TABLE OF CONTENTS
From Our Executive Director:
TIME FOR SOME TIME OFF?
When I was working my way through college, I spent several summers in canneries. It was not uncommon at the end of a shift for the foreman to announce, “We need to finish this run. You are all staying tonight.” Our union secured good wages for us but we could be asked to put in 50 or 60 or more hours, without even having a chance to call home to say that we’d be late.
During the past two decades, the number of hours worked each week by the average American has increased more than 20%, and the average amount of time commuting to work has also gone up. As a result, our free time has decreased by a third. As Yale psychologist Edward Ziegler observed, “We’re at the breaking point as far as family is concerned.”
Many of us spend so much time working and commuting that the only recreation we can imagine is shopping or watching TV, both of which tend to make us feel like we need more money to survive. Many take second and third jobs to make ends meet. Instead of hiring additional workers, many employers push their employees harder, causing increased errors, accidents, and injuries and decreased productivity. Half of the workforce has no paid sick days, so we end up working sick as well as tired. The accident that shut down our assembly line and nearly killed four of us happened at just such a time when everyone was putting in overtime and managers did not want to stop the forklifts to check their brakes.
The Massachusetts Council of Churches recently gathered some distressing statistics about how stressed out we are:
- We are the only industrialized nation without a law guaranteeing paid vacation time, and we end up getting less vacation than anyone else.
- 26% of Americans take no vacation at all.
- 62% of women and 80% of men put in more than 40 hours a week on the job.
- We now work longer hours than medieval peasants did.
This lack of leisure takes a terrible toll on us physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Is it any wonder that so many people are too tired to get the kids to religious education? Or that crawling out of bed early enough to get to worship seems impossible? Or that it is so hard these days to find people who have time enough to sing in the choir?
As Msgr. Donald Beckmann noted once at an LICC Annual Meeting, “We used to argue among ourselves as to when people should worship, but now we face a common struggle to preserve any time at all for worship.” The U.S. Department of Justice has had to create a new Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination to ensure, among other things, that employers make “reasonable accommodation” to workers' Sabbath observance. Judaism has traditionally taught that we should free up at least one day a week from work and shopping. Roman Catholic clergy discovered long ago that a balanced inner life requires “an hour a day, a day a month, and a week a year” devoted to nothing but spiritual renewal—but who has the time for this much prayer, devotional reading, and contemplation anymore?
The Massachusetts Council of Churches has joined with the Lord’s Day Alliance and Take Back Your Time in a campaign that urges people to spend four days between Labor Day and October 24 (Take Back Your Time Day) relaxing, enjoying family and friends, and renewing their relationship with God rather than working or shopping.
A national movement called Time Out is urging us as a country to
- Make Election Day a national holiday.
- Make paid family and medical leave part of the Family and Medical Leave Act.
- Give all workers at least three weeks off each year.
- Limit mandatory overtime, so that workers cannot be forced to choose between working more than 48 hours a week or losing their jobs.
These are issues that should unite conservatives who care about preserving families and liberals who support workers rights, both union leaders and religious leaders. Indeed, the Long Island Labor-Religion Coalition has begun talking about just such an effort. Don’t you deserve a break today? Don’t we all?
Shalom/Salaam/Shanti/Pax,
Tom
Return to top
WANT TO RECEIVE THIS NEWSLETTER ON LINE?
We will soon be changing email accounts. If you would like to keep receiving our newsletter via email could you please put licc@optonline.net in your address book? And if you are not yet receiving it on-line or are receiving it by mistake and would like us to delete you from the email list, just let us know. Thanks!
Return to top
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION:
An Opportunity for Ecumenical Growth
At the most recent meeting of the LICC’s Pastoral Care Committee we celebrated the completion by one of our chaplains, the Rev. Nancy Schaffer, of her certification as a spiritual director. This led to a lengthy - and wonderful - discussion of what spiritual direction is, why it is growing in popularity lately, and what Protestants have been learning from the experience of Catholics with spiritual formation.
