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Congregational Support & Development Church Council Business & Denominational Considerations
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| Open & Affirming Ministry "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. What do we mean by Open & Affirming or ONA?At its inception 7 years ago, Spirit of Peace Church adopted an open and affirming stance and was thereafter admitted to full-member standing as an Open & Affirming (ONA) congregation in the South Texas Association. Please, check out the UCC Coalition for GLBTQ Concerns to learn more about ONA: http://www.ucccoalition.org.
2010 Open & Affirming (ONA) Workshop Bridging the Gap: Please join us for a day of learning how to speak with those who may not be ONA, or who may interpret scripture differently from us. From both sides, such a conversation can overflow with emotion and quickly turn negative. Can we be open and affirming of those with whom we disagree? Is there room in the UCC for Christians who hold different views?The 2010 ONA workshop will look at two movements that are trying to bridge the gap of disagreement by reaching out in Christian fellowship to open a sacred conversation. Our special guests include Sung Won Park, director of the Religious Voices Project, and Rev. Robert Thompson of the Faithful and Welcoming Churches movement in the UCC. The workshop’s purpose is not to change anyone’s view, but to hear what each other has to say and discover what we have in common. Religious Voices Project (RVP) RVP (http://www.intersectionsinternational.org/religiousvoicesproject) is a project of Intersections, a global, multi-cultural, multi-faith initiative dedicated to building respectful relationships among diverse individuals and communities to forge common ground and develop strategies that promote justice, reconciliation, and peace. Intersectionsbelieves in full equality and rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals of our society. We are committed to advocating and working on behalf of LGBT communities to be fully and truly embraced, celebrated, and welcomed in their respective religious communities. Pursuing this goal is a priority for Intersections, and we have forged partners across the country to realize this vision. To that end, Intersections will be launching a multi-year and multi-tier social marketing campaign to positively affect the attitudes, beliefs, and eventually the governing policies of mainline Protestant clergy to welcome LGBT individuals into their folds. Faithful and Welcoming Churches (FWC) FWC (http://faithfulandwelcoming.org/content/show.asp?mne=home) is a grassroots response that recognizes the enormous weight of precedence that has emerged in the UCC over the past thirty years on issues ranging from theology to human sexuality. No one in FWC is under the delusion that we can reverse this trend immediately and seize “power.” All we are asking for is respect for our views which we sincerely believe are consistent with Scripture and the historic and ecumenical consensus of the church. We ask for greater representation of persons who affirm FWC principles at all levels of influence and decision-making in the UCC. We want to be heard and valued as we allow the Holy Spirit to work among us. We are content to adopt Gamaliel’s attitude (Acts 5:38-39) toward those who differ with us and ask them to adopt the same perspective toward us. For more information about the workshop, please visit http://www.spiritofpeacechurch.org or contact Rev. Rita Wilbur at sopucc@sbcglobal.net, or call 210-403-9084. Registration is $25 if paid before January 1, $35 after, not including housing. To print a Word document of this information & a registration form, please click on the following link: 2010 ONA Flyer & Registration Form. New SOP Study Group: "The '7 Clobber' Passages of the Bible" | Film was shown Friday, October 23 | Discussion sessions are scheduled at the church for 3 Sundays thereafter (Time TBA) | The focus of the series is the 7 scriptural passages that many Christians believe condemn members of the LGBT community. If you are interested in participating even if you could not attend the movie presentation, please contact Lauryn (lauryn7808@gmail.com) or Glenda (ssgship@msn.com). "God Is Who We Are: All Are Worthy, All Are Welcome" ~ A Service of Prayer & Healing | A Celebration of Our Transgender Friends & Members
Sunday, August 30, we enjoyed a wonderful service, a moving sermon and a delicious potluck supper honoring the diversity of Spirit of Peace folk including our new transgender friends and members. For more pictures, please go to PHOTOS. Pridefest 2009 Our booth was much like in years past. We had a bubble blowing set-up for children, and several really did enjoy that. We also had rainbow ribbons to give out which were popular as usual. Free sun screen was available, and we spritzed people with water to cool them off upon request. Mainly, we passed out literature and answered questions about Spirit of Peace. The only new thing we did was have people sign up for a drawing for some new Green Bibles we were giving away. Rita drew the names after church last week (June 14), and the bibles have now been delivered to the three lucky winners.
