Entries Tagged 'Religion and Spirituality' ↓

Residents of the nation’s capital who have grown tired of the hate-speech that passes for religion in some of the local churches, may soon have a place to find real salvation. A new, more inclusive faith community is forming there. I received the following email and happily share it here for all those close enough to attend.

Join us for our first gathering!
May 24, 2006

City of Refuge - DC to hold its initial interest meeting

Greetings,

It is with great anticipation and joy that I invite you to join with City of Refuge - Washington, DC for an initial gathering and interest meeting on Wednesday, May 24, 2006.

During this gathering you will have an opportunity to hear more about the vision for Refuge - DC and share with other individuals who are seeking to build a radically inclusive congregation where all are welcomed and affirmed.

I am convinced that now is the time that God is calling us to bring all of who we are - our whole selves out into the open and into the light of God. It is only when we do this, that God can provide us with the ability to live abundantly healthy, honest, and whole lives.

I personally invite you to join with me as we launch what I know will become a powerful, justice-oriented, and radically inclusive ministry for all persons.

I look forward to seeing you soon!

Peace & Blessings,

Pastor Kendal Brown
City of Refuge - Washington, DC
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About Us

Where & When
United Methodist General Board of Church & Society Building
100 Maryland Avenue, NE
Washington, DC 20002
(Maryland Ave NE & Capitol Ave)
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
7:00PM-9:00PM

City of Refuge - Washington, DC

City of Refuge - Washington, DC is a newly forming inclusive congregation seeking to serve the nation’s capitol and surrounding areas.

Refuge - DC endeavors to be a community of young and old, straight and same gender loving, preachers and teachers, black, brown, and white, activists and artists, convinced and questioning, and those who don’t identify with any of these categories or labels. We are striving to call together a community that will seek to embody Christ’s ever-present love demonstrated through action in the world.

It is Refuge’s mission to build a ministry committed to both service to God and social justice. Refuge - DC seeks to provide safe space for all individuals to live out their truth and build a faith community
founded on principles of honesty, affirmation, and respect for all persons.

Beginning May 24, City of Refuge - DC will hold a monthly fellowship with weekly worship services beginning in the fall.

If you are interested in becoming a part of this vibrant and life-changing ministry, please join us for our first time of fellowship and sharing. Light refreshments will be served. Please bring a friend. Visit our website to learn more about the vision.

Don’t miss what God is doing!

Regular readers know that I am spiritual, not religious. I have many issues with organized religion, particularly Christianity as practiced in the United States, as I see too many practitioners pre-occupied with secular political issues instead of teaching love, compassion and spiritual uplift that I believe to be the true message of Jesus Christ. I am particularly bothered by those of many faiths, not just Christianity, who use their religion to justify acts of violence and oppression of others who believe differently. As a result, I don’t often find myself inside a house of worship.

I did this Easter Sunday however, largely because a friend was one of the ministers conducting the service. He’s young man I first met years ago when he was an outreach worker for the youth program of Gay Men of African Descent. I saw another side of him years later, when he taught me Reiki. Our paths have crossed over the years as we both work in the non-profit social service field here in NYC. Still more recently, I heard he had suffered a major tragedy when he fell four stories down an elevator shaft, breaking many bones and spending a long time in the hospital and physical therapy.

So it was a pleasant surprise to receive an email a few weeks ago to discover he was fully recovered and had been moved to follow a calling to the ministry. He and three of his seminary school graduating classmates were conducting their first public worship service and he was inviting me to attend.

What I experienced was an interfaith service that incorporated Buddhist principles, African drumming, chanting, sermons and storytelling, singing, meditation and other non-traditional practices. It was multi-ethnic, LGBT-affirming, relaxed and informal (the ministers even kidded each other during individual presentations) and so unlike the strict, obedience of the Catholicism I grew up in. Dare I say it, it was a fun service. We never had fun in the Catholic church. And the messages conveyed today—not preached, conveyed—were just what I needed to hear right now.

I’m not sure when or where I’ll have an opportunity to attend another such service. I don’t know if their ordination entails assuming a position at any established church. But I am interested in having more experiences like this one.

I went to church Sunday.

For me that is a rare occurrence. Not unlike a lot of people I have felt betrayed by organized religion and some of the hateful messages preached by clergy not the least bit interested in my spiritual well-being, but rather the furtherance of their own personal political agenda.

But I digress.

Sunday, I made my way to New York’s venerable Riverside Church, a community rooted in social justice ministering to attend “Revival,” a gathering of enlightened clergy responding to the spiritual pain inflicted by some of their cohorts upon the LGBT community. They made it abundantly clear through sermon, song and other forms of praise that those other clergy do not represent all Christians, nor are they teach the actual message of Jesus Christ.

Others have reported on the day in more detail, so I’ll give my personal impressions. I, and many others in attendance, needed to hear this message. More people not present need to hear this as well. Because too many confused individuals have hijacked church communities and turned them into political entities, espousing views never once uttered by Jesus, many of us have turned our backs. As a result, many of us are experiencing an absence of faith and a restless spirit, an inability to connect to anyone or anything of substance, while maintaining a strong, innate desire to do so.

What started out as an event to honor the many victims of the physical violence that results of too many negative messages in the universe, turned into a call for us to reclaim our right to be who we are, find connection to whatever God we pray to, and fight against these misguided and hurtful messages not with more violence but with love, compassion and understanding. In other words, we in the LGBT community, when confronted by misguided bigotry, must learn to “hate the sin, but love the sinner.”

This was the first event of its kind and hopefully there will be more, so that more people will embrace this approach. To overcome lies, you need the truth; to conquer hate, you need love. To defeat those who use a supposed spiritual foundation for all of their arguments requires a closer relationship with a higher power.