Voices of Sophia Archives
December 2006
Our December 2006 "Reflections" begins with Margee Iddings'
reflection on the Voices of Sophia Gathering that took place in Santa
Fe at the end of October. Margee's piece highlights several themes,
offers up a wide array of emotions, and concludes with some important
questions. We invite your responses to her questions! Following
Margee's piece is a poem submitted by Beth Beall. Beth wrote the
poem for the Advent daily meditation booklet published by the church
she serves. The suggested theme for this year's Advent meditations
at that church was "The Questions of Christmas."
As we end this calendar year and move into the rhythms of a new one,
please consider whether Holy Wisdom might be prompting you to write a
piece for "Reflections" in 2007. We are always in need of writers!
Reply to voicesofsophia2@yahoo.com if you are interested in writing.
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Reflections on the Voices of Sophia Gathering
Santa Fe, New Mexico
October 26-29, 2006
by Margee Iddings
Anticipating:
When people heard that I planned to attend the Voices gathering their questions prompted me to wonder if this might be our concluding act in a drama that has spanned many years. The denomination seems to be in such a precarious place that I wondered if we envisioned a continued role for wisdom’s voice to be heard at this crossroads.
Experiencing:
It was a small group of mainly “stalwarts of a certain age” who gathered. A few newcomers were welcomed. A few under the age of 60 stood out. Many long-timers were absent and their voices missed.
We were deeply touched as the story of women’s ordination was retold. Saddened and proud, angry and celebrative, frustrated and incredulous – all these emotions swirled inside.
We were energized by Craig Barnes’ sharing of his research (In Search of the Lost Feminine - Decoding the Myths that Radically Reshaped Civilization) on the historical loss of the feminine. His perspective made us aware of how long the challenge to being heard and being taken seriously has been operative.
We were stirred up by the experiential analysis of history by the decade, pointing us to how far and how little progress has been made in the great issues of humanness.
We were frustrated by the listing of concerns/needs/issues still needing wisdom’s insights, especially in our faith communities. And, at the same time, we identified a feeling of being drained of energy for doing much.
We did say that doing theology from a feminine perspective needs to continue to be a reason for being, especially at General Assembly breakfasts and PW Trienniums. Beyond that, there is a lack of clarity and concensus.
Reflecting a month later:
Are we drawing down to a manageable focus?
Should a structure remain in place so that response to a crisis
beyond the current scene might most effectively be made if we
think it’s warranted?
Is it time to acknowledge that our contributions in the past have
been important but that the future calls for a different kind of
organization?
More questions than answers!
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A Question Christmas Raises for Me:
“ARE YOU A VIRGIN?”
by Beth Beall
The angel said to her, “...You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus...” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”...Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1.30-38)
Mary our sister, you asked of the angel,
“How can this be, since I am a virgin?”
Did you laugh when you realized that, were you not a virgin,
it would not have been?
Holiness—Wholeness—the Dream of God—
conceives a home, over and over again,
in the sacred spaces of our virginity.
And so I dream a church where we’re all virgins:
a church where holy visitations happen,
where wonder surprises certainty,
where incomprehensible power
hovers, overshadows,
and gives birth within to goodness, to God-ness.
I dream a church where we’re all virgins:
a church where we honor in one another
that “point of pure truth…which belongs entirely to God,” (1)
where our shared life proclaims a courageously joyful“
YES!”
in response to the glorious impossible (2)of God.
I dream a church where we’re all virgins:
a church where Mystery is too keenly experienced
to be contorted by the heavy lines of literality,
where we tend with utmost care to those sacred fires
of deep unknowing and radical trust,
where our commitment to the absurd ways of God
confounds us into countercultural laughter and hope.
I dream a church where we’re all virgins:
dream with me if you dare.
1. Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Image: 1968). Quoted by Kathleen Norris in her essay “Annunciation,” in Watch for the Light (Plough: 2001). Norris’ essay served as the inspiration for this poem.
2. I borrow the phrase “the glorious impossible” from Madeleine L’Engle, who used it as a book title (Simon and Schuster: 1990).
