Nov 13
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 – has been a richly rewarding ministry at St Bride’s Liverpool since June 2008. St Bride’s relaunched in November 2007 with a …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/11/13/will-it-be-open-table-our-history-mission-vision-values/
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/
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/
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 13
I’M TAKING a risk in sharing this – it’s perhaps the most personal thing I have ever written here. Last weekend, I spent the evening with two dear friends who have lived with chronic illness for many years, and still find such joy in life having come so close to death. One of them was …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2017/08/13/take-me-to-the-place-where-your-heart-hurts-most/
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/
Dec 03
This week I was proud to be part of the You Are Here LGBT+ history pop-up exhibition at Tate Liverpool. I loaned the Liverpool Echo report on our civil partnership (the first to be registered in a UK place of worship, at Ullet Road Unitarian Church… …and the 2014 Being Proud …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2016/12/03/youarehere-a-popup-museum-of-liverpool-lgbt-history/
Aug 29
THE LAST two posts have told the experiences of members of the This post was inspired by the words of the visitors to the Open Table stall who left messages of love and thanks, wishes and prayers. Our aim with the community stall (see photo 1) was to create a safe sacred space in the festival marquee, …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2016/08/29/somewhere-under-the-rainbow-messages-of-love-thanks-wishes-and-prayers-from-liverpool-pride/
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