementary school in St. Louis and the State of Missouri providing scholarship support to 100% of our students. I've toured there and know the head of school -- it's fantastic.

Also consider volunteering as a tutor in your local public school. Give to Grace Hill Settlement House to support their Head Start Programs. And educate yourself and promote positive change in educational policy ... such as the Teach Great ballot initiative that is coming up in November.

"All of us, working together, with God's help, can mentor young black men and women in St. Louis."

There is no substitute for relationship. Relationship changes lives. Here are some organizations where you can either build relationships yourself or support the building of mentoring relationships that will shape lives for the better:

*Episcopal City Mission -- Our Episcopal ministry for children and youth in detention. Start out by helping out at one of the birthday parties, then learn about the many ways you can be a positive force in the lives of these young people. Want to know more ... their offices are right here at Christ Church Cathedral on the third floor. Or talk to Dannie Franklin on Sunday morning.

*100 Black Men of Metropolitan St. Louis - through empowering youth, a fantastic organization for improving education and economic opportunity in St. Louis.

*SistaKeeper -- Check out their video here.

*Girls, Inc of St. Louis -- A familiar name to us at Christ Church Cathedral as we have hosted it in the Tuttle Building and we have had parishioners intimately involved in this fantastic organization for empowering girls.

"All of us, working together, with God's help, can confess and remove the prejudice in our hiring practices, investment practices and social choices"

Most of us -- certainly Christ Church Cathedral included -- have a lot of work to do here. Does your workplace make sure that when contracts are bid out at least one bid comes from a minority-owned business? Does your staffing represent the diversity of your community? Are you -- either personally or as a business or church -- investing not only in terms of maximizing financial rate of return but also maximizing impact in the community. What about dedicating a portion of your endowment or investment portfolio to investing in minority owned businesses in your area.

When you choose a doctor, lawyer, financial planner, dry cleaner ... do you intentionally use that as an opportunity to diversify your relationships? Are there social situations you can intentionally enter into that, if you are white, put you in a situation where you are a racial minority?

"All of us, working together, with God's help, can with the power of our voice and the power of our vote stand up against racial profiling in our police forces -- and at the same time listen deeply to the voices of our police officers, because they have a cry as well."

Much of this is about listening and speaking up. Listen to the voices that are coming out of Ferguson. Educate yourself about the statistics of how out of proportion stops, searches and arrests of African Americans are to the rest of the population. Speak out in conversations with friends and family -- it's risky and scary, but we have to do it.

And yes, we need to listen to the voices of the police as well. We need to work to get the guns off the street. Our own Mike Rohan is working with former St. Louis Police Chief Dan Isom on an anti-violence/anti-youth-gun initiative in St. Louis City. Our good friends and neighbors at Washington Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church have done a toy gun buyback and other efforts to take the guns off the streets. There are plenty of ways to grow this movement.

I'd love to talk with you more about any of these things. And this is just a starter set. The point is that we don't need to start everything from scratch. God is moving in powerful ways. We just need to keep stepping out of the boat and getting in the game!