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November 2006
Reflections
Friends of Sophia-God,
This month’s “Reflections” offers you both a prayer and a ritual pertaining to reformation and saintliness. October 31st marks the anniversary of Martin Luther’s call for reformation in the church in the year 1517. November 1st is All Saints’ Day. The incarnation of saintliness and the commitment to ongoing re-formation in our world are ways of being that are risky and restful, courageous and calm, troubling and transformative. Sophia’s wisdom and peace to you as you continue in her paths of re-formation and saintliness.
A Prayer for a Changing Church
Leader:
God of new beginnings, this day we remember and celebrate those who challenge us to see things in new ways, to expand and explore our sense of what it means to be the Body of Jesus Christ. We give you thanks for the many people (insert here the names of people significant in your tradition, community, congregation) whose words, images, music, sermons, writings, questions, ideas and laughter have helped to shape us as a church. God of our past, our present, and our future, thank you for those who have gone before us and who share the wisdom of the ages with us all. We thank you for those who are young or new to our community, who bring a freshness and a new way of understanding, whose new questions invite us to reflect on the past and plan for the future. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us. Give us courage to let our future be guided by the Spirit’s wind.
All:
We put our trust in you, O God, trusting that, through all the changes, the seasons, and the re-formations of our lives, you are ever with us. Amen.
Copyright © 2006, Seasons of the Spirit, Kelowna, BC, Canada. Used by permission.
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October 2006 Reflections
Language in Our Church
Introductory words by Beth Beall:
As Nelle Morton once said, “If you ever doubt that God is a male word, try saying Goddess outloud and see what comes out of the woodwork.” There is indeed a lot of work that still stands before us with regard to the language of our faith-full lives.
The writer of this month’s Reflections is Jody Phillips York. Jody serves as the office administrator at the First Presbyterian Church in Brighton, Colorado, which is about 30 miles northeast of Denver. Betty Kersting is a leader in Voices of Sophia, and Betty’s spouse, Raymond, was a longtime pastor at the Brighton church; you will see that Jody refers to Raymond in her article. I serve as the Director of Children’s Ministries at this same church. Our current pastor is a woman who is very committed to using language in worship that is inclusive of all people and that is gender-neutral with eference to God. In early May, 2006, when I was serving as a worship leader at this church, I referred to God as our “Father and Mother.” The overt naming of God as Mother seemed to open the figurative floodgates, because the congregation has since then been involved in ongoing and sometimes heated discussions about our liturgical language. (And, “discussion” may be a very generous way of describing the scene!).
In August, 2006, out of this context, Jody wrote the cover article for the church newsletter, sharing her own thoughts on the matter of language. That article is reproduced for you here. Personally, I would like to see us move beyond the heavy reliance on forms of language that construct God exclusively as a person…but as the need for Jody’s article has made clear in our Colorado context, there is not only a continued to clinging to God primarily as “person,” but particularly God as a male-gendered person.” We hope you’ll share your own thoughts and responses to this issue in relation to the particularity of your own context. Indeed, the language of our worship is still a feminist
issue.
Language in Our Church
By Jody York Phillips
Inclusive language use in the Presbyterian Church (USA) has made news the past few months inside and outside of this church. So I thought I’d just wade into the fray with some history and personal observations.I first became aware of inclusive language during Raymond Kersting’s time here at First Presbyterian Church of Brighton (Colorado). That would be 29 years ago. Rev. Kersting was way ahead of his time. We were doing contemporary worship here before other churches knew what contemporary worship was. Contemporary at that time was folk music and many of us have come to love that type of church music although we seldom hear it anymore.
During that time Rev. Kersting began changing words like man, men, and mankind to words that were non-gendered. His favorite word as I remember was “folk.” At the time I thought, “What difference does it make?” Later, after he had retired and we had three pastors who didn’t follow his lead, I realized it was important, very important to me.
Recently I attended a worship service at a Southern Baptist Church in West Virginia that is very close to my husband George’s heart. The people are friendly, welcoming, warm, and very dedicated to God and their church. The adult education teacher and the pastor are passionate in teaching the Bible. However, as I sat there listening I realized that not one of their remarks was addressed to me as a woman. There was only he/him man/men and mankind. There was not one her/she or humankind in giving illustrations of the text relating to people.
My feeling at that time was, “Where do I fit into all this?” Why aren’t women addressed in some way? We are not invisible beings. We are given lip service that we as well as men have been made in the image and likeliness of God, so why do some churches fail to address us as children of God? I was very thankful for my church in Brighton, Colorado, as I walked out of that church West Virginia.