Many of us have found that our spiritual growth has been aided by meeting regularly with a spiritual director who can help us reflect on our faith journey. Many of us who have gone looking for such a person, particularly those of us who are Protestant, have benefited from working with someone from another denomination. The best director I have ever found for myself - and I will readily admit that I am probably a difficult case - was a nun who was attached to a Catholic parish on Long Island. Looking for a director yourself? Nancy is now ready to hang out her shingle.
Return to top
IDEAS YOU CAN USE:
God's October Surprise
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center, notes that during October 2005, a confluence of sacred moments in many different traditions invites us to pray with or alongside each other and to work together for peace, justice, human rights, and the healing of our wounded earth. He calls this God's October Surprise:
October 2 is both Gandhi's birthday and Worldwide Communion Sunday. The sacred Muslim lunar month of Ramadan and the sacred Jewish lunar month of Tishrei, which includes the High Holy Days and Sukkot, both begin October 3-4. October 4 is the Saint's Day of St. Francis of Assisi, the favorite saint of many Protestants as well as Catholics. In mid-October, there are major Hindu, Bahai, and Shinto festivals.
"Perhaps in groups of congregations - a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple - each congregation could host one meal for members of the others, after nightfall on any of the evenings of Ramadan,” Waskow suggests. “Jews could invite Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus into the Sukkah, a leafy hut that is open to the wind and rain. Traditionally, ‘sacred guests’ are invited in and the ancient Rabbis taught that during Sukkot, blessings are invoked upon ‘the seventy nations’ of the world… . Muslims could invite other communities to join in celebrating some aspects of Eid el-Fitr (the feast at the end of Ramadan), and Jews and Christians could (as in Morocco) bring food to the celebration of the end of Ramadan's fasting. It marks and underlines the month-long commitment to fast so as to offer food and life-abundance to God as a sacrifice, and to focus on devotion to God instead of to material success.
"Churches could invite Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus to join in learning about and celebrating the teachings of Francis of Assisi. He was one of the few Christians of his day who opposed the Crusades, who learned in a serious way from Muslim teachers, and who was deeply dedicated to kinship with the earth and all living creatures.”
For more ideas on interfaith learning in October or to subscribe to Waskow’s “Shalom Report” visit www.shalomctr.org.
Return to top
TV WORTH WATCHING:
“HIDING & SEEKING” Aug. 30 on PBS
Menachem Daum, an Orthodox Jew, has two sons who are yeshiva students in Israel, whom he senses are putting up barriers between themselves and people of other faiths. “My children are growing up in a time when every religion is in danger of being hijacked by extremists,” he explains. “I’ve come to Israel to warn them. I hope it is not too late.”
He and his wife Rifka cajole their sons into going to Poland, where they hope to find the Christian family that sheltered Rifka’s father and his brothers during the Shoah. Being a filmmaker, Daum brings his camera. The result is a moving documentary, “Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance after the Holocaust,” which airs on WNET/13 and most other public television stations on Tuesday, August 30, at 10 p.m. as part of the outstanding series “POV.”
The sons resist this journey. Upon arriving in Warsaw, they mock their father’s search for rescuers. The whole family is surprised, though, to get help in their search from a young Christian scholar who has devoted herself to preserving and telling the story of the vanished Jewish community. Their Gentile guide leads them to the place where Menachem’s father lived, ruins of his synagogue, and a desecrated cemetery where his grandmother is buried. His wife begins to pray at an abandoned Jewish school but is overcome with tears.
Eventually, almost miraculously, they track down the family that sheltered her father and find an elderly couple, still alive six decades later. The Muchas show the Daums where they hid and fed three desperate Jews—and describe their own terror when the Nazis searched the barn.
“Why did you risk your lives?” Menachem asks. “Out of pity,” Honorata Mucha replies. “Everyone knew what would happen to them.” The sons start to offer a prayer at the site of the barn, along with their mother, but almost immediately begin sobbing.
They are startled and shamed when Honorata Mucha berates them for taking so long to offer thanks: having risked their own lives daily for 28 months, the Muchas have never had so much as a postcard from any of the brothers and never heard if they survived after the war. Traumatized by the Holocaust and overwhelmed by their indebtedness, the young men never contacted their rescuers and discouraged their families from doing so. And when Menachem asks his father-in-law, “Would you have risked you life to save Poles?” the old man answers, “Probably not.”