I think we made some friends for our church, and kept our name "out there." Last week, we had one new person at church who was there as a result of our booth, and she told me she would be back. We handed out a lot of information about Spirit of Peace, and some seemed to be interested, but time will tell if any others come to visit.
The main thing that can be said about the day is that it was HOT!
A big "THANK YOU" to all who helped, specifically, Elena, Imelda, Lauren, Michelle, Rita and Sam, Juan Carlos and Richard.
The Ian Benson Project | Amethyst Ribbon Campaign in honor of Ian Benson and all transgender people. | We ask that you share this message at this website.
2009 Annual Spirit of Peace sponsored ONA Workshop & Follow-up
A Special Report: PrideFest, 2008 could be described by any number of adjectives, but the main one that comes to mind is HOT.
Those who helped with the booth were Richard, Rich, Rita, Sam, Dianne, Angie, Adriana, Liz, Sarah, Glenda and myself. We talked to a lot of people, gave out many gallons of cold water, lots of rainbow ribbons, literature about our church, etc., etc. A lot of people got information about our services. Whether they show up or not, we helped keep our name before the public and did a lot of good PR. We were open and talking to people even before noon, and did not close down until 8:00 PM. We all had a hot time! "For the Bible Tells Me So” | Friday, February 1 | 7:00 - 9:00 PM | Metropolitan Community Church (MCC), 611 E. Myrtle | The film was presented by Equality Texas and MCC. A panel discussion followed the film with our own Rev. Rita Wilbur along with other area ministers comprising the panel.
Special Report from the National Training On Sept 14-16, I gathered with 22 other people to be trained as an ONA (Open and Affirming) consultant. We met at the UCC headquarters in Cleveland, Oh, with folks coming from as far away as Maine and Washington State. Some were new to the UCC and others were UCC born and raised. There were PFLAG moms and recently-out gays, from ONA churches and not. We came together to learn more about the ONA program so we can help churches as they consider whether or not to declare themselves ONA. The information was helpful, but what I enjoyed most was just meeting the other folks and hearing their stories. I came away from the weekend renewed and invigorated by their witness. We all know of churches and denominations struggling with the role of GLBT Christians, and even for those of us who are ONA, the answers are not easy. The meeting acknowledged the pain and challenge of these struggles while lifting up the good news of God's love and hospitality. We ended the weekend with a service from the UCC Book of Worship, in which each of us was commissioned as ministers in this work. I was there representing South Central Conference, along with the Rev. Dawson Taylor, Minister of Parish Life at Cathedral of Hope UCC in Dallas. The two of us developed a plan for our work over the next year. First, we want to identify a contact person from every ONA church in our conference, as well as a person to work within each association. At our next ONA workshop in January, we want to offer a version of the training we received in Cleveland. Secondly, we want to offer a workshop on the ONA process to the next conference annual meeting in June 2008. As well, Dawson said that the Cathedral of Hope wants to host a special meal at the annual meeting for the ONA churches. Spirit of Peace has been the leader for the ONA mission in this conference for the past seven years, but I will be glad to share some of that responsibility with others. I'm excited about the future of the ONA witness in our conference. (By the way, one of the most interesting resources I learned about at the training was a 20/20 episode that aired this past April about transgender children. Here is a link to the first part on YouTube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Utpam0IGYac. There are five parts in all. It is definitely worth watching!)
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7th Annual Open and Affirming Workshop for ONA & Inquiring Churches in the South Central Conference (SCC) of the UCC: ONA Consultant Training | Saturday, January 12 | 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM | Slumber Falls Camp | Registration fee including lunch is $25 before December 15, $35 after. For an additional fee, participants may choose to stay at the camp Friday night. | This past fall, on behalf of the SCC, our own Rev. Rita and Rev. Dawson Taylor of Cathedral of Hope in Dallas attended the national UCC training session for ONA Consultants. One of the goals that emerged from that meeting was to identify a contact person from every ONA church in our conference. At the January workshop, Rita and Dawson will offer a shorter version of the national training, including a history of the ONA program, a review of resources, exploring why churches should become ONA and what it means to be ONA once the resolution is passed. This workshop is open to everyone. | For more details, please check out the following link, 
PrideFest 2007:
It gets bigger & better every year!