Friday September 20-Sunday September 22, 2013: 2013 Open Door Community Church Annual Fall Conference.
SAVE THESE DATES.
Revised Tentative Schedule:
Friday 7pm
Jay and Tammy Sue Bakker
Tammy Sue Bakker in Concert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu1CCjsFuUI
Jay Bakker https://www.facebook.com/bill.prickett/posts/10201325868701617?notif_t=close_friend_activity
(lite food after)
Saturday 10:30 am – 12:30
Bill Prickett workshop – The Bible and Homosexuality: Taking the Punch Out of the “Clobber” Passages
12:30 (Lite Lunch provided)
Immediately following lunch Harold Kreider (husband of Roberta) will bring a Brief discussion of his pamphlet on Grace.
Followed by a Panel discussion with Peggy and some of our presenters.
Break
7:00
Reverend Vince Anderson in Concert with PAULA AND ANGELYN AND MICAH
Presentation by Peggy Campolo of the Carrier Pigeon award to Roberta Kreider.
Discussion by Roberta Kreider of her walk into acceptance of the gay community.
(lite food after)
Sunday 10:45 worship service
Featuring special music by Micah Qualls and the message from Reverend Michael Qualls
Church wide potluck following the worship service.
The following guests are confirmed so far:
Peggy Campolo
Roberta Showalter Kreider see biography below. Roberta will be the 2013 Peggy Campolo Carrier Pigeon Award recipient.
Jay Bakker from Revolution Church Minneapolis
Tammy Sue Bakker
Rev Vince Anderson from Revolution Church NYC
Rev Michael Qualls Director of the Program of Alternate Studies Memphis Theological Seminary
Mark Alan Howard
Micah Qualls
Author and Speaker Bill Prickett www.billprickett.com
Bill Prickett spent more than 25 years in the ministry, including 6 years as a youth minister and 15 years as a pastor of two very different churches—a Southern Baptist congregation and a predominately GLBT start-up fellowship. Though no longer in the ministry, he’s still an active, vocal advocate for understanding, compassion and inclusion in the church and works diligently to expose the lies, dangers and damage of so-called “ex-gay” ministries. He also incorporates his ministerial background into fiction writing; he has published two novels, and is working on a third. Next year, he will publish a book based on his personal journeys with cancer, offering a quirky perspective on a variety of topics the cancer patient must endure, as well as giving practical advice on how to be supportive of loved one with the disease. For his “real” job, Bill works in public relations and communications. He and his partner live near Dallas, Texas.
Bill Prickett will conduct a workshop on Saturday from 10:30 AM to 12:30 PM. He has written this teaser:
But I hurt when I see the Bible that I love being used to condemn, to oppress and the exclude anyone. I cringe at the lies used by so-called Christian ministers to demonize gay and lesbian people today. And I weep at the violence generated as a result of the relentless rhetoric of these severe assessments. From all the attention given to homosexuality by Fundamentalists groups, you would think it’s the greatest “sin” on God’s list of No-Nos.
Let’s put it in perspective: out of more than 31,000 verses in the Bible, perhaps (possibly, maybe) five deal with some kind of homosexual behavior. Not hundreds. FIVE!
On the other hand, the word “love,” in one form or another, is used 400+ times in the Bible. Over and over, without question and leaving NO ROOM for misunderstanding, we are told to love. Love one another, love our neighbor and love our enemies. Love is the one and only evidence that we know God, according to the Apostle John.
I’ve spent more than 20 years studying these passages, and I promise you: they are NOT “black-and-white, clear-as-could-be” like some would have us believe; there’s room for other possible understandings.
But whether or not we agree on their interpretation, I can say without reservation that these verses do not merit the level of hostility we see today from some in the church toward GLBT people. And they do not supersede God’s Good News of “whosoever.”
That’s what I present when I teach this workshop.
The Bible and Homosexuality: Taking the Punch Out of the “Clobber” Passages
An overview of those Scriptures used to define, condemn, judge and exclude homosexuals, with a view to possible alternate interpretations. The focus will be on how…and if…these verses apply to today’s Christian.
The 2013 Peggy Campolo Carrier Pigeon Award will be given by Peggy Campolo to Roberta Showalter Kreider who edited the collection “Together In Love: Faith Stories of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Couples. ” This collection features Randy and Gary’s story as well as other stories from the LGBTQ community.
from “http://www.chirhopress.com/products/Authors/kreider.htm“:
“Here is what Roberta writes about herself:
Roberta Showalter Kreider was born during a huge snowstorm on April 3, 1926, in a farmhouse near the small town of Inman in McPherson County, Kansas. Her three older brothers remember that they were sent upstairs to play and when they came down they had a baby sister. Two young cousins took a team and wagon across the fields to meet the doctor and bring him the remainder of the way. Roberta arrived before the doctor did.
She attended a two-room country elementary school near Yoder, Kansas. Her father was president of the small town bank and her mother was a homemaker. In 1943, Roberta graduated from a Mennonite high school in Hesston, Kansas.
Her preacher brother, who later became a psychologist, often asked her to teach summer Bible school in several states, including Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama, beginning after she was a freshman in high school.
There was a shortage of teachers during World War II, and after one semester of college, Roberta was granted an emergency certificate to teach. She and a friend boarded with a local family and taught in a two-room country school near Meade, Kansas. The first year she taught grades one through four and the second year she moved to grades five through eight, so another friend could teach the lower grades. As the upper grade teacher, she also served as principal. Janitorial services were shared by both teachers.
In April 1946, Roberta married Harold Glenn Kreider, a farmer’s son from Palmyra, Missouri. He was ordained to the Christian ministry in the Mennonite Church in 1950. Harold finished college and seminary when their children were in elementary and secondary schools. The couple served in pastorates at Palmyra and Hannibal, Missouri, and Osceola and Goshen, Indiana. Harold served two terms as interim pastor in a team ministry at Perkasie Mennonite Church in Pennsylvania.
In 1983, they moved to rural Sellersville, PA, where they remodeled an old stone house with their daughter Evelyn and son-in-law Nelson Martin. The Kreiders live in the first floor apartment and the Nelsons and their three children live in the two floors above.
Roberta has always enjoyed books. When Harold was in seminary she worked part-time in the seminary library and after they moved to Pennsylvania, she worked part-time in the Resource Center of Franconia Mennonite Conference for seven years. Homemaking has always been a top priority for her. The couple has three daughters, four grandsons, and one granddaughter.
In their retirement years, Roberta and Harold are involved in seeking justice for their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered friends and enjoy the many friends that God has brought into their lives.”
Roberta’s first book, From Wounded Hearts: Faith Stories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered People and Those Who Love Them, an anthology of 49 stories, was published by Chi Rho Press in 1998. Her second book, “Together In Love: Faith Stories of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Couples” is currently available from Chi Rho Press.