2016 fall conference
Open Door Annual Fall Conference 2017
November 17th – November 19th
Schedule for Conference
FRIDAY EVENING 7:00 P.M. CONCERT BY REV. VINCE ANDERSON
8:00 P.M. SPEAKER ED BACON
Followed by THE AWARDING OF THE PEGGY CAMPOLO AWARD TO REV. BACON
HEAVY HORS D OEUVRES FOLLOWING
SATURDAY
9:00 A.M. Pastries and OJ and Coffee at the church
10:00 A.M. SPEAKER ED BACON
11:00 A.M. PRESENTATION BY RAGAN COURTNEY
11:30 A.M. PANEL DISCUSSION WITH REV. BACON, PASTOR STAN MITCHELL, PEGGY CAMPOLO, JAY BAKKER AND OTHERS.
12:15 LUNCH IS SERVED
1:15 P.M. SPEAKER JAY BAKKER
2:15 P.M. REV. VINCE WORKSHOP SINGING THE PSALMS
7:00 P.M. CYNTHIA CLAWSON CONCERT
8:00 P.M. STAN MITCHELL SPEAKER
HEAVY HORS D OEUVRES FOLLOWING
SUNDAY MORNING
10:45 A.M. WORSHIP SERVICE WITYH STAN MITCHELL SPEAKING.
POTLUCK FOLLOWING SERVICE
Peggy Campolo Carrier Pigeon Award
Peggy has long preached her ministry of inclusiveness, and she has worked hard to bridge the gap between the misunderstood and the misinformed. saying ” I am just a carrier pigeon from the misunderstood to the misinformed”.
As Open Door Community Church approached its 2007 Annual Fall Conference, we decided to honor Peggy’s work with an award that would not only honor her, but would, in her name, honor the work of someone every year who exemplifies her ideals of inclusiveness and equality.
The 2017 Carrier Pigeon Award will be presented to Ed Bacon:
Ed Bacon – 
For the past seventeen years (until 2016) Ed Bacon has been the Rector of All Saints Church in Pasadena, with over 4,000 congregants. He has been a guest on Oprah Winfrey’s Soul Series on Oprah & Friends Radio, discussing 21st century spirituality, and has been a guest panelist in the Spirituality 101 segment of The Oprah Show’s “Living Your Best Life” series. His first book, 8 HABITS OF LOVE, was published in September by Grand Central Life
A progressive spokesperson on issues of faith and justice for all regardless of race, gender, faith, or sexual orientation, Bacon has been featured in national media including being a guest panelist in the Spirituality 101 segment of The Oprah Winfrey Show’s “Living Your Best Life” series. In January 2009 his statement to a call-in viewer that “being gay is a gift from God” received national attention.[2] As a result, Bacon was invited to return to the show and soon became a regular on Oprah’s Soul Series on Oprah & Friends Radio, recording two shows a month for eighteen months. Bacon’s stance on homosexuality and gay marriage has been well documented. All Saints Church, where he is a rector, has been blessing same-sex unions since the early 1990s, before his arrival. Prior to him taking his post at All Saints Church, Bacon had to decide whether to continue with the blessings. He decided in favor of it. Additionally, to further promote gay rights, he co-founded the groups Beyond Inclusion and Claiming the Blessing (gay and straight Episcopalians organized on the parish and national levels to realize justice for gays and lesbians), and he co-founded ICUJP (Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace) and Abrahamic Faiths Peacemaking Initiative (AFPI). He also founded New Vision Partners, a non-profit organization that prepares youth to live successfully in 21st century interfaith environment, and he serves on Human Rights Watch California Committee South and on other national and community boards. Bacon contributes to Truthdig,[3] Huffington Post, and Oprah.com.[4] He is also the author of the book 8 Habits of Love: Open Your Heart, Open Your Mind (Grand Central Life & Style, September 2012).
Guests and Award Recipients
Peggy Campolo, who we lovingly refer to as our Patron Saint, was the inspiring force behind the creation of Open Door Community Church. As a friend of Pastor Randy, she counseled him when he was fired from his job as an associate pastor at a local church because he chose to be honest about his long time loving relationship with his spouse, Gary. At the time, Pastor Randy felt he had nowhere to go where he would be welcomed in to worship. Peggy told him that if he felt that way, there must be many more people who felt that way as well. She suggested the idea of founding a church where everyone would be welcome, and the seed for Open Door Community Church was planted.