Belatedly, the Daums establish a scholarship fund for the Mucha family and document their heroism for Yad Va-Shem, the Holocaust museum and research center in Jerusalem. The Israeli ambassador, himself a Polish survivor of the Shoah, presents them with the Righteous Among the Nations award. “Hiding & Seeking” provides both emotional impact and food for thought.
-TWG-
Also worth watching: “Pickles” August 30 at 9 p.m. on PBS’s “Wide Angle”
Eight widows in an Arab Israeli village in Galilee defy tradition and open a business to produce and market pickles, empower themselves, their children, and the local economy of their impoverished community.
Return to top
WORTH READING:
“Mary: Images of the Mother of Jesus in Jewish and Christian Perspective”
by Jaroslav Pelikan, David Flusser, and Justin Lang, O.F.M. Fortress Press
The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission recently released its joint statement on Mary, the result of five years of ecumenical dialogue. Hopefully, there will be ecumenical discussions of this document in many communities, not necessarily limited to Episcopalians and Catholics, about how we understand the mother of Jesus. Many Protestants are certain that they do not believe whatever Catholics believe about Mary but are not sure what they believe themselves. With insights from Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic scholars and stunning artwork from the 15th century, “Mary: Images of the Mother of Jesus in Jewish and Christian Perspective,” would be an excellent resource for either individual study or ecumenical discussion.
The authors note that Mary has attracted both great devotion and great controversy: “In the early centuries Christians disputed her title Mother of God. Later, especially during the late Middle Ages and the Reformation, Christians denounced a devotional focus on Mary that seemed sometimes to eclipse that of Jesus himself. Still, even the reformer Martin Luther, although often bitterly critical of the cult of saints, spoke lovingly of the figure of Mary as the holy Mother of God and an exemplar of faith.” Fearful of misplaced devotion, many Protestants threw out the mother with the bath water.
Flusser, who taught at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, claims Miriam, as Jesus would have known her, as “a suffering Jewish mother” who mourns her innocent, cruelly murdered child. Reminding us that, “Jesus was not the only Jew who was crucified,” he urges Protestants and Jews to honor Mary.
Pelikan, a Protestant who teaches at Yale, says that Mary “authenticates the true humanity of Jesus.” Because the earliest heresy about the nature of Christ, Docetism, held that Jesus only seemed to be human, the earliest heresy about Mary was that “Jesus had passed through the body of Mary as light passes through a window” - that she did not give birth in the normal, human way. “Repeatedly in the history of Christian devotion and Christian art and literature,” Pelikan notes, “it has become necessary to reassert the true humanity of the Mother as well as of the Son.” Skeptics may question the doctrine of the Virgin Birth, but Pelikan claims this dogma grew out of belief that Jesus was, in the words of Galatians 4:4, “born of a woman.”
Pelikan also is helpful in understanding other, later doctrines about Mary that continue to divide Christians: that she is the Bearer of God, of perpetual virginity, who was herself immaculately conceived, and whose Assumption into Heaven bypassed a normal death. Pelikan provides a fair account of why some Christians believe these things and others have doubts. Reading his chapter might make ecumenical disagreements less contentious.
Lang, a Franciscan at the Frauenberg Cloister in Germany, does a wonderful job of explaining to the rest of us why Catholics take Mariology so seriously - and why they fight among themselves as to how far to take this devotion. “Those who love always and necessarily exaggerate,” he explains, and it is paradox that draws Catholics to her “as the humble handmaiden and as the Queen of heaven, as the one whose life is riddled with pain and filled with joy.”
Every book must leave something out. Missing here is any perspective from Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Baha’is, or Unitarian Universalists, who all have their own traditions about Mary that are little known among Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. If you organize a discussion group about Mary, you might want to invite these folks, too. The LICC would be glad to help you find them.
-TWG-
“Introduction to World Religions with CD ROM.”
Christopher Partridge, General Editor. Fortress Press, 2005, 496 pages, $45, ISBN 0-8006-3714-3.
