Nov 05
OPEN TABLE – an ecumenical Christian worship community which offers a warm welcome to people who are: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer / Questioning, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA) and all who seek an inclusive Church – began at St Bride’s Liverpool in June 2008, meeting once a month for a communion service. At the first planning meeting, someone said: ‘Will …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/11/05/subversive-scandalous-dangerous-take-over-a-reflection-on-the-growth-of-open-table/
Nov 01
On September 11, 2017, sixteen years after the devastating terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Center, an article appeared online about its first recorded victim, which asked: ‘Could Father Mychal Judge Be the First Gay Saint?’ Father Mychal Judge was a little-known Franciscan friar ministering humbly to the disenfranchised and unloved on the streets of …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/11/01/writing-the-icon-of-911-remembering-father-mychal-judge/
Oct 14
AT the monthly communion service in August hosted by Open Table, (OT), an ecumenical Christian worship community which offers a warm welcome to people who are: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer / Questioning, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA), the Bishop of Liverpool, Rt Revd Paul Bayes, gave a reflection on ‘a story of increasing love and boundaries crossed’. 62 people …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/10/14/stepping-out-onto-the-border-bishop-paul-returns-to-open-table/
Oct 11
TODAY, 11th October, is celebrated in many countries as ‘National Coming Out Day’, a campaign to promote a safe world for LGBT+ individuals to live truthfully and openly. This morning I marked the occasion by giving a lecture to around 300 trainee teachers, to raise awareness of issues around gender and sexuality, and to explore …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/10/11/coming-out-in-the-classroom-the-power-of-education-ncod/
Sep 14
THESE were the courageous words of the keynote speaker at this year’s annual conference of Quest, which offers pastoral support for LGBT Catholics in the UK. Sister Jeannine Gramick has cared and campaigned for the LGBT community in the USA since 1971, two years before Quest was founded. I first heard about Sister Jeannine in 1999 …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/09/14/i-choose-not-to-collaborate-in-my-own-oppression-sister-jeannine-gramick-on-40-years-of-ministry-among-lgbt-catholics/
Aug 31
FIVE YEARS AGO today I began this blog – little did I know then that: having ‘come out of the church‘ in 2011, I would return to a different church where my husband and I would be accepted, encouraged and authorised as lay leaders (though still with limitations because we are married) little more than …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/08/31/how-little-did-i-know-blogging-five-years-on/
Aug 19
THIS WEEKEND the Bishop of Liverpool, Rt Revd Paul Bayes, will join the celebration of Open Table, an ecumenical Christian worship community which offers a warm welcome to people who are: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual (LGBTQIA+) and all who seek a more inclusive Church. It’s not his first visit to Open Table. We originally …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/08/19/we-should-extend-the-table-bishop-of-liverpool-to-lgbti-christians/
Aug 08
IT’S BEEN almost five years since I started this blog – but in the last five months I have been unusually quiet. It has been an exceptionally busy time with the unprecedented growth of my voluntary work with the Open Table ecumenical Christian community, alongside other commitments. Not only that, but the company which was hosting …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/08/08/a-moving-blog/
May 08
In April each year, many Anglican churches have an annual meeting to review the past year and look forward to the year ahead. St Bride’s Liverpool is host to the Open Table ecumenical worship community for Christians who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) and all who believe in an inclusive church. This post is adapted from the Open Table report at the St Bride’s annual meeting last month.
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/05/08/a-year-in-the-life-of-open-table/
Apr 30
LAST MONTH I gave a reflection at St John’s United Reformed Church in Warrington, the home of the first gathering of Open Table outside Liverpool, which began in July 2015, seven years after the Liverpool community first met. My reflection, adapted here, was inspired by a blog post I wrote in September 2013 on the …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/04/30/an-outpouring-of-the-spirit-searching-for-a-more-inclusive-church/
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