With regard to our language for God, it is important to me to have a part of God who looks like me. A button given out at one of the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assemblies I attended several years ago said, “God is not a boy’s name.” I love that and wonder why so many continue to refer to God only in male terms and why a more inclusive God seems to be such a threat to some.
Wisdom in the Bible is feminine. (See Proverbs 8 or the story of Solomon in I Kings which is full of “the wisdom of God” given to Solomon.) I don’t remember a time when I did not believe the Holy Spirit to be the feminine part of God. The Holy Spirit is the one whom I depend on and trust to lead me in the paths I’m to take in my life. So, for me there is indeed a part of God that looks like me. And, I’m blessed to be in a church that is sympathetic to that.
It is my hope that we as a community of faith can come together and honor each person’s understanding of God. Closing God into a small box keeps us from experiencing the fullness of life God hopes for us and puts restrictions on our understanding and acceptance of other’s feelings and beliefs. Glory be to God the Creator, the Savior and the Guide full of Wisdom.
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September 2006 Reflections
Women’s Ordination Still a Feminist Issue
by Peggy Howland
Two recent dates brought back many memories. On August 22, I realized that it was the 50th anniversary of an afternoon in August 1956 when I suddenly KNEW that the ordained ministry was where I belonged. I was working for the summer in British Columbia, Canada, between my first and second years in seminary, and up to that point I simply could not imagine myself as a minister, since there were no role models.
And on August 26, the 86th anniversary of the 119th amendment giving women the vote, I thought once more of Susan B. Anthony who campaigned tirelessly for the vote for women, which she did not live to see. I often quote her confident statement that “FAILURE IS IMPOSSIBLE,” especially when I’m talking with LGBTQ friends.
Those dates and related memories bring me to the subject of this reflection. Four weeks ago on July 31st, I was privileged to participate in a historic occasion aboard a boat on the three rivers in Pittsburgh, PA. For the first time in the United States, 8 women were ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood, and 4 were ordained as deacons. The first Roman Catholic women’s ordination in Europe occurred in 2002 on the Danube River, and the first in Canada took place last summer on the St. Lawrence River. A Roman Catholic bishop whose identity is kept quiet performed the first ordinations as well as the ordinations of women bishops, now totaling four. It is these women bishops who are now continuing the ordinations of women who have been trained and qualified for priesthood. They are sure what they are doing is valid, though “irregular.”
Last spring in Germany, I first met Bishop Patricia Fresen, a South African woman who was a Dominican nun until her order expelled her after she was ordained a priest. Her beauty of spirit, her courage and faith, and her belief in God’s call to women are truly inspiring. In South Africa she was arrested and jailed for integrating an all-white Catholic school with black children while she was the school principal. Patricia sees the struggle for women’s ordination in the Roman Catholic Church to be exactly parallel to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
Rejecting the term “disobedience” with respect to canon law, Patricia describes the Roman Catholic womenpriests’ ordinations as “prophetic obedience.” Unjust laws MUST be broken, she says. And at the ordination in Pittsburgh, she used the full quote of Susan B. Anthony’s words, "With women such as these consecrating their lives, failure is impossible"!
I was struck by the stories of each of the women as their husbands, children, colleagues, friends and family, even a grandchild, testified concerning their preparation and their lives and ministries that eminently qualified them for diaconate or priesthood. I felt so insignificant, so immature, so unaccomplished, so unworthy, as I compared myself at my own ordination 48 years ago.
And then I realized the difference. I had been able to recognize and answer God's call as a young person and to receive the grace of ordination and the nurturing of congregations and colleagues that brought me through the accumulated years to a mature and fruitful ministry.
These women were denied ordination, denied the affirmation of the church's recognizing God's call in their lives, but they ministered and grew and matured in their ministry anyway. For most of these women, ordination is not so much the beginning that it was for me, but the fulfillment of lives already served in the ministry of Christ and the church.
They will pay the price now by being denied access to church positions in which they have already served well until the hierarchy stops denying God of God’s right to call to ministry whomever God chooses. But they will minister anyway, and God will bless and use their ministries in ways we cannot yet see.