“Introduction to World Religions” sounds like a college text and certainly might be used in classrooms, but this readable, engaging, beautifully illustrated book can be enjoyed by all sorts of people. Nearly 200 full-color photographs show us not only Arab Muslims but also adherents of Islam who live in Malaysia, Nigeria, and Spain. We see Christians, likewise, not only in Europe and North America, but also in Romania, Ethiopia, and Guatemala - and learn that China may have the world’s fourth largest Christian population, after the USA, Brazil, and Mexico.
This book offers good explanations of groups such as the Baha'is who may remain invisible in your community because they gather in living rooms rather than sanctuaries. It includes first-person accounts of people who adhere to diverse traditions, though some are laughably sanitized: “I am a Rastafarian,” for example, does not even mention smoking marijuana or keeping children out of school, this group’s most controversial customs.
The longer essays do point out theological inconsistencies. Muslims are fond of telling their neighbors that they respect the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospels, we learn, but the Qur’an “charges both Jews and Christians with corrupting these earlier revelations by changing the text or willfully misinterpreting it.” It certainly takes chutzpah to insist that your version of the text, written 800 years later, is closer to the original. We Christians should hesitate, though, before casting the first stone: many of us have arrogantly claimed that Jews misinterpret their own Scripture.
There are also excellent articles on religions of antiquity, indigenous religion, and the faiths of East Asia. The essay on Israel and Palestine by Colin Chapman insightfully calls the Holy Land “a test for Judaism . . . a provocation for Islam . . . a dilemma for Christians.” The concluding essays on religion in the modern world are themselves worth the book’s price, offering succinct explorations of ways in which existentialism, postmodernism, and globalization are challenging religious traditions.
There are some dubious claims to be found here. Is the Human Potential Movement really a religion? Worse, the Seventh-Day Adventists are called “Christian-related” - whatever that means - and wrongly defined as “a Christian sect” akin to Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are, in fact, an evangelical Christian denomination that has been around longer than some “Mainline” ones. SDAs have some peculiar practices, such as worshiping on Saturday, vegetarianism, and pacifism, but these do not make them heretics.
No encyclopedia can get everything right, or cover everything, for that matter. This one depicts Judaism only in Israel and the United States, neglecting the smaller Jewish communities in many other lands. Eastern Orthodox Christianity is well represented in photographs but not in the text. “Oriental” Orthodox Christians and Unitarian Universalists are omitted completely.
Despite these faults, “Introduction to World Religions” is a stunning achievement: a sweeping survey of how humanity has experienced the divine in myriad ways, across the centuries and around the globe, giving us a good introduction to new neighbors at home and abroad.
-TWG-
Return to top
WORTH QUOTING
Mary
“The reformers emphasis on Jesus Christ as the only mediator between God and humanity led them to reject the real and perceived abuses surrounding devotion to Mary. It also led to the loss of some positive aspects of devotion and the diminution of her place in the life of the Church. . . .
“Mary is marked out from the beginning, as the one chosen, called, and graced by God through the Holy Spirit for the task that lay ahead of her. . . we can affirm together that Christ’s redeeming work reached ‘back’ in Mary to the depths of her being and to her earliest beginnings.”
Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission,
2005 statement on “Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ”
Abortion
“I long for the strident single-issue polarization to evolve somehow into a deeper dialogue about the kind of people we are, and the kind of community we want to become. I wish the Church would exemplify such a dialogue concerning our individual and corporate character before one another and God. We need signs that such a respectful, prayerful conversation is possible in the Church.”
Bishop Stephen P. Bouman, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
“From the Parish for the Life of the World,” Augsburg Fortress Press
Love of Neighbor
“. . . Three quarters of Americans believe that the Bible teaches that ‘God helps those who help themselves.’ That is, three out of four Americans believe a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor.”
--Bill McKibben,
“The Christian Paradox: How a Faithful Nation Gets Jesus Wrong,”
Harpers, August 2005
Our Health Care System
“As a family physician, I see firsthand the problems with our health system. Frankly it is a mess. We are the only country in the industrialized world that doesn’t make sure every one of our citizens has dignified access to high quality healthcare. . . . We are spending far more than anyone in the world, failing to insure more than 45 million Americans, and getting worse outcomes than almost all similarly wealthy countries. We don’t have the best healthcare in the world as many claim. What we do have is the most expensive mediocre healthcare in the world.”
