Week 25: Sunday Service Announcements

This is the last one of 2024, y'all. Thank you for one hell of a year!

Can I open up with prayer?

I pray you get excited about the change coming.

I pray you take the time to get to know the new you.

I pray you give yourself more grace next year.

I pray you affirm that you deserve it all.

I pray you honor your pen.

I pray you embody who you need to be to get where you want to go.

I pray you realize the only thing that matters is you.

I pray you decide to live a peaceful life.

I pray you follow your heart and land gently on the clouds with your dreams.

I pray you draw the line of the division when the energy doesn’t serve you.

I pray you learn to move through it because you know that’s the only way.

I pray you move like your ancestors are clearing the way ahead for you.

I pray you go harder next year because you recognize it’s your time.

I pray you enjoy the fruits of your labor in abundance all 2025 and on.

I pray for Blackstack as a whole, I pray each of us share good news all year along because we deserve it all!

Amen.

Asé.

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It’s taken me over a month to decide how I wanted to close out Sunday Service Announcements for the year. I had big plans, but life slowed me down and a few of my big plans had to pivot. I have to admit this pause has been good for me, I was headed down the road of burnout although rest is my priority.

I am recharged through connection with community, but at times I need to be in hermit mode for that reconnection with myself. I believe we are all wired this way, and that is why we give each other grace.

Blackstack was not on my bucket list for 2024, but it has been the tangible proof of how good life can get.

Blackstack has been healing through the connection of community we formed.

Blackstack is the platform built to preserve our voices.

Blackstack feels like home.

The first Sunday Service Announcements published on the same day I woke up determined to find home in San Francisco, but instead Oakland found me. As I’ve settled in Oakland, Blackstack has expanded past my wildest dreams.

My intention for 2025 is to pour into Blackstack with a bigger mission in my heart. Working on this magazine and the overall operations of Blackstack has required me to ask for help, bringing together a team that feels like family. But that’s what Blackstack’s foundation is paved on, we cultivated Sunday Service Announcements in the chat thread the first week of Blackstack launching as a family. Same with hair stories, and that’s how we started Black Reads.

We built Blackstack into what it is today, I was just the one who saw the vision.

Things lined up for our good this year with this platform, and I’ve been picking up the pieces along the way to keep them safe for us. To create something for us, something we are longing for, not just home for ourse lves. Home for our souls and I believe that is what community is.

I don’t know exactly how 2025 will play out, but I know these things.

• Julia Blues
  won the Blackstack exclusive Writer Cypher in the chat thread on Saturday, December 28, 2024.

  • Special thanks to all writers that participated

    R.E. Patrice
    ,
    Ryen
    ,
    anaïs monique
    ,
    donnaié.
    ,
    Bea Connors
    ,
    Imani Marie Joseph
    ,
    Magnetic
    ,
    Tabitha Blair
    ,
    PegginThaStallion
    ,
    Garlia Cornelia Jones
    ,
    Sophia
    .

  • Check out the replay:

• The BlackStack Magazine is available for preorder now and will officially launch on February 1, 2025.

• Tickets to the BlackStack Magazine Launch Dinner in Brooklyn, NY are now available. The dinner is Saturday, February 1, 2025 from 6pm to 9pm. Seats are limited.

  • I did not want to charge for the dinner, however, after multiple quotes over three thousand dollars I decided on an option that makes the most sense, but I need to have a guaranteed head count. I will not break even with ticket sales, but that was not the goal. I just want my people at the table with me. Y’all know I am transparent and that was heavy on my heart.

• Sunday, February 2, 2025 we will be hosting the first in-person Writers Circle in Brooklyn, NY. Those details are still being worked on as Substack may be sponsoring this event. We will see if they do, but we will meet up either way and Zoom will still be available!

• Speaking of Writer’s Circle, I will see you next Sunday for January’s Writer Circle on Zoom to set some positive intentional seeds for the year ahead. Same place, same time.

• The first Blackstack Writer Retreat will be held in Fall 2025 in San Francisco, California. Those details will be posted in a newsletter in January so those who have been asking me, it’s finally coming!

• Paid Subscribers, I appreciate how much you have been showing your support for the community and I think I finally found some ways to offer something special to you. Be on the lookout for some sneak peek behind the scenes of the curation of the magazine. Might even do a cover reveal, who knows. Just know the intention is to show y’all some special love in the year ahead.

Wow, I’m getting emotional right now as I realize this is the end of the year. In just six months look at what we have accomplished. Since June 23, 2024, we have not missed a Sunday post for 28 weeks consistently. Twenty-five Sunday Service Announcements with three Sunday Dinners serving Soul Food or food for your soul if you prefer.

I am grateful, beyond grateful.

Review the words preserved from Black writers over the past six months.

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