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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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