--Mark H. Ebell, “Long Island Press,” July 13, 2005.
Return to top
DID YOU KNOW?
- Catholic Charities recently opened two new community residences in West Babylon for people with developmental disabilities. Charities now has thirteen such residences in Huntington Station, Aquebogue, Valley Stream, Elmont, Southold, Amityville, Manhasset, Copiague, Hampton Bays, Babylon, and West Babylon.
- The Sisters of Mercy distribute Christmas cards designed by artists who are on death row. The proceeds are used to help children at risk. David Paul Hammer, for example, who endured years of abuse as a child and “bottomed out” only after committing murder for no apparent reason, turned his life around while awaiting execution and created the beautiful card “Forest Manger,” which says “May each tree we see remind us God will find us in the forests of our lives if we but leave a little clearing for the Christ Child’s reappearing. The miracle survives.” You can order cards or receive more information about this project by writing to Sr. Camille D’Arienzo at Sisters of Mercy, 72-25 68th Street, Glendale, NY 11385-7216 or deathrowcards@aol.com.
- Alcoholics Anonymous, a fellowship of those recovering from addiction, maintains a Committee for Cooperation with Professionals. They would be glad to speak with clergy about AA and how to minister to those who have drinking problems. Call 631-587-6829 or email cooperation@asseny.org.
- Molloy College in Rockville Centre is planning a conference called “Love in the Public Square” for March 31 and April 1 of next year. The conference will explore: What does love mean in the context of political community? What is its place in democratic deliberation? This conference will explore how the notion and feeling of love, in its various forms, and the word "love" itself, can be re-centered in the public and political imagination as policy is set at the local and international levels, and as we consider questions of war and peace, the environment, race, business, capital markets, partisanship, patriotism, faith commitments, and the role of powerful democracies in a world too often on the brink or in the agonies of chaos, destruction, war or despair. For more information, contact David E. McClean at dm@iunion.org.
Return to top
RECOGNIZING VICTIMS OF MODERN SLAVERY
Human Trafficking is a modern day form of slavery. Victims are subjected to force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. Between 14,500 and 17,500 victims are trafficked annually into the U.S. – young children, teenagers, men and women. The government’s Rescue and Restore program aims to identify and rescue these victims of trafficking. Faith based communities are crucial to this effort because churches are among the few places where victims may be allowed some contact with the outside world.
Look for such clues as: evidence of being controlled; fear or depression; bruises or other physical injuries; lack of passport or other forms of identification or documentation. If you have the opportunity, asking the right questions will also help: What type of work do you do, and are you being paid? Can you leave your job if you want to, and can you come and go as you please?
If you think you may have come in contact with a victim, call the Trafficking Information and Referral Hotline at 1-888-3737-888. More information can be found at www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking.
Return to top
OFFERED/NEEDED
Offered:
- New videos in the LICC’s video lending library at the Presbytery Center (42 Hauppauge Road in Commack):
- All our member churches are welcome to borrow these:
- On DVD:
- “The Education of Shelby Knox” - The recent “P.O.V.” film about a devout Southern Baptist teen’s fight for comprehensive sex education
- “Street Fight” - from “P.O.V.” - race, religion, & racial identity in an Newark election
- On VHS:
- “Hiding & Seeking: Faith & Tolerance after the Holocaust” - also from “P.O.V.” - an Orthodox Jewish father takes his sons to meet the family that sheltered their grandfather during the Shoah, hoping to break down their distrust of all Gentiles
- Sanctuary Space:
- The United Methodist Church of Bay Shore would be glad to share its sanctuary with another congregation. The church is located on Main Street in Bay Shore, has a seating capacity of 200 plus, has ample off street parking, and has handicap access. They can provide both weekend and weekday availability and some storage. Call the church office (631-666-7194) or e-mail umcbs@aol.com.
- Choir Robes:
- The United Methodist Church of Floral Park has approximately 20 choir robes and stoles to give away, for the taking. They are in usable condition. The robes are blue and the stoles are white. If you would like to have them please call the church office at (516) 354-4969.
