Twin Cities area Circles of Names event
will support women's ministries
Minneapolis, October 17, 2011 -- The Twin Cities Area
Circles of Names Gathering -- an event crucial to the future of women's
ministries --will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. on November 17, 2011 in the
parsonage of Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis.
The event, one of several local events sponsored by the National Council of
Churches Circles of Names campaign, has been announced by the Rev. Canon Peg
Chemberlin, president of the NCC and executive director of the Minnesota
Council of Churches.
The
Circles of Names Campaign is a project of the NCC to create a circle of
support for women's ministries by asking a thousand persons to give $100 in
the name of a woman who helped shape their faith. In so doing, the campaign
will lift up the stories of a thousand women as sources of inspiration and
empowerment of the churches' witness for gender justice.
In addition to scores of mentoring women who will be named to the circle as
a part of the Twin Cities area gathering, seven special mentors will be
honored:
Dorothea Burns, an active Evangelical Lutheran Church in America laywoman and
community center leader; the Rev. Sarah Campbell, team lead minister of
Mayflower Community Congregational United Church of Christ in Minneapolis; Rabbi Amy Eilberg,
the first woman ordained as a Conservative rabbi by the Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, and a leader in interfaith dialogue; the Rev. Alika P.
Galloway, co-pastor of Kwanzaa Community Church in Minneapolis
(Presbyterian), a womanist theologian and Spiritual Director; Dr. Josie Robinson
Johnson, a Roman Catholic laywoman and long-time civil rights leader; Dr.
Fatma Reda, a psychiatrist with a doctorate in religious philosophy, a
Muslim and an interfaith leader in the Twin Cities area; and Elona
Street-Stewart, a Presbyterian elder, chair of the Saint Paul, Minn. School
Board, and the first Native American to serve on an urban school board in
Minnesota.
Presiding over the event will be Lori Sturdevant, a nationally known
journalist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and other media, and a member
of Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church.
The Circles of Names campaign seeks to build a foundation towards long-term
sustainability of women's ministries and gender justice in the National
Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC, the 37 member communions of
the NCC, and its ecumenical partners).
Participants
will be invited to give or pledge $100 in the name of a woman who was or is
important in his or her faith. The names will be added to the ever-growing
circle of names; see
http://circlesofnames.org/who-has-been-named/.
incorporated in a work of art commissioned for the campaign, and listed on a
plaque in the NCC offices in The Interchurch Center.
The circles campaign has increased in urgency since it was started, said the
Rev. Ann Tiemeyer, Director for Women's Ministries for the National Council
of Churches.
"The future of women's ministries programs and gender justice work is at
stake in many of our denominations," Tiemeyer said. "The activities that
support women's ministries -- women's desks, commissions and programs -- are
being severely reduced or eliminated as NCC member communions face economic
challenges. In this context, funding the NCC Women's Ministries program has
never been more important."
The four current NCC priorities in
gender justice ministries are: human trafficking, domestic violence,
inclusive and expansive language, and poverty among women and girls.
Persons planning to attend the event should send an RSVP by November 7 to
the Rev. Deborah DeWinter, ddewinter@ncccusa.org, 212-870-2513 or
845-855-4495.
"Of course, anyone is welcome to come to the Twin Cities Circles of Names event on November 17,"
DeWinter added. "It's a wonderful way of honoring women who have made such a
difference in our lives."
Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of
the Churches of Christ in the USA has been the leading force for
shared ecumenical witness among Christians in the United States. The NCC's
37 member communions -- from a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican,
Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African American and Living Peace
churches -- include 45 million persons in more than 100,000 local
congregations in communities across the nation.
NCC News contact:
Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office), 646-853-4212 (cell),
pjenks@ncccusa.org
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