A simple plan for change at General Conference
There are many proposals coming before the 2016 General Conference to be held in Portland, Oregon, May 10th through 20th regarding the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer persons in The United Methodist Church (The UMC).
At their root, all of these proposals—popularly called “plans”—are attempts to rescue the institutional church from 40+ years of discriminatory harm committed against LGBTQ United Methodists.
Reconciling Ministries Network wholeheartedly endorses The Simple Plan and passionately implores the whole people of God to join together for the passage of this plan at General Conference.
Read "The Simple Plan"
Reconciling Ministries Network supports The Simple Plan - #ItsTime
There are many proposals coming before the 2016 General Conference to be held in Portland, Oregon, May 10th through 20th regarding the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) persons in The United Methodist Church (The UMC).
At their root, all of these proposals—popularly called “plans”—are attempts to rescue the institutional church from 40+ years of discriminatory harm committed against LGBTQ United Methodists.
Many of these plans are unnecessarily complex and would fundamentally alter our unique connectional system as Wesleyan people. It is certain that some of the plans would face judicial challenges if adopted. At least one of the “plans” would begin a new era of denomination-wide witch hunts and may indeed anticipate schism. These plans are so complicated that an entirely new process for conducting business was developed for the General Conference.
All these plans fail to address the root problem.
The plans attempt to rescue a compromised institution that has sadly prioritized self-preservation over the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Delegates to General Conference will consider all of these plans, but the reality is that there is a much simpler way for the church to regain its credibility, vitality, and effectiveness in the mission field while saving the lives of baptized children of God who are harmed by current policy.
The “Simple Plan” doesn’t involve complicated new procedures, it doesn’t require churches or annual conferences to engage in additional procedural steps, it doesn’t require constitutional change and ratification, it doesn’t sever connectional relationships, and it can be accomplished within any procedural order.
The Simple Plan equally honors all children of God – children of all sexual orientations and gender identities. It removes institutional-level mandates that prohibit ministry with same-sex couples seeking Christian marriage and allows clergy to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Simple Plan removes institutional-level mandates that prohibit equal treatment of LGBTQ persons who are called to ordained ministry and allows boards of ordained ministry to consider each candidate based on their gifts and graces. The Simple Plan removes the discriminatory language from the Book of Discipline. Reconciling Ministries Network wholeheartedly endorses this plan and passionately implores the whole people of God to join together for the passage of this plan at General Conference.
To enact this plan delegates would merely need to act on the following:
1. Paragraph 161.F. Remove the “incompatibility clause” and expand understandings of marriage as limited to heterosexual persons. The petition that best achieves this is #60819 found on page 302 of the ADCA
2. Paragraph 304.3. Delete the prohibition of “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” for ordained ministry. The petition that best achieves this is #60780 found on page 769 of the ADCA
3. Paragraph 806.9. Delete the “funding ban.” The petition that best achieves this is #60771 found on page 698 of the ADCA
4. Paragraph 161.B. Expand the meaning of the covenant of marriage. The petition that best achieves this is #60786 found on page 301 of the ADCA
5. Paragraph 341.6. Delete the prohibition on “homosexual unions.” The petition that best achieves this is #60787 found on page 1130 of the ADCA
6. Paragraph 2702.1. a) Delete the description of marriage as “heterosexual, and b) remove the prohibition against being a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” and the prohibition against performing “same-sex” unions or marriages. The petition that best achieves this is #60762 found on page 1019 of the ADCAIn addition to simplicity, this plan is fully consistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Anything less than the full- inclusion of LGBTQ people in The UMC sacrifices the integrity of our faith and will undoubtedly result in greater division and unrest throughout all levels of the denomination.
Reconciling Ministries Network stands in full support of The Simple Plan and calls the whole church to faithfulness, love, and justice for the sake of The UMC and the life of the world.
#ItsTime for the delegates at General Conference to make the only choice, the simple choice, and remove all institutionalized discrimination from the Book of Discipline.
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Is your community participating in "It's Time Sunday?"
