March / April news -- OPEN HEARTS Reconciling
Community / Faith Support group and friends, Grand Island, NE:
ANOTHER GREAT YEAR OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENINGS! www.RMNetwork.org
Believe Out Loud --- Reconciling on the Road --- Rainbows of HOPE!
Horizons of Faith weekend March 25 - 27, Omaha First umc: www.horizonsoffaith.com and brochures at TUMC or online!
Bring Rainbow things for our Rainbow Suitcase April 10 to take to events this spring, summer and fall: if you have Rainbow things to donate: RAINBOW buttons, pins, bags, leis, socks, stoles, scarves, jewelry, prayers beads, book marks, pens, pencils, Rainbow Ribbon with safety pins -- Rainbow crosses from Ribbon etc to contribute... We would like to fill a Rainbow suitcase with things people could wear to identify themselves at events, worship, pride events, UMC events, Reconciling events!!
RMN (Reconciling Ministries Network) has the RMN Rainbow Logo on lapel pins for $2 each if you want to contribute to an order for those this spring through RMN! April 10 : Bring yourself, an Awakening story, your offerings for RMN and friends to share together in a faith support group setting!
Think about having a Reconciling Birthday Lunch or Meetup with friends this spring and summer: instead of giving cards and gifts, write down birthdays and give to RMN for our Summer Email offerings to RMN with General Conference coming in 2012 in the UMC.
Remember Jimmy Creech's boook ADAMS'S GIFT is out April 1 through Duke U press.
Horizons of Faith Weekend is march 25 - 27 at Omaha First with Bishop Spong! Brochures are available at the Trinity UMC or get info and register at: www.horizonsoffaith.com A special cantata is Sunday at 9:35 AM by their church organist and composer, Mark Kurtz! He wrote it after reading Bishop Spong's book on Resurrection!
Think of a way to do RAINBOWS OF HOPE at your church or faith group in May and June! Have an art show, children's art, make banners, stoles for the pastor, stoles for others, make Rainbow ribbons, have a Rainbow sunday or party, bake sale, talent show, or gay teens sunday!
Nominate someone for the MFSA Jimmy Creech Profile of Justice Scholarship by April 1, 2011 to encourage social justice!
Open Hearts Reconciling Community / Support group meets Sunday April 10
Open Hearts Reconciling Community, a
faith support group for allies and persons of all
sexual orienations and gender identies will
meet Sunday April 10 in the Gathering Place
at 2:45 pm for fellowship -- bring a snack to
share with others and offerings!
The meeting @ 3 PM is: Spiritual Awakenings
in our lives, stories and Upcoming Happenings!
If you are new to the group, come early to read
and sign support group guidelines. Info: Maureen
Vetter or Cathy Denman -- TUMC Missions PS new movies from an anonymous donor.. check out the Rainbow crate!
If you have videos, DVD's or books you want to contribute, bring them to the April 10 meeting!
APRIL 8, 3rd Annual Grand Island HIV AIDS Benefit Concert, Gollaher Chapel, Trinity UMC, 511 N Elm, G Island, NE 68801 at 7 pm with four musicians from the area: Paul Siebert, Scott Taylor, Emily Dunbar and Peggy Lang! They are donating their talents and we are going to be raising the Freewill offerings for the TUMC Emergency HIV AIDS Fund to replenish the fund for 2011! This fund assists medical emergencies with clients Battling HIV AIDS through NAP kearney!
If you cannot come that night: checks and gifts to TUMC and in the memo put Emergency HIV AIDS fund. SEnd gift to:
TUMC, 511 N Elm, Grand island, NE 68801
The doors will open at 6:15 to get info on HIV AIDS, NAP or Ne AIDS project and UM global aids fund of the UMC. Andrew Brackett and Erin Cantrell Caseworkers at NAP kearney will have a table with info. Bring cookies, cupcakes, brownies or bars for the Intermission as we will do a Free will offering for that too! Help with the intermission, bring red baskets for the offerings and bring AIDS ribbons if you can make some . or bracelets! See you there! For info call Rev Scott Taylor at First christian Church, GIsland or Andrew Brackett at NAP kearney www.nap.org
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TUMC Reel Movies of the Hearts in March and April at Dentons, RSVP to come! Earth Day BOOKS -- BOOK SHARE
April 17, Miller Hall, Trinity UMC, 10:45 - 11:30 . books on foods, sustainability, environment, global warming, your choice!
Bring a book you have been reading and share a few things about it with others!