Everything about this ordination ritual was done uniquely in women’s ways. The womenpriests had designed their own flowing stoles, and the womenbishops were festive and beautiful in bright vestments of yellow tones. Everyone danced and sang. Womenpriests celebrate both women and men and do not shun sexual relationships. It was ecumenical and joyful, welcoming Protestants for the laying on of hands and concelebrating of communion. The litany of the saints included Martin Luther King and Harvey Milk, and the prayers thanked “our Mother God for welcoming and birthing her daughters into equality.” Bless Sophia!
Check out websites:
http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/
Story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06213/710168-85.stm
Peggy Howland was ordained in Brooklyn, New York on October 19, 1958, the 12th woman minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She lives in Yonkers, NY, and is President of the International Association of Women Ministers.
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August 2006 Reflections
Reflections on the Presbyterian Women’s Gathering in Louisville
By Janet Lowery
PW Gatherings are predictable because they are so well planned and executed. This one was no different. For feminists – it’s hardly radical, but it is nice to take inclusive language for granted in worship. What’s really, really lovely is the sheer variety of sizes, colors, tongues, dress, and ages of women (with a sprinkling of men and children). An incredible amount of wisdom comes together in this conference. I was especially struck by the number of those who ventured forth with canes and wheelchairs…not gonna sit on the sidelines! In plenary sessions, I most enjoyed the liturgical dancer … don’t get anything like that at home.
Workshops cover a wide swath of topics but stay pretty close to Reformed theology. I saw titles that looked intriguing, but I was a presenter. (If you have an idea for 2009, contact PW now! If selected, all expenses paid.) My workshop: “When Pregnancy Involves Loss” was only attended by 12 women – 1/3 of whom declared themselves pro-life. Part of my stated agenda was to interpret PC(USA) policies on problem pregnancies and the pastoral care bias. It’s hard work to spend 2 hours focusing on all the things that can go wrong. We bonded momentarily.
Dr. Emilie Townes – speaker for our packed VOS breakfast – reminded us that politics can/must be used to further our goals of justice and equality…in the church and beyond. She eloquently quoted Senator Barbara Jordan. The event was for reconnecting and recharging. Gracious planning and hospitality made it successful…at 7 a.m. (To see the full text of Dr. Townes’ address, go to www.voicesofsophia.org.)
Singing, laughing, praying, giving…learning, stretching, straining.
a PW Gathering is a beautiful thing.
Additional thoughts by VOS member Beth Beall:
In her piece, Janet Lowery refers to the multitude of workshops offered at the PW Gathering. One such workshop centered on the concept of eco-justice and on what it might look like for congregations to practice eco-justice. The workshop was offered by the Rev. Peter Sawtell, Executive Director of Eco-Justice Ministries, based in Denver, CO. Pete Sawtell recently put together an excellent discussion guide in relation to the movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The movie depicts Al Gore's presentation on global warming, and is based on Gore's book by the same name. (In a recent Christian Century review of the movie, the reviewer noted that Gore makes better use of PowerPoint than probably anyone else on the planet! I concur!) If you've seen the movie, be sure to look at the discussion guide on the Eco-Justice Ministries website, and then take steps to host a discussion with some folks from your own congregation, including both youth and older adults. You can find the guide at www.eco-justice.org.)
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July 2006 Reflections
“Reflections”
General Assembly 2006 Ruminations
by Edie Gause
Sometimes Wisdom sashayed; ofttimes She peeked out!
Scruples! Resurrected bit of protest; matter of mindfulness
Taken from the days of colonial fathers
One can say, ‘To this I cannot assent,
This is my way,
Can you accept my way as part of our way?’
Peeking bits of wisdom; personal insights into Truth
Invitation for today’s mothers of thought
To speak of Sophia inspired ideas
Contained in vast debates.
Accompaniment! Sophia sisters commissioned
Go to Colombia! Walk with the persecuted!
Be a shield of faith -
So others might live without threats of death.
Sophia, tree of life for those who hold her fast!
Wade in the water, G*d’s gonna trouble the water
Celebration of women’s ordination-
Painted picture of Christ’s acceptance
Grew before our eyes
Remembering when the Church said yes
Recollection of years of stretching yes into full acceptance
Discovering the cloud of witnesses includes Sophia’s sisters
Margaret, Ann, Lois, Bertha, Eve, Erin, Priscilla
Waters of baptism; waters of birth; waters becoming wine
‘I was at G*d’s side, a master craftswoman’
Frolicking in Paradise for breakfast, none the less!