We hope you and your congregation will join us for "It's Time Sunday" this weekend. Reconciling Communities across the Network will be joining in shared prayer written by Matt Berryman, taking and posting "It's Time" photos to social media, and worshipping together with our hearts and minds geared to General Conference. If your congregation is participating, will you take a moment to let us know by filling out this very short survey?
We're participating in "It's Time Sunday"
Biblical Obedience in North Carolina
Love is celebrated without fear in Charlotte
Bishop Talbert & Rev. Val Rosenquist officiated at the wedding of Jim Wilborne and John Romano at First United Methodist Church in Charlotte, NC this Saturday.
Read the interview with Buzzfeed here.
This Methodist Church Is Marrying Two Gay Men In An Act Of Civil Disobedience
The pastor and bishop performing the ceremony risk being defrocked. The wedding comes weeks before church officials decide whether to repeal a ban on same-sex weddings.
Dominic Holden
BuzzFeed News Reporter
George Lainis/ Courtesy Reconciling Ministries Network
Risking their careers, a pastor and bishop of the United Methodist Church told BuzzFeed News they will marry two gay men in North Carolina on Saturday.
The ceremony is precisely timed to influence the church’s international voting body, which will consider proposals to repeal a ban on clergy marrying same-sex couples when it convenes next month.
The stakes are high for both the pastor and bishop, who could be reprimanded or even defrocked for officiating the ceremony, as has happened to other Methodist clergy who officiated marriages of gay couples in recent years.
“The ultimate action would be removal of my order,” Bishop Melvin Talbert told BuzzFeed News, acknowledging the risks for himself and Pastor Val Rosenquist. “I would no longer be a bishop.”
“It was race discrimination then, and it is discrimination based on sexual orientation now.”
Delegates at the international church’s General Conference shot down petitions to change church policy in 2008 and in 2012. But now, with the U.S. Supreme Court having ruled in favor of same-sex marriage rights, Talbert, Rosenquist, and the couple getting married — Jim Wilborne and John Romano — all told BuzzFeed News that this wedding could help persuade delegates at a critical moment for the church.
“Doing it now will lay this issue squarely before them in a way that hasn’t happened before,” Talbert said. “If the delegates are open-minded, this could have a positive impact.”
Talbert — who was arrested with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Atlanta sit-ins in 1960 — linked the wedding to civil rights protests, saying the service “is an act of civil disobedience. The only difference is we are giving it another name in calling it biblical obedience.”
“I have to make a choice between my church and God, and I am choosing God,” he explained, saying the church’s anti-gay policies “are immoral, unjust, and oppressive, and they should no longer deserve our loyalty and support.”
“Discrimination is discrimination no matter where it is,” he added. “It was race discrimination then, and it is discrimination based on sexual orientation now.”
Bishop Melvin Talbert Reconciling Ministries Network
With about 7 million members in the United States, the United Methodist Church (UMC) is the largest mainline Protestant Christian denomination. But unlike several other leading denominations, such as the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the UMC has not repealed its ban on same-sex weddings.
That is due, in part, to its makeup. The voting bodies of other mainline denominations that have repealed anti-LGBT policies represent just U.S. churches. But the United Methodist Church is governed internationally. That includes African delegations that have joined with conservative American delegates to oppose same-sex marriage in the past.
In 2008, delegates came close to passing resolutions to rescind those rules. Four years later, in 2012, similar proposals actually lost by a wider margin. Many believe that was because conservative church delegations from African nations have grown, along with opposition to LGBT inclusion.
At the General Conference starting May 10 in Portland, Oregon, 864 delegates will consider a raft of petitions. Several would repeal portions of the Book of Discipline — the church’s core doctrine — that ban clergy from marrying same-sex couples, state that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, and bar funding LGBT-positive organizations.
Matt Berryman, the executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, an LGBT advocacy coalition leading the charge for reforming Methodist policy on sexual orientation, said passing the proposals this year is not a “slam dunk.”
Still, he believes there there is renewed opportunity. In recent years, the church’s Southern United States delegations have come around on marriage equality. Further, the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling last year has given the issue immediacy inside church walls.
“Clergy are being asked by members of their congregations to bless their love, and they are having to say no. It’s not just civil equality — it’s also spiritual equality,” he told BuzzFeed News.
