Is your church feeling called to a season of discernment to see if affiliating with RMN is the right witness for you? The “All-Stations Train” refers to a Reconciling journey that includes a longer, more detailed process of exploration, relationship building, and learning together. Like all meaningful journeys, it begins with a faithful first step.
We’ve developed and curated resources for a healthy and thorough process. We’re also available to meet with your leadership team to customize a path best for your particular church.
Let’s start here! This 28-minute video is a brief overview of the recommended process, and a great starting place for local church leaders.
What’s next? While we value flexibility and tailoring a process best for your church, there are several study topics that we hold dear and consider essential. Here are a few.
For a written outline of the Reconciling process, click here.
Click here to support this life-giving, life-saving work with a financial gift.
All of this and more can be found on our website as well. Click here.
Though affiliating with the Reconciling movement and serving as a voice for intersectional justice is a stated goal, this learning opportunity and discernment process very often includes a huge bonus: deepened relationships and a stronger church family. It’s a win-win!
We’re excited about the future of the UMC and look forward to adding your local church leadership to our unfolding story!
As an RMN organizer, nothing is more exciting than opening an email from a church or group that is ready to be that bright Reconciling light in their community, district, or conference.
We’re celebrating a steady stream of new churches and communities making the decision to affiliate with RMN and engage in this continued journey as a Reconciling Ministry. These friends recognize this important moment in the life of the UMC and are stepping up to help lead – to model a Church that values and advocates for diversity, equity, full inclusion, and intersectional justice.
This 3rd installment, in a summer series we’ve called The Love Train, is for churches or groups who have felt a call toward Reconciling. You might have hosted a conversation. Maybe you even took a few next steps, but something else demanded your attention, and launching an official process was moved to the back burner. Perhaps GC outcomes inspired you and you’re ready to get started!
This is your ticket to next steps as well as enthusiastic, unlimited support from your organizer!
This 28-minute video is a brief overview of the recommended process to affiliate with RMN. It’s a great starting place for leaders.
For a written outline of the Reconciling process, click here.
Click here to support this life-giving, life-saving work with a financial gift.
All of this and more can be found on our website as well. Click here.
If you’d like to brainstorm about more personalized ideas for your local church or group, please email your RMN Organizer. We’re excited to support your process.
Finally, we recognize that some churches and groups might prefer to skip the “Express Train” and board the “All Stations Train” instead. This is a journey that includes a longer, more detailed process of exploration, relationship building, and learning together. The next email from our Organizing Team will highlight the All Stations Train.
Welcome to the second installment of our summer series centered on the Love Train. On June 9th, we outlined what it means to keep the Love Train fueled. This week we’re exploring who’s on board. Spoiler alert: we hope it’s everyone!
There’s both room and a deep desire for everyone to journey together. We also acknowledge that, as passengers on this train, we’re pretty diverse travel companions. Let’s explore some of the people we might meet as we move through the train cars.
Friends who have been on board for years, decades, perhaps from the very beginning
If you are a Reconciling United Methodist, we’re talking about you. The people, churches, and small groups that are part of the Reconciling movement have been taking risks, sharing stories, spreading the good news, and inviting friends for a very long time. Simply saying “thank you” is grossly inadequate. Your courage, skills, and energy are invaluable and our gratitude runs deep. We journey forward together with the benefit of our collective experiences and wisdom.
Friends who hoped this train would someday arrive and jumped on board as soon as they could
There are many who have been longing for the changes we achieved at GC, but for various reasons were hesitant to get on board before the prohibitions were removed. Maybe your small group or church has been wanting to explore becoming Reconciling and now you feel liberated to do so. Check out this page on our website to learn more. And please reach out to your organizer for more support whenever needed.
Friends who appreciate the potential of the Love Train, but who are unsure about how their church might respond
It might be that your local church chose to stay UMC, but the members remain theologically diverse. Perhaps the conversations over the past several years have left you a little tired, and not yet ready to explore what is now possible. You’re happy with the changes and possibilities, but not sure how this will play out in your local context. You’d like to rest for a bit and then take next steps at a slower pace.
Friends who are disappointed with the GC outcomes and aren’t sure about their next steps
We recognize that some are feeling deeply uncomfortable with the new changes to our UM Book of Discipline and are discerning how to continue on the journey with our UMC family. We affirm that all are invited to share in God’s table of grace, and all are called to love our neighbors and care for the least in the communities we serve. As the Love Train chugs along, may we recommit to that grace-filled work and continually create more time and opportunities to share our stories of faith.