Speaker Rita sashayed through the delight of early Christianity
Days of celebrating Christ without implied parental abuse,
Years of joyful Eucharist focused on this world as blessed by God,
Indwelling Spirit, living saints, celebrated saints.(Those days morphed into Eucharist with the corpse on the table- a violent God emerged, false Paradise arose). Sophia weeps!
Retrieve a faith that affirms our love, a faith grounded in wisdom
Through Rita, Sophia calls, ‘make again the path in paradise.’
Proverbs 3:18
Proverbs 8: 30
www.faithvoices.org contains the full speech to the Voices of Sophia Breakfast
Edie Gause, PCUSA minister, teacher, and writer, currently serving as the Transitional Synod Executive in the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii.
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June 2006 Reflections
A Reflection on Feminism(s) and the “Main Business” of the PC(USA)
by Beth Beall
Many who affiliate with Voices of Sophia know of (or know firsthand) the PC(USA)’s contemporary history in relation to individuals, groups and gatherings that have identified with feminism. It is largely a history of disciplining feminism, particularly as such “feminism” becomes discursively linked to notions of “deviant” sexuality and/or notions of being “un-Christian,” a move that is most persistently accomplished by referring to feminism and feminist-identified efforts as “radical” feminism.
Yet the ongoing threat and challenge and gift presented to the PC(USA) by VOS’s feminist critique is that such a critique “marks the boundaries of an agenda comprising the ‘main business’ of ruling” (Dorothy Smith, Writing the Social, University of Toronto Press, 1999: 37). In other words, the very issues and ideas raised in and through self-identified feminist efforts—issues and ideas such as the role of experience in theological inquiry, the power of language, sexual integrity, environmental concerns, the centrality of self-determination—illuminate absences and gaps in the patriarchal church. Simultaneously, they illuminate the patriarchal church’s de facto understandings of what is important, fundable, worthy of careful consideration, etc.
A difficulty in introducing and incorporating feminist perspectives and priorities into the PC(USA) stems from a concept that feminist philosopher Elizabeth Minnich calls “hierarchical invidious monism” (Transforming Knowledge, Temple University Press, 1990: 53). This concept means that we are not engaged in a struggle between equally opposing values, visions and concerns. Rather, Minnich argues that one set of values or concerns is deemed the “true” or “legitimate,” and that all others are deemed “lesser.” A feminist consciousness, then, calls us to discern how patriarchy develops and reproduces a defining center of identity/value in the church, a center that casts all other formations, such as feminism, “outside of the circle of the ‘real’ or holds them on the margins, penned into sub-categories” (Minnich, 1990: 53).
The effort to introduce and incorporate feminist perspectives and priorities into an organization such as the Presbyterian Church (USA) is compounded in its difficulty by the ways in which the church’s dominant discourses construct an homogenized, generalized knowledge about feminism. That is, the lived contradictions and struggles and diversities of actual feminist practices are often routinely subordinated in discourse to an artificial and homogenized feminism. So, to tie back into Minnich, the problem is not “just” that feminism becomes positioned as “lesser” in relation to the church’s “real” identity, but that the very notion of feminism is artificially (yet powerfully) constructed to serve the interests of those who oppose it. The sin of homogenizing and universalizing “feminism” lies both in its erasure of actual feminist lives, and in its concealment of the many ways in which feminism itself in the PC(USA) is in need of disruption, self-critique, and re-creation, particularly around issues of race and class.
May the actions of Voices of Sophia prophetically illuminate “not only the issue of women’s absence or the agenda of the ‘main business,’ but also the making of a [church] from standpoints outside the ruling relations” (Smith, 1999: 43, brackets mine). The difficulty of such work—of creating a church from standpoints outside of patriarchal interests—is apparent and immense. But I remain hopeful that, as we continue to unpack and name the ways in which feminisms are erased, “othered,” homogenized, and so on, we can persist in destabilizing patriarchy and living into a discipleship of equals.