Hundreds of Methodist congregations have joined the Reconciling Ministries Network, Berryman said, including the First United Methodist Church in Charlotte.
Marrying this couple before the general conference, he said, “It changes hearts and minds of delegates, because their story is a beautiful one.”
Wilborne and Romano, both 52, kept their wedding plans mostly under wraps until they sent out invitations last month.
“We didn’t want people to have time to organize a protest,” Wilborne said. Still, they have hired a security guard to keep potential protesters off the steps.
It was important to have their service at the First United Methodist Church on Tryon Street, in downtown Charlotte, where Wilborne has attended services ever since he went there for a funeral for a man who died of AIDS in 1996. “I knew we could get married somewhere else,” Wilborne told BuzzFeed News. “But we wanted to get married where I’ve been going to church for 20 years.”
Nathan Abplanalp / Courtesy First United Methodist Church
The wedding in the towering Gothic church will be mostly traditional: a handbell choir, a chorus, a string trio, an organ. The grooms will wear bow ties. But due to its significance for the church, more than 300 people were invited, including Charlotte’s mayor, Jennifer Roberts.
“It’s a lot bigger wedding than we would have wanted to have originally,” he said.
Among those present will be roughly 20 members of United Methodist Church clergy who are invited to bless the couple’s marriage.
The ceremony will by no means be the first same-sex wedding in a United Methodist Church. But, by and large, those weddings in Methodist churches have been kept under wraps.
In rare cases, they become known. Bishop Talbert, who served in the Western Jurisdiction before his retirement, performed one in 2013 in Alabama — which triggered a complaint against him and ended in a settlement between him and church officials. As part of that settlement last year, the parties agreed to live by the church’s canon law.
In 2007, Rev. Frank Schaefer was defrocked for officiating his gay son’s wedding, but was later reinstated as a minister on appeal.
“Only those that get publicity, like mine in Alabama, get the book thrown at them,” he said, acknowledging that the service in Charlotte may trigger a particularly potent outcry among conservatives in the church.
“It’s the first time for a big Methodist church in a very major city in the South,” Wilborne added. “By doing this, we are making a statement that, yes, the South is ready to move this way as well.”
“It’s time to make a stand,” said Pastor Rosenquist. “I am willing to face whatever consequences I encounter.”
Pastor Rosenquist also pointed out that a Methodist church has never publicly held a same-sex wedding in North Carolina, where lawmakers recently passed a law that allows LGBT discrimination. “It’s time to make a stand,” she said. “I am willing to face whatever consequences I encounter. I am totally at peace with this decision.”
“What I would hope for the General Conference is that this wedding is just more evidence of the widespread opposition to the unholy nature of the Book of Discipline — the prejudice and bigotry that’s in there.”
Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, a professor of theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary, told BuzzFeed News that having such a large denomination approve these rules next month could serve as a counterpoint to those who advocate for religious freedom “to undermine the recent gains in equality for LGBTQ people in the U.S.”
This year, more than 100 bills were filed in state legislatures — an unprecedented number — to protect religious freedom, widely seen as a backlash to the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling. Some of the legislation, including a law approved in Mississippi, specifically protects those who deny services based on their religious opposition to same sex marriage.
“The United Methodist Church can have a significant impact on challenging the spurious grounds for opposing LGBTQ rights by standing squarely with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in affirming the full realization of equal human dignity and worth in church and society,” she said.
Likewise, Bishop Talbert argued progressives should claim the Bible to defend the rights of LGBT people.
“People on the right consistently hold a Bible up and say all this stuff about gays and lesbians. But that is our book, too,” he said. “We feel what they are doing is wrong, and they need to change their hearts and mind to see these are people created in the vision of God, and they should not be marginalized or discriminated against.”[Dominic Holden is the national LGBT reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York. Contact Dominic Holden at dominic.holden@buzzfeed.com.]
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RMN's Joey Lopez and Helen Ryde visit NC Rep. Dan Bishop’s United Methodist Church: When I heard the news, that Rep. Bishop was a member, I was shocked, confused, and deeply hurt – certainly a fellow United Methodist was not the primary sponsor of House Bill 2. Read the whole reflection from Joey here.