Peggy has long preached her ministry of inclusiveness, and she has worked hard to bridge the gap between the misunderstood and the misinformed.
As Open Door Community Church approached its 2007 Annual Fall Conference, we decided to honor Peggy’s work with an award that would not only honor her, but would, in her name, honor the work of someone every year who exemplifies her ideals of inclusiveness and equality.
You can read more about Peggy and the Award by clicking here.
Stan Mitchell, who was awarded the 2015 Peggy Campolo Carrier Pigeon Award, is Senior Pastor of Grace Point Church in Nashville Tn. Pastor Mitchell has been to Open Door in 2004 and 2015. He recently made news by announcing that his evangelical congregation would now move to full inclusion of LGBTQ folks saying in part
“Our position that these siblings of ours, other than heterosexual, our position that these our siblings cannot have the full privileges of membership, but only partial membership, has changed,” he said, as many in the congregation stood to their feet in applause, and other sat in silence. “Full privileges are extended now to you with the same expectations of faithfulness, sobriety, holiness, wholeness, fidelity, godliness, skill, and willingness. That is expected of all. Full membership means being able to serve in leadership and give all of your gifts and to receive all the sacraments; not only communion and baptism, but child dedication and marriage.”
With those words, GracePointe became one of the first evangelical megachurches in the country to openly stand for full equality and inclusion of the LGBTQ community, along with EastLake Community Church near Seattle. The results of the conversation, he told his congregation, were not unanimous or exhaustive, but they were sufficient.
https://www.facebook.com/christianstalk/videos/505861523090727/
Rev Vince Anderson is the founding pastor of Barstool Tabernacle in Brooklyn NY. Reverend Vince is a New York City based musician. He has had a regular show at Union Pool for decades, which Time Out describes as “somewhere between Wesley Willis and Tammy Faye Messner”. “His music is described as “dirty gospel”. He has been described as a Brooklyn institution. Barstool Tabernacle is a newly planted church community in meeting in Pete’s Candy Store, a bar in NYC. It is the successor organization of Revolution NYC.
Rev Vince wrote our church hymn :A Heaping Portion of God’s Grace
Jay Bakker is pastor of Revolution Church, which has moved from Pheonix, Atlanta, then New York City, and now is in Minneapolis. Jay Bakker grew up with a theme park for a playground, watched his parents’ evangelistic empire self-destruct, turned to drink and drugs as a teen, sobered up in his 20s, and became a pastor to punk-rockers and skate-boarders. Born and raised when Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were at the height of their TV ministry, Jay — then known as Jamie — spent much of his childhood on the set of their “PTL” show or at their Heritage USA religious resort. Scandal ended his parents’ ministries in the 1980s, and dark, angry years ensued for the boy. In the 1990s he hooked up with Revolution, an edgy ministry bringing conservative Christian beliefs into dialogue with punk, skater and other subcultures. Pierced and tattooed, he has served with Revolution in Phoenix, Atlanta, and New York City, where in 2006 he started a small congregation in a Brooklyn barroom, emphasizing Jesus’s unconditional love. He was featured in a reality series, “One Punk Under God,” on the Sundance Channel in late 2006 and early 2007. Revolution is now physically located in a bowling alley in Minneapolis and reaches worldwide through online podcast.
His 2001 autobiography is titled Son of a Preacher Man: My Search for Grace in the Shadows.
Cynthia Clawson and Ragan Courtney 
Cynthia Clawson – Referred to by many as a “singer’s singer” and called “The most awesome voice in gospel music.” by Billboard Magazine, Cynthia Clawson has received a GRAMMY and five Dove Awards for her work as a song writer, vocal artist and musician. Her career has spanned over four decades with 22 recordings to her credit.
She was three years old when her father first asked her to sing in the small church he pastored, and Cynthia has not stopped since – from local neighborhood churches to Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power to London’s Wembley Stadium. Though never considered a southern gospel singer by critics and fans, she has been honored to be a frequent guest on Bill and Gloria Gaither’s Homecoming series. Cynthia has reached millions of people throughout the world with her music.
A graduate of Howard Payne University with a major in vocal performance and a minor in piano, Cynthia was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from her alma mater in 2007. She holds the same honorary degree from Houston Baptist University presented in 1995.