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May 2006 Reflections
by Beth Beall
Voices of Sophia identifies itself as a community that works toward the church’s reformation into a discipleship of equals, with that work being focused particularly on the challenges to women’s full participation in the life of the Presbyterian Church (USA). My participation in the mission of VOS take place primarily at the very local level of a PC(USA) congregation in Colorado where I serve as Director of Children’s Ministries. VOS doesn’t often overtly address “children’s issues” in our publications and gatherings, yet I know that many in the VOS community would concur that that the work we do in churches with children is an essential piece of our effort to create a discipleship of equals where all can participate out of the fullness of who they are.
My own recent reading and thinking have focused especially on the importance of giving young boys in the church both the opportunity and the skills to express the full range of human emotions, including emotions that are stereotypically considered “feminine,” such as affection and fear. Structural change at the denominational level is critical to the creation of a discipleship of equals. Yet, equally important is the creation of spaces and practices in local congregations where emotional education is Christian education, and these days I am acutely interested in what that emotional education looks and feels like for boys. As long as boys in the church grow into men who do not know how to understand and communicate their own internal lives, a discipleship of equals and women’s full participation in the church remain at risk.
In the younger (preK-2nd) children’s Sunday School class one day, we lit a candle at the end of our lesson and I pulled out a tape recorder. Our Bible story that morning had been about the child Samuel, and about how God wanted adults to listen to Samuel’s message. I invited the children to take a turn in speaking any feelings or thoughts into the tape recorder. “Then, if you’d like,” I added, “we can share our recording with some of the adults in our church. I think God wants adults to listen to children.” 8-year old Brandon paused before speaking into the recorder, said some silly nonsense words that made the other children laugh, and quickly passed the tape recorder to the next child. Then, before the next child could speak, Brandon impulsively grabbed the tape recorder back and he whispered into its microphone, “I love you, God. I really love you. Thank you.” May the efforts of VOS contribute to the creation of a PC(USA) where expressions of spontaneous and affectionate love are made by all people, not primarily by women and young children.
William attends a Wednesday night Discipleship Group at the church for 3rd-5th grade children. One evening during Lent, we read about Jesus praying in the garden before his arrest. We talked about how scared Jesus must have felt, and wondered what difference it might have made for Jesus to know that God was with him. Then, I gave each child a piece of paper and asked them to write or draw about a time when they felt God was with them. After a while, every child was invited to share their words/drawing with the rest of the group. William had drawn a very realistic picture of a boy sitting at a school desk. Above the desk was a small sign that said “CSAP” (the state assessment test that all of the children in the group had taken that day). William said to the group, “God was with me when I took the CSAP today.” The next child began her turn when William cut back in. “I was afraid I would be the last one to finish the test,” he said, “and God’s with us when we’re afraid.” Then he added proudly, “And I didn’t finish last.” May the efforts of VOS contribute to the creation of a PC(USA) where people of all genders and ages feel safe enough to share their fears, and where they encounter the Holy One who is indeed with us not only in our fear but in every emotion we experience.
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June 2003 - New Article Available
Mieke Vandersall has written an article entitled "Why is a feminist organization holding a conference on racism?" to answer questions about why Voices should be asking questions about racism. Read it here.
June 2003 - 215th General Assembly Breakfast Meditation Available
Both Rev. Nancy Ramsay's meditation and an article about the GA Breakfast from PC(USA) news services are now available. Click here to read more.
February 2003 - Curriculum and resources Available
An anti-racism resource for the 2003 Gathering is now available. (PDF format). This curriculum was created by Rev. Jennifer Harvey and Mieke Vandersall.
Another article on whiteness has arrived, this one edited by Melanie Hardison.
New Book - January 4, 2003
Body and Soul: Justice-Lovers Rethink Sexuality , edited by Marvin M. Ellison and Sylvia Thorson-Smith will be released in spring of 2003 by Pilgrim Press. Please view the flyer for more information. (PDF Format)
March 2003 - Gathering 2003 Brochure and Registration Form Available
The brochure and registration form for Gathering 2003 are now available. The brochure is available in PDF format and contains the registration form, or you can print a registration form here.
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Old News (By Year)
The Re-Imagining Community (now disbanded) was a global, ecumenical community of acceptance where exploration, discussion, study, and practice of the Christian faith were carried out freely and responsibly to seek justice, honor creation, and call the church into solidarity with all people of God.