Why I visited NC Rep. Dan Bishop’s United Methodist Church last weekend by Joey Lopez
This Methodist Church Is Marrying Two Gay Men In An Act Of Civil Disobedience
The pastor and bishop performing the ceremony risk being defrocked. The wedding comes weeks before church officials decide whether to repeal a ban on same-sex weddings.
Dominic Holden
BuzzFeed News Reporter
George Lainis/ Courtesy Reconciling Ministries Network
Risking their careers, a pastor and bishop of the United Methodist Church told BuzzFeed News they will marry two gay men in North Carolina on Saturday.
The ceremony is precisely timed to influence the church’s international voting body, which will consider proposals to repeal a ban on clergy marrying same-sex couples when it convenes next month.
The stakes are high for both the pastor and bishop, who could be reprimanded or even defrocked for officiating the ceremony, as has happened to other Methodist clergy who officiated marriages of gay couples in recent years.
“The ultimate action would be removal of my order,” Bishop Melvin Talbert told BuzzFeed News, acknowledging the risks for himself and Pastor Val Rosenquist. “I would no longer be a bishop.”
“It was race discrimination then, and it is discrimination based on sexual orientation now.”
Delegates at the international church’s General Conference shot down petitions to change church policy in 2008 and in 2012. But now, with the U.S. Supreme Court having ruled in favor of same-sex marriage rights, Talbert, Rosenquist, and the couple getting married — Jim Wilborne and John Romano — all told BuzzFeed News that this wedding could help persuade delegates at a critical moment for the church.
“Doing it now will lay this issue squarely before them in a way that hasn’t happened before,” Talbert said. “If the delegates are open-minded, this could have a positive impact.”
Talbert — who was arrested with Martin Luther King Jr. in the Atlanta sit-ins in 1960 — linked the wedding to civil rights protests, saying the service “is an act of civil disobedience. The only difference is we are giving it another name in calling it biblical obedience.”
“I have to make a choice between my church and God, and I am choosing God,” he explained, saying the church’s anti-gay policies “are immoral, unjust, and oppressive, and they should no longer deserve our loyalty and support.”
“Discrimination is discrimination no matter where it is,” he added. “It was race discrimination then, and it is discrimination based on sexual orientation now.”
Bishop Melvin Talbert Reconciling Ministries Network
With about 7 million members in the United States, the United Methodist Church (UMC) is the largest mainline Protestant Christian denomination. But unlike several other leading denominations, such as the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the UMC has not repealed its ban on same-sex weddings.
That is due, in part, to its makeup. The voting bodies of other mainline denominations that have repealed anti-LGBT policies represent just U.S. churches. But the United Methodist Church is governed internationally. That includes African delegations that have joined with conservative American delegates to oppose same-sex marriage in the past.
In 2008, delegates came close to passing resolutions to rescind those rules. Four years later, in 2012, similar proposals actually lost by a wider margin. Many believe that was because conservative church delegations from African nations have grown, along with opposition to LGBT inclusion.
At the General Conference starting May 10 in Portland, Oregon, 864 delegates will consider a raft of petitions. Several would repeal portions of the Book of Discipline — the church’s core doctrine — that ban clergy from marrying same-sex couples, state that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, and bar funding LGBT-positive organizations.
Matt Berryman, the executive director of Reconciling Ministries Network, an LGBT advocacy coalition leading the charge for reforming Methodist policy on sexual orientation, said passing the proposals this year is not a “slam dunk.”
Still, he believes there there is renewed opportunity. In recent years, the church’s Southern United States delegations have come around on marriage equality. Further, the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling last year has given the issue immediacy inside church walls.
“Clergy are being asked by members of their congregations to bless their love, and they are having to say no. It’s not just civil equality — it’s also spiritual equality,” he told BuzzFeed News.
Hundreds of Methodist congregations have joined the Reconciling Ministries Network, Berryman said, including the First United Methodist Church in Charlotte.
Marrying this couple before the general conference, he said, “It changes hearts and minds of delegates, because their story is a beautiful one.”
Wilborne and Romano, both 52, kept their wedding plans mostly under wraps until they sent out invitations last month.