Her rendition of “Softly and Tenderly” set the evocative tone for the soundtrack of the Academy Award winning movie The Trip to Bountiful.
Included in her schedule, Cynthia has the opportunity to perform as a guest artist for Conspirare, a group recognized as the preeminent a cappella choral ensemble in the country. She performs with the GRAMMY-nominated choir, under the direction of Craig Hella Johnson, to full-house audiences each year.
Cynthia’s recently released recording, episodes, expresses honesty, passion and vulnerability. Their son, Will, produced the album and The Calla Lily Company, a partnership created by Cynthia and her husband, Ragan Courtney, has published her last three projects.
As well, the Company is re-releasing many of Cynthia’s most requested earlier works in a series called Cynthia Clawson Classics. Forever, Finest Hour, Immortal,The Way I Feel and You’re Welcome Here are currently available with five more titles to come.
Ragan Courtney is a communicator. As a ninth grader he had his first poem published, and this event directed him into a study of literature and a career in writing. When he graduated from Louisiana College, he enrolled in The New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, but left after one semester to study acting at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater in New York City. After graduating from the Playhouse, Ragan worked at various jobs in the city while working toward the goal of a career in theater. His break came when he and his cousin, C.C. Courtney, wrote and starred in the musical, “Earl of Ruston.” After touring the South the show opened on Broadway in the Billy Rose Theater, but it closed within a week. Devastated at this sense of failure, Ragan was deeply depressed; however, at his lowest point he had a profound spiritual experience that transformed his life.
Out of this experience he wrote, “Celebrate Life!” with his good friend Buryl Red that went on to sell over a million copies and be performed in countless venues. He then wrote, “Bright, New Wings,” with his wife, Cynthia Clawson, and it, too, was a success. In addition to “Celebrate Life!” and “Bright, New Wings,” Courtney has written and published the following church musicals: “Beginnings,” “Lottie D.,” “Acts,” “In the Name of the Lord,” “Song of Bethlehem,” “Angels,” “In Obedience,” and “Room at the Inn,” to name a few. He also wrote and published five books of poetry. They are: Poems, by Broadman Press; The Wind I Soar On and Death Has Set My Mind on Fire, by Triune Publishing; Suddenly Single, by Zondervan Publishers; and Three Voices, by Convention Press.
Ragan taught at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky; worked for the Baptist Sunday School Board in Nashville, Tennessee as a Drama and Worship Consultant; and was the Director of the Center for Christianity and the Arts at Houston Baptist University. He has conducted countless workshops across the country on creative worship. Additionally, he has written, directed, and performed in plays and pageants for nearly 25 years including the remarkable presentation “A Christmas Spectacular” at Houston’s First Baptist Church.
Cynthia and Ragan have recently stepped down as co-pastors of The Sanctuary Austin, Texas where they designed worship services using theatrical arts and musical expression to communicate eternal truths.
Peggy Campolo Carrier Pigeon Award
Stan Mitchell, who was awarded the 2015 Peggy Campolo Carrier Pigeon Award, is Senior Pastor of Grace Point Church in Nashville Tn. Pastor Mitchell has been to Open Door in 2004 and 2015. He recently made news by announcing that his evangelical congregation would now move to full inclusion of LGBTQ folks saying in part
Jay Bakker is pastor of Revolution Church, which has moved from Pheonix, Atlanta, then New York City, and now is in Minneapolis. Jay Bakker grew up with a theme park for a playground, watched his parents’ evangelistic empire self-destruct, turned to drink and drugs as a teen, sobered up in his 20s, and became a pastor to punk-rockers and skate-boarders. Born and raised when Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker were at the height of their TV ministry, Jay — then known as Jamie — spent much of his childhood on the set of their “PTL” show or at their Heritage USA religious resort. Scandal ended his parents’ ministries in the 1980s, and dark, angry years ensued for the boy. In the 1990s he hooked up with Revolution, an edgy ministry bringing conservative Christian beliefs into dialogue with punk, skater and other subcultures. Pierced and tattooed, he has served with Revolution in Phoenix, Atlanta, and New York City, where in 2006 he started a small congregation in a Brooklyn barroom, emphasizing Jesus’s unconditional love. He was featured in a reality series, “One Punk Under God,” on the Sundance Channel in late 2006 and early 2007. Revolution is now physically located in a bowling alley in Minneapolis and reaches worldwide through online podcast.