- Inspirational Speakers:
- Henry Lewandowski, a member of the LICC’s Finance Committee and St. Agnes’ parish in Rockville Centre, would be happy to talk about how he recovered from losing his job in the wake of the 9/11 attacks - and now helps others who are unemployed or facing foreclosure to keep their homes and get their finances back on track. You can reach him at 516-593-8472or hlvllc@aol.com.
- Maria Jimenez Tonkiss, the author of “Adelante!: Achieving the American Dream” would be happy to speak to church groups about her mother’s journey from Puerto Rico to New York to make a better life for her family despite murder, prejudice, and betrayal. It is an inspiring story of tenacity, sacrifice, hope and faith. You can reach her at 631-345-0776 or mtonkiss@aol.com.
- Resources for Protecting Religious Freedom:
- The U.S. Department of Justice has a booklet on “Protecting the Religious Freedom of All” that outlines federal laws on religious discrimination in education, employment, housing, zoning, etc. and another called “Know Your Rights: Federal Laws Against Religious Discrimination.” Free copies can be ordered from Jacqueline Greene at 202-514-5410 or Jacqueline.greene@usdoj.gov and can be downloaded from www.usdoj.gov/crt/religdisc.
Needed:
- On-line volunteers:
- We would love to add a map to the LICC Web site that would help people locate our member churches and provide links to their own web pages. Have you set up such a locator map for your congregation? Would you be willing to do so for the LICC? This is a task that can be done at home, whenever you have time to give. If you would like to volunteer, please contact Carolyn Moon (cjmoon@optonline.net) or Tom Goodhue (tomgoodhue@optonline.net).
- The Long Island Multi-Faith Forum also is seeking a Webmaster for the LIMFF site. Someone has already done the home page design and they have lots of material ready to be put up on the site once they find a Webmaster. Would you like to volunteer to do this? The task can easily be done at home, whenever you have time to give. To volunteer, please contact Arvind Vora (avora@optonline.net) or Tom Goodhue (tomgoodhue@optonline.net).
Return to top
JOB OPENINGS
- Youth Ministries Coordinator:
- 1st Presbyterian Church of Northport is seeking a Youth Ministries Coordinator to lead Mid-High and Senior High youth groups, beginning ASAP. It is anticipated that the job will take about 12 hours a week, mostly evenings and weekends. Please send resumes to Personnel Committee, 1st Presbyterian Church, 330 Main St., Northport 11768.
Return to top
"WHO YOU GONNA CALL?"
Perhaps you are the new rabbi in town and would like to meet other clerics or to take part in the interfaith Thanksgiving service. Maybe you want local congregations to address some important community issue. Here are some contact people for ecumenical and interfaith groups:
| Amityville Ecumenical Ministries | David Anglin 631-264-0763 |
| Babylon Clergy Cluster | Mark Butler 631-661-5757 |
| Baldwin-Freeport Church Women | Helene Kappelmann 516-223-3565
or Bobbie Angelello 516-623-6898 |
| Baldwin Interfaith Clergy | David Dooley 516-379-0720 |
| Baldwin Interfaith Conference (Lay) | Tom Ryley 516-623-1896 |
| Bay Shore-Brightwaters Clergy | Ronnie Kehati 631-665-5755 |
| Bay Shore Interfaith Council (lay) | Stu Napier 631-968-0667 |
| Bellmore-Merrick Interfaith Clergy | Peggy Tully 516-623-1400, ext. 106
& Thomas Philipp 516-378-7761 |
| Bridgehampton Community of Faith | Rose Ann Vita 631-537-1187 |
| Central Islip Ministerial Alliance | Roderick Pearson 631-234-2731 |
| Conference of Clergy | Frank White 516-623-7513 |
