Clackamas PFLAG Contact and Their Current Project

Gary writes:

I do have all the information for contacting Marion.


Marion writes:

Thank you for contacting me. We would love to partner in any way that might be helpful for you. We are currently working toward a GSA Prom on April 26 and are attempting to get the word out to all Clackamas County Youth. Our next planning meeting is April 2, 5:00PM, Atkinson Memorial Church in Oregon City and we need all the help we can get for planning.



I am attaching a flyer for you to post and distribute in your community.I am also recently reviewed materials from PFLAG for their new project Straight for Equality "guide to being a straight ally"http://www.straightforequality.org/ This material might be helpful in your process. Call me if you want to talk or get together for coffee sometime. Good look in your work with ELCA. It is important work.

Proposal for an Action Plan to present at next month's Council Meeting

We will want to finalize our proposal for how to proceed with RIC Discernment at the next RIC meeting. It will be presented at the next council meeting. This is not the detailed plan but what do you think about giving each month an alliterative name in the process. Again, this is can be changed and is given here only as an example:

May - Moving Forward with Momentum
June - Join Together
July - Journey Through Stories
August - Affirmation (A draft affirmation for initial approval)
September - Survey (Congregation surveyed on the draft affirmation)
October - Ongoing Refinement
November - New Revisions
December - Double-check
January - Journey Part II

Let me know your thoughts, questions or concerns.

LCNA RIC Core Team Meeting

Anyone who attended the RIC training is welcome to become part of the LCNA Core Team.

The invitation is from Rev. Mary Peterson:

We had a productive gathering at the RIC training on Sunday March 9 to discuss the plan and action of the RIC core team for the Portland Metro Chapter. One of the items we talked about was re-energizing our core team for those who have been involved in the past and those who have recently attended the training.

With that momentum, there will be a meeting on Tuesday evening at 7pm on March 25th at Central Lutheran, Portland. We will plan to meet from 7-8:30pm. Please let me know if you can attend.

Elaboration on Collaboration with the Congregation on Affirmation

Sorry, I could not resist the title. :)

It is simpler than it sounds.

Reading the inclusive language of Creator's Charter (or mission statement that is framed), together with the story Pastor Dayle related in her sermon the Sunday before last, I'm convinced a completely inclusive welcome is a core value for most, if not all, of the congregation.

One question Janice brought up was how many in the congregation are comfortable technically on the internet. If we create a devoted space, similar to this blog, for collaborative work on the language of the Affirmation of Welcome, will they come?

A description of what we are accomplishing would be included (an explicit welcome for all those who may not feel welcome based on past history) and the invitation would be for the congregation to consider times when they felt most welcomed themselves or realized they were proud of Creator's welcome to another and / or those times they felt least welcome or saw someone did not experience that welcome.

The entire congregation could be invited by email, mail and newsletter to contribute either by directly updating the blog, or mailing in their contributions, or perhaps dropping off their contributions at the church. The blog would be updated to reflect the non-blog contributions.

We could post hightlights of the blog on the RIC Bulletin Board. We may brainstorm how to promote this activity. When we have an affirmation of welcome distilled from the blog we could use a survey tool to poll the congregation to insure we have the affirmation the congregation approves of before the January meeting.

Benefits:

Congregation may play a part in our process quickly and simultaneously (no waiting for group meetings)

Contributions may be anonymous (any flames may be filtered out but keep their perspective)

Reading various pieces of welcome of others may inspire the congregation

We may address non-GLBT welcome issues that should be incorporated into our affirmation

We may see if there is opinion against GLBT without getting into a situation of potential conflict


Drawbacks:

The congregation may not take advantage of the blog. It becomes a less-attractive solution as a place to collaborate if it is not done directly by the congregation.

If relied on solely desired relationships may not be built and it may make it easier to put off 'one on ones'.



I don't advocate this be our only step but it makes sense as a first step to me. There may be a better idea. What I would like to see is:

1) The congregation engaged quickly

2) That no one feels left out because they are at the end of a process that takes time. People should not feel left out, particularly in a process about welcome

3) The congregation involved in something fun and inspiring. Having Creator's RIC discernment story be filled with "And then another extraordinary thing happened..." is something I am sure we are all after.

It would make sense to present our proposed next steps for RIC at the April council meeting. Pastor Dayle reports we have 87 out of 120 familes on the church email list. Also Pastor Dayle is revisiting the core values and mission definitions that came from the work of the Vision Quest team.

Another step we may want to take soon is to start practicing one on one sessions with one another in preparation for the meetings ahead.

RIC Training Resources Available

I have a copy of Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing by Dennis A Jacobsen available for borrowing. This details many of the ideas that came up during the RIC training. It is the book they recommend participants read before the training.

Comments on Previous Posts

I also posted these comments which were my thoughts on Gretchen/Gary's comments:

While I agree with the statements of inviting everyone to come, I think Mary’s comments reflect reality—that even though everyone will be invited, I think that it will primarily be people who agree that will attend an "invited" forum. We are going to have proceed very carefully to make sure that those who do not agree feel as if they are in a safe place to voice those disagreements because the bottom line is that regardless of whether we openly say it or not they KNOW where we stand on the issue. And, unfortunately, the meetings could be viewed as a situations of potential conflict and few people will eagerly approach the discomfort that could arise. Since I wasn’t able to attend the rest of the training—are we talking about specifically one on one discussions, not a group?

Janice

Dayle's first assignment complete

As we discussed last Thursday, I spoke with the h.s. youth about participating in RIC.

I asked if they had stories to share, are a part of the school's gay/straight alliance or would like to be on the team to talk to Gary, Gretchen, Toni or me. I was pleased that I didn't get a glassy-eyed stare. I know that at least one of our h.s. juniors is in the gay/straight alliance at Clackamas h.s. I'll keep the conversation going.

I'm still interested in looking at discerning the core values of the congregation. After Easter, I'll go through the mission statement materials from 2 years ago and then take a look at the original mission statement (framed in the narthex). The material is here, it's just putting in an form that make sense.

Dayle