Our Top Moments of 2025
Left: Church Council staff join Starbucks Workers United in SODO during our end of year staff outing. "What's outrageous? Starbucks wages! What's disgusting? Union busting!" Right: Church Council board of directors (minus Pastor Megan Ramer) meet for end of year fellowship, to approve our 2026 budget, and to celebrate the successes of 2025.
As 2025 comes to a close, a theme that continues to arise for the Church Council team has been how proud and strengthened we feel by the deepening of our collective power. In a year of rapidly increasing threats and violence toward our communities, we have witnessed the fruits of our organizing rising to meet the challenges. Below, staff reflect on their most powerful moments of 2025:
Demontrice Bigham, Community Organizer: Grounded in our shared faith values of justice, dignity, and care for our neighbors, faith leaders and community partners showed up consistently this fall at Seattle City Hall to speak in solidarity with those most impacted by budget decisions. Our Budget Roundtable members:
Met with 3 councilmember offices
Attended every Select Budget Committee meeting offering public comment, maintaining a strong and visible presence
Submitted over 250 public comments between the two public hearings
As we look ahead, the momentum built this season positions us well for continued engagement and deeper collaboration with City Council in future budget cycles. Read the full Budget Recap here!
Marina Ortiz, Organizadora Comunitaria: One of the most meaningful moments of 2025 was Grupo de Solidaridad’s (Grupo) Migrant Cultural Night. This event created a powerful space for community members to share their lived experiences, honor their identities, and build connection across cultures. Grupo emphasized storytelling as a tool for healing, resistance, and visibility, highlighting the resilience and strength of the migrant community. Read the full Migrant Cultural Night recap here!
Grupo has continued to grow and is seen as a gathering and community organizing space for migrants from primarily Central and South America. Responding to increased threats towards migrant communities and developing fear among migrant families, Grupo hosted 3 family safety planning events, supported by Colectiva Legal del Pueblo and volunteers in our network. Grupo continues to be a trusted space where solidarity is practiced through action—strengthening protection, care, and collective responsibility.
Finally, a key strategy of our immigration organizing in 2025 was to invite our partner, NWIRP, and area immigration attorneys to provide periodic critical updates on changes in migration policy at Grupo meetings. During a period of heightened uncertainty, the Church Council ensured families received clear, accurate, and timely information. These updates empowered community members to understand their rights, prepare for possible changes, and make informed decisions. By translating complex legal information into accessible language, we helped reduce fear and strengthened the community’s capacity to respond to evolving migration challenges.
Joey Lopez, Co-Executive Director: Washington is our home, we belong here! No matter where we come from, how we pray or what we look like, we all are a vital part of Washington’s heartbeat. I am proud of the Church Council’s work with our partners like the Jewish Coalition for Immigrant Justice, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-WA), Faith Action Network (FAN), and the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Center (IPJC) as part of Washington for All!. We have and will continue to share ways faith communities can show up for our migrant neighbors. (Here is a recap of our last multifaith convening.)
As the first openly queer, and Tara the first openly trans, Executive Directors, we felt the risks our communities faced when white Christian nationalists came to town this past summer, and we knew this impact would be compounded for Black and brown trans folks. We heard clearly from queer and trans community leaders that faith leaders needed to show up accountable to queer and trans leadership! So, we organized! We met with the mayor to hold him and his departments accountable for their actions, we convened over 50 people of faith and conscience to create a line of solidarity in front of Washington Hall, following the leadership of LRP, and utilized the skills we learned from direct action trainings. Showing up deepened our relationships and publicly showed our solidarity with queers and trans communities.
Finally, we have continued the work of our Faith Land Initiative. This year we finished our 5th Faith Land Discernment Cohort, supporting three faith communities in designing a discernment process for the use of their property for greater community benefit. This work began to support faith communities to meet the moment by discerning their role and the missional use of their buildings. So, it is no surprise that the current cohort is supporting faith communities to come alongside our migrant communities in this moment. If your faith community is interested in joining a cohort, please reach out to our team!
Tara Miller, Co-Executive Director: Over the past two years, the Church Council has developed and strengthened our relationship with Washington for Peace & Justice, a Palestinian-led, statewide advocacy organization working for justice for Palestinians in WA state and in Palestine. WA4PJ's advocacy day was a sobering and powerful reminder of how intimately tied the local is with the global, and how the ways in which we show up in our diverse identities adds power to how we show up in solidarity together (read my full recap here). WA4PJ, along with Jewish Voice for Peace and other community partners, are leading a campaign for the WA State Investment Board to Cut Ties with Genocide, which the Church Council will be organizing around in 2026.
From 2022-2023, the Church Council served as the fiscal sponsor for Songs of Black Folk, a concert and 501(c)3 birthed from New Beginnings Christian Fellowship, which showcases the history and excellence of Black music as resistance. I was honored to be invited to the premiere of the Songs of Black Folk short documentary which is now available to watch for free on PBS. I encourage you to check it out and consider attending in 2026!
The Church Council and faith communities in our network have long been partners and/or hosts of SHARE/WHEEL, a long-standing organization of self-managed shelters and tent cities. In 2025, like many years, Tent City residents have had to fight to achieve and maintain the land promised to them by the city and county. Despite endless red tape, they overcame multiple struggles by organizing community partners to follow their leadership, showing up persistently and demanding accountability from our local government. It has been incredible to participate with and learn from them! Follow their Facebook page for updates on their latest needs and priorities.
Celebrating 12 years from Janet Deters: We said goodbye to our long-term accountant, Janet Deters. Janet has been with the Church Council since 2013, supporting our team behind the scenes through many seasons of our work. We've appreciated Janet's curiosity for how each area of the organization collaborates with another, and we'll miss her lighthearted humor!
End the Year with a Gift!
As we anticipate new opportunities through the deepened relationships and organizing successes of 2025, we are clear that a sustainable financial future for the Church Council is a crucial pillar of continuing our faith-based community organizing in Seattle/King County.
We encourage you to join us in celebrating the vital work of the Church Council by giving a gift today. If you were to add a story onto the ones shared above, what would be your proudest moment where you saw transformational change happen as we organized together in 2025? What possibilities are emerging because of the work we invested in this year? What resources will you add to the collective power we are building?
Our staff and board have set a fundraising goal of $15,000 by the end of 2025, and we are halfway there! If each person who reads this email gives $20, we will surpass that goal!
Thank you for all the ways you have supported our work this year. We look forward to continuing to partner with you into 2026 and beyond.