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LGBT Immigrant Youth Face Increased Risk of Homelessness
Hello, I saw this on Care2 and thought you'd like it as well. Care2 is the largest and most trusted information and action site for people who care to make a difference in their lives and the world.
Care2.com
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Note: THANKS TO MARDE VOIGT for this story below she sent recently! I could not get the photo to print and see it with photos online hopefully too!
Open doors await them
Feb. 19, 2011
Homosexuality and religion have a complicated past, but some area churches hope to bridge that gap this Sunday
By JEANNIE KEVER
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Feb. 19, 2011
Melissa Phillip Chronicle
Jaxn Hussey, 15, who attends Plymouth United Church in Spring, has been helping to promote Sunday as Bring Your Gay Teen to Church Day in the Houston area.
Ebie Hussey's first reaction when her son announced that he is gay was to offer unconditional love.
Finding a new church was a close second.
"His first question was, 'Am I going to hell?' " Hussey said of that conversation with her son, Jaxn. "Mainstream Christianity and fundamental Christianity really pushes that homosexuality is a sin, and he had caught on to that."
Jaxn, now 15, knew his parents didn't think that. "But I had always heard people saying that kind of thing," he said.
In an effort to counter the message, almost two dozen Houston-area churches have designated Sunday as Bring Your Gay Teen to Church Day.
"We think it's important for families to know there's a safe place to go to worship," said Jim Bankston, senior minister at St. Paul's United Methodist Church. "Families who have gay members want to make sure they feel welcome in church and aren't bashed in any way."
Joanna Crawford, a seminary student at the Houston Graduate School of Theology, said the idea came up after the suicide last fall of Asher Brown, a Cypress-area eighth-grader who killed himself after what his parents said were years of bullying and taunts that he was gay.
It is a project of the Houston Clergy Council, formed last year to allow churches to work together on shared concerns.
"None of us knew Asher, but we felt if we could get families into our churches, where they have support, where they feel loved for who they are, not in spite of it, something good could come of that," Crawford said.
Organized religion has had a complicated relationship with homosexuality.
A 'negative' message
Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church, waded into the fray last month when he told CNN that homosexuality is a sin, although he doesn't preach on the topic and a number of people who attend his church, the largest in the United States, are gay.
A survey last fall by the Public Religion Research Institute found that fewer than 20 percent of Americans believe places of worship do a good job on the issue. Almost half said religion's message on the topic is "negative," and 40 percent said the messages contribute "a lot" to negative perceptions of gays and lesbians.
Almost two-thirds said the messages contribute to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth.
Religious Americans historically have had negative attitudes about gays and lesbians, said Robert P. Jones, the institute's CEO.
Mainline Protestant churches — including the Episcopal, Lutheran and Methodist churches — began wrestling with how to interpret biblical writings on the issue several decades ago, he said.
Other churches, including the Unitarian Universalist and the Metropolitan Community churches, have always described themselves as "welcoming" churches, distancing themselves from conventional religious views.
"We don't need a special day," said the Rev. Adam Robinson, assistant minister at First Unitarian Universalist Church in Houston. "The GLBT folks are welcome every day."
Proclaiming a special day is mainly a way to spread the word, he said.
"It's for the parent who doesn't know what to do with their teen that is experiencing a different sexuality, who is wondering whether they'll be accepted in a faith-based environment," Robinson said.
Jones said the institute's survey was too small to register statistically significant findings for non-Christian religious groups.
'A huge blessing'
But it did show a generation gap that affects all religious groups, he said.
"Younger people are much more supportive on rights for same-sex couples than the older generation," he said. "They also were much more likely to see these connections between negative views in the churches and negative views in society and with the higher rates of suicide."
Hussey did a computer search for "gay-friendly churches" and discovered Plymouth United Church of Christ in Spring.
"It's been a huge blessing," Hussey said. "It has brought me so much closer to God and to my spirituality, having a gay child, because it puts me in the position of Jesus' message, which is unconditional love."
Each participating church will handle Sunday's services differently. Jaxn Hussey, now a sophomore at Klein High School, made beaded bracelets and handed them out at school, along with information about Plymouth United.
"I really want gay teens like myself to have a place where they feel truly accepted, where they can be who they are," he said. "And that place is Plymouth."
The Rev. Ginny Brown Daniel and members of the congregation "showed me God doesn't hate you because you're gay," he said.
That was important to his parents.
"When a child tells you they're gay, you don't want to change your plan for him," Ebie Hussey said. "I still want him to be a doctor. I still want him to marry a doctor. I still want him to be Christian."
jeannie.kever@chron.com
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