As we must often do, we’re holding two important things in tension. We hope those struggling to envision a future UMC that affirms LGBTQ+ will not hop off the train too quickly. Even in our disagreement, we hope folks with open hearts will choose to continue the journey. At the same time, we can’t throw one group of friends under the train in order to keep another group on board. To be more specific, we’re unwilling to dismiss or downplay the recent policy changes in an effort to prevent further disaffiliations. We are proud of and grateful for the changes, and don’t want to hide that light under a bushel.
While we celebrate the removal of mandated discrimination, the option to discriminate is still very much available, and this fact calls RMN and our Reconciling family to continue the journey. There is space on this journey… a seat on the train for everyone. We recognize that United Methodists may be boarding the Love Train from different places and perspectives. That’s okay.
“Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may.”
John Wesley
Welcome to the first installment of the Love Train series: where we mobilize to stay on track with progress.
It’s been a month since the close of an historic General Conference (GC). Many annual conferences (AC) are enjoying a more welcoming spirit, and Reconciling Ministries at Pride festivals are able to witness in exciting new ways!
At the same time, many of us still live in a Church that hasn’t changed. Some of our Church leaders are less interested to “do no harm” and more interested in assuring traditionalists that nothing has to change. This hurts our hearts… but it also clarifies our calling.
GC outcomes placed us on a path full of potential. Now it’s time to renew our commitment, invite others, fuel up, and get on board toward our shared destination: a fully just and inclusive UMC.
As United Methodists, we took vows of membership. Those vows include our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. There’s a seat saved just for you on the Love Train. The more people there are engaged in this work, the more life-changing results are possible.
Today, we’re exploring how those membership vows can guide us in keeping the Love Train fueled. Now that the harmful language has been removed, we’ve just begun the journey.
Pray with RMN. Engage RMN’s prayer guide for Pride, shared each day of June on Instagram, Facebook, and our website.
Pray for your local church – for the courage to explore what might be possible in your congregation. Perhaps LGBTQ+ education or a new wedding policy.
Pray for your bishop and AC leaders – for the courage to resist fear and continued discrimination, and to lead from a position of positivity and hope.
Look for ways to amplify and elevate the voices and leadership of LGBTQ+ members in your local church, district, and conference settings.
The importance of showing up can never be overstated! Keep showing up!
Consider financial giving through RMN’s pledge campaign. Your ongoing financial contributions, no matter the amount, are essential to our continued progress.
Consider sharing your gift for organizing, hospitality, writing, story-telling, social media, etc. to help multiply the Reconciling presence in your setting. Email your organizer to discuss volunteering your gifts in your area.
Part of a Reconciling church or community? Post-GC, what next steps are needed in your Reconciling setting? Click here for ideas. Consider sharing your experience with other ministries considering becoming Reconciling. Your organizer is happy to offer helpful tools.
In churches not yet Reconciling, we’re counting on RUMs to name the changes that can now be explored. Have a conversation with your pastor and lay leaders about educational opportunities, updating your wedding policy, and increasing your overall inclusive witness.
It’s annual conference season. Is your Reconciling Ministry planning a presence at AC? Click here *and* here for more information and ideas.
It’s Pride month. Is your Reconciling Ministry planning a presence at Pride?
RMN is deeply honored to have received the inaugural Bishop Karen Oliveto and Deaconess Robin Ridenour Award by UMARC (The United Methodist Association of Retired Clergy) for “forty years of grassroots advocacy and witness [that] helped create the foundation for a new transformed United Methodism.”
Upon accepting the award presented by Dr. Don Messer (UMARC Chairperson and Executive Director of the Center for Health & Hope), RMN Executive Director Jan Lawrence said: “We’re encouraged and committed to keep going until all of God’s children are right at home in our Church.”
The award was presented at UMARC’s service honoring Bishop Oliveto’s service and leadership. The service was held at St. Andrew UMC in Denver, CO.
We hope this award affirms the importance of Reconciling Ministries and Reconciling United Methodists in the ongoing creation story of our Church. RMN celebrates its 40 years of ministry, organizing, pastoral care, and leadership in the UMC. All the while, we acknowledge that the work continues as we seek the Church of our aspirations.
If you’d like to celebrate this honor with us, then we invite you to make a financial pledge to RMN‘s Onward campaign, on which Bishop Karen Oliveto serves as Honorary Co-Chair with Bishop Cedrick Bridgeforth. Thank you for your consideration!
United Methodist Church Reverses