“We didn’t want people to have time to organize a protest,” Wilborne said. Still, they have hired a security guard to keep potential protesters off the steps.
It was important to have their service at the First United Methodist Church on Tryon Street, in downtown Charlotte, where Wilborne has attended services ever since he went there for a funeral for a man who died of AIDS in 1996. “I knew we could get married somewhere else,” Wilborne told BuzzFeed News. “But we wanted to get married where I’ve been going to church for 20 years.”
Nathan Abplanalp / Courtesy First United Methodist Church
The wedding in the towering Gothic church will be mostly traditional: a handbell choir, a chorus, a string trio, an organ. The grooms will wear bow ties. But due to its significance for the church, more than 300 people were invited, including Charlotte’s mayor, Jennifer Roberts.
“It’s a lot bigger wedding than we would have wanted to have originally,” he said.
Among those present will be roughly 20 members of United Methodist Church clergy who are invited to bless the couple’s marriage.
The ceremony will by no means be the first same-sex wedding in a United Methodist Church. But, by and large, those weddings in Methodist churches have been kept under wraps.
In rare cases, they become known. Bishop Talbert, who served in the Western Jurisdiction before his retirement, performed one in 2013 in Alabama — which triggered a complaint against him and ended in a settlement between him and church officials. As part of that settlement last year, the parties agreed to live by the church’s canon law.
In 2007, Rev. Frank Schaefer was defrocked for officiating his gay son’s wedding, but was later reinstated as a minister on appeal.
“Only those that get publicity, like mine in Alabama, get the book thrown at them,” he said, acknowledging that the service in Charlotte may trigger a particularly potent outcry among conservatives in the church.
“It’s the first time for a big Methodist church in a very major city in the South,” Wilborne added. “By doing this, we are making a statement that, yes, the South is ready to move this way as well.”
“It’s time to make a stand,” said Pastor Rosenquist. “I am willing to face whatever consequences I encounter.”
Pastor Rosenquist also pointed out that a Methodist church has never publicly held a same-sex wedding in North Carolina, where lawmakers recently passed a law that allows LGBT discrimination. “It’s time to make a stand,” she said. “I am willing to face whatever consequences I encounter. I am totally at peace with this decision.”
“What I would hope for the General Conference is that this wedding is just more evidence of the widespread opposition to the unholy nature of the Book of Discipline — the prejudice and bigotry that’s in there.”
Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, a professor of theology at the Chicago Theological Seminary, told BuzzFeed News that having such a large denomination approve these rules next month could serve as a counterpoint to those who advocate for religious freedom “to undermine the recent gains in equality for LGBTQ people in the U.S.”
This year, more than 100 bills were filed in state legislatures — an unprecedented number — to protect religious freedom, widely seen as a backlash to the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage ruling. Some of the legislation, including a law approved in Mississippi, specifically protects those who deny services based on their religious opposition to same sex marriage.
“The United Methodist Church can have a significant impact on challenging the spurious grounds for opposing LGBTQ rights by standing squarely with the Gospel of Jesus Christ in affirming the full realization of equal human dignity and worth in church and society,” she said.
Likewise, Bishop Talbert argued progressives should claim the Bible to defend the rights of LGBT people.
“People on the right consistently hold a Bible up and say all this stuff about gays and lesbians. But that is our book, too,” he said. “We feel what they are doing is wrong, and they need to change their hearts and mind to see these are people created in the vision of God, and they should not be marginalized or discriminated against.”[Dominic Holden is the national LGBT reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York. Contact Dominic Holden at dominic.holden@buzzfeed.com.]
-------
RMN's Joey Lopez and Helen Ryde visit NC Rep. Dan Bishop’s United Methodist Church: When I heard the news, that Rep. Bishop was a member, I was shocked, confused, and deeply hurt – certainly a fellow United Methodist was not the primary sponsor of House Bill 2. Read the whole reflection from Joey here.
Why I visited NC Rep. Dan Bishop’s United Methodist Church last weekend by Joey Lopez
“All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”These are the words of the hymn that were played by the children’s handbell choir that began worship at Providence UMC in Charlotte when I visited. I chose to visit Providence Church the Sunday before the NC General Assembly would go into its spring session because NC Rep. Dan Bishop is a proud and long time member of this church.