| Deer Park Interfaith Clergy | Bob Rainis 631-667-4188 |
| East Hampton Clericus | Donald Desmond 631-324-0134 |
| East Meadow Clergy Fellowship | Ronald Androphy 516-483-4205 |
| E. Northport-Northport Ec. Council | Betty Lockwood 631-261-7715 |
| East Rockaway-Lynbrook Clergy | Mark Lukens 599-5768 |
| Five Towns Interfaith Clergy | Paula Winnig 516-569-0267 |
| Floral Park Ecumenical Committee | Al Martin 516-775-9669 |
| Floral Park Church Women United | Chong Ye Sikes 516-354-0059 |
| Franklin Square Clergy Assn. | Tom Groenewold 516-352-0146 |
| Garden City Clergy Association | Wanda Hughes 516-354-1848 |
| (Glen Cove) North Shore Clergy | Douglas Hutchings 516-676-0015
& Betsy Simpson 516-671-0258 |
| Great Neck Clergy Association | Matt Mardis 516-487-1620 |
| Greater Hamptons Interfaith Council | Reggie Barnett 631-288-3628 |
| Greenport Ecumenical Ministries | Thomas Murray 631-477-0048 |
| Hempstead Clergy Association | Phil Elliott 516-485-1499 |
| Huntington Clergy Association | Peter Sanborn 631-427-9220 |
| Islip Clergy Association | Steve Moss 631-563-1660 |
| Long Beach Interfaith Clergy Assn. | Bennett Hermann 516-431-4060 |
| Long Island Multi-Faith Forum | Arvind Vora 631-269-1167 |
| Long Island Organizing Network | Rose Ann Vita 537-1187 |
| Manhasset Clergy Assn. | Jimmy Only 516-627-4911 |
| Massapequas Interfaith Clergy | Jeffrey Meyers 516-541-0740 |
| Mattituck-Cutchogue Clergy Assn. | George Summers 631-298-4918 |
| Moriches Church Women United | Sylvia Prill 631-878-5676 |
| North Amityville Ministerial Assn. | Robert Abbott 631-643-6133 |
| Oceanside Interfaith Council | Mark Greenspan 516-536-6112 |
| 110 Corridor Pastors & Ministry Leaders | Roy Kirton 631-789-2688 ex 122 |
| Oyster Bay-E. Norwich Interreligious | Ken Nelson 516-624-4938 |
| Port Washington Church Women | Hazel Nolan 516-767-0177 |
| Riverhead Clergy Council | Haywood Tolbert 631-467-4507 |
| Rockville Centre Clergy | Jeff Laustsen 516-766-2815 |
| Sayville Clergy Association | John Rowlan 631-589-0042 |
| Shalom Interfaith-Pt. Jeff | Molly Blythe-Teichert 631-473-0147 |
| Smithtown Multi-Faith Council | Jimmy Hulsey 631-265-5151 |
| Southampton Clergy Association | Jack King 631-283-0951 |
| Southold Clergy | Peter Kelly 631-765-2597 |
| Southold Women in Faith Together | Ellen Witko 631-722-2556 |
| Suffolk Black Clergy Assn. | Roderick Pearson 631-234-2731 |
| Three Village Clergy Association | Lynda Bates-Stepe 631-941-4167 |
| Unified Council of Churches | R. K. Davenport 516-546-2459 |
| Wantagh Clergy Council | Martin Nale 516-221-3286 |
| Wantagh-Levittown Church Women | Grace MacMillan 516-785-3951 |
| Westhampton Church Women United | Linni Diehl 631-653-8750
& Jeanne Lewin 631-288-1680 |
| Westhampton Clergy | Larry Dunlap 631-288-1158 |
| Woodbury-Syosset Interfaith Clergy | Bill Parker 516-921-0755 |
| Woodbury-Syosset Church Women | Barbara Jagy 516-921-3066 |
| Wyandanch Christian Clergy Assn. | Sherman Roberts 631-491-0669 |
If you have additions or corrections for this list, please call 516-565-0290 ext. 206 or e-mail licchemp@aol.com. Call, too, if you would you like our Executive Director or Community Resources Director to speak to your group - or help you start or expand a group.
Return to top
The Long Island Council of Churches is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit. All gifts are deeply appreciated and are tax-deductible.
Tom Goodhue
Executive Director
Long Island Council of Churches
1644 Denton Green
Hempstead, NY 11550
voice: 516-565-0290, ext. 206
fax: 516-565-0291
email:licchemp@aol.com
Web: www.ncccusa.org/ecmin/licc
|