When I heard the news, that Rep. Bishop was a member, I was shocked, confused, and deeply hurt – certainly a fellow United Methodist was not the primary sponsor of House Bill 2.
A bill that defies some of the deepest foundations of our shared beliefs; that all people are of sacred worth and that God’s grace is available to all.
The animus behind House Bill 2 is grounded in fear and hate. The implications are far more reaching than just my transgender and gender non-conforming siblings. This bill also impacts those most at risk in our state – women, the elderly, people of color, veterans, and the working poor. In the United Methodist Social Principles, our official social teachings, we believe that: “Every person has the right to a job at a living wage.” Moreover, we also believe that “Certain basic human rights and civil liberties are due all persons. We are committed to supporting those rights and liberties for all persons, regardless of sexual orientation.” House Bill 2 removes a local municipalities ability to increase wages and eliminates a person’s ability to take a discrimination claim to court, in addition to that harm it causes transgender and gender nonconforming people.
It is clear to me that the values embedded in House Bill 2, do not hold true to my values or our shared values as a United Methodists.
Throughout Christ’s teachings in the Gospel, we are called to love our neighbor. My faith makes it clear in the Gospel that loving my neighbor includes providing for the hungry and thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and imprisoned. I see that manifest by opposing and working to repeal a law intended to harm those Christ calls us to seek out. It pains me to know that the main sponsor of House Bill 2 is a United Methodist as well. As United Methodists we have firm beliefs that all are of sacred worth, deserving of basic human rights and civil liberties, and do not condone acts of hate or violence against anyone.
During worship yesterday, I was reminded the covenant that we take together each time we welcome new members into our church: “To be loyal to Christ through The United Methodist Church and do all in their power to strengthen its ministries.”
As a faithful United Methodist, I cannot deny the tradition to shape the lives of those in our community by being present in the public square calling for justice. As not only a public representative, but also a faithful United Methodist I visited Rep. Dan Bishop’s church to be a visible witness to who Christ calls us to be as Christians in the world. I visited Rep. Bishop’s church, to claim the tradition of our church’s teachings of fair wages and anti-discrimination in public life. I visited Rep. Bishop’s church, to claim the Gospel message to love our neighbors.
Joey Lopez-------
Bishops speak out against HB2 in North Carolina
We hope that other United Methodist bishops and leaders will speak out with even greater strength and commitment on behalf of the many LGBTQ persons under their care and concern." -Matt Berryman, Executive Director
Read the Bishop's statement here.
A More Excellent Way by mrich
Monday, April 25, 2016
Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ.
We write to you to express our deep gratitude for life together in the United Methodist Church here in the state of North Carolina. With you, we love our state and yearn for our lives to reflect the more excellent way described by Paul in I Corinthians 13[I Corinthians 13:1 I may speak in the tongues of men, even angels;
but if I lack love, I have become merely
blaring brass or a cymbal clanging.
2 I may have the gift of prophecy,
I may fathom all mysteries, know all things,
have all faith — enough to move mountains;
but if I lack love, I am nothing.
3 I may give away everything that I own,
I may even hand over my body to be burned;
but if I lack love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind, not jealous, not boastful,
5 not proud, rude or selfish, not easily angered,
and it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not gloat over other people’s sins
but takes its delight in the truth.
7 Love always bears up, always trusts,
always hopes, always endures.
8 Love never ends; but prophecies will pass,
tongues will cease, knowledge will pass.
9 For our knowledge is partial, and our prophecy partial;
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child,
thought like a child, argued like a child;
now that I have become a man,
I have finished with childish ways.
12 For now we see obscurely in a mirror,
but then it will be face to face.
Now I know partly; then I will know fully,
just as God has fully known me.
13 But for now, three things last —
trust, hope, love;
and the greatest of these is love.].
We share your deep concern in regard to the increasingly divisive nature of life in North Carolina. We urge United Methodist people to cultivate community that is welcoming and nurturing to all people.
Our founder, John Wesley, described the humility that is appropriate for life together when he said that “Methodists may not think alike but that we do love alike.” It is essential that we live into the world with the willingness to engage, to listen and to speak the truth in love. We are called to live the hospitable welcome of God in a world with increasing boundaries, borders, fences and walls.
Our faith gives us courage to trust the power of grace, mercy and love. We dare not add to the increasing levels of fear, suspicion and divisiveness in our state and in our nation. Our calling to welcome, to forgive, and to love both God and neighbor is our powerful gift to the world.
We observe the hurried passage of House Bill 2 (HB2) and its resultant harm to North Carolina – to individuals, to our economy, to our engagements with other states and nations, and to our future. We call for the repeal of HB2 as the legislature returns to Raleigh today.
We urge all United Methodists to engage in prayer, in study of the issues, in patient listening and persevering conversation with others who hold differing opinion, and in courageous advocacy for what is right, just and good for all people in North Carolina.
With gratitude for our life together,
Bishop Larry Goodpaster, WNCC
Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, NCC
Bishop Ray Chamberlain, Retired, Winston-Salem
Bishop Charlene P. Kammerer, Retired, Lake Junaluska
Bishop Lawrence McCleskey, Retired, Lake Junaluska
Bishop C. P. Minnick, Jr., Retired, Raleigh
Bishop Thomas Stockton, Retired, Winston-Salem
Bishop William H. Willimon, Retired, Durham
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Who will take up the mantle of Betty Dorr?
Betty Dorr was committed to showing up at General Conference with open arms ready to embrace her LGBTQ friends and family and with an open heart, ready to trust that God would move at General Conference in some form or another. Her faith, persistence, and witness are just some of the reasons we've named our General Conference Fund in her honor. Read this powerful reflection written by Rev. David Aslesen after Betty's death last year to learn more about her and how her life challenges all of us to "show up" how we can - in our physical presence, our financial gifts, and our prayers.
Learn more about the Betty Dorr General Conference Fund
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Our mailing address is:
Reconciling Ministries Network
123 West Madison Street, Suite 2150
Our founder, John Wesley, described the humility that is appropriate for life together when he said that “Methodists may not think alike but that we do love alike.” It is essential that we live into the world with the willingness to engage, to listen and to speak the truth in love. We are called to live the hospitable welcome of God in a world with increasing boundaries, borders, fences and walls.
Our faith gives us courage to trust the power of grace, mercy and love. We dare not add to the increasing levels of fear, suspicion and divisiveness in our state and in our nation. Our calling to welcome, to forgive, and to love both God and neighbor is our powerful gift to the world.
We observe the hurried passage of House Bill 2 (HB2) and its resultant harm to North Carolina – to individuals, to our economy, to our engagements with other states and nations, and to our future. We call for the repeal of HB2 as the legislature returns to Raleigh today.
We urge all United Methodists to engage in prayer, in study of the issues, in patient listening and persevering conversation with others who hold differing opinion, and in courageous advocacy for what is right, just and good for all people in North Carolina.
With gratitude for our life together,
Bishop Larry Goodpaster, WNCC
Bishop Hope Morgan Ward, NCC
Bishop Ray Chamberlain, Retired, Winston-Salem
Bishop Charlene P. Kammerer, Retired, Lake Junaluska
Bishop Lawrence McCleskey, Retired, Lake Junaluska
Bishop C. P. Minnick, Jr., Retired, Raleigh
Bishop Thomas Stockton, Retired, Winston-Salem
Bishop William H. Willimon, Retired, Durham
-------
Who will take up the mantle of Betty Dorr?
Betty Dorr was committed to showing up at General Conference with open arms ready to embrace her LGBTQ friends and family and with an open heart, ready to trust that God would move at General Conference in some form or another. Her faith, persistence, and witness are just some of the reasons we've named our General Conference Fund in her honor. Read this powerful reflection written by Rev. David Aslesen after Betty's death last year to learn more about her and how her life challenges all of us to "show up" how we can - in our physical presence, our financial gifts, and our prayers.
Learn more about the Betty Dorr General Conference Fund
ShareTweetForwardBlogFacebookTwitterWebsiteEmailYouTubeGiveInstagramOur mailing address is:
Reconciling Ministries Network
123 West Madison Street, Suite 2150
Chicago, Illinois 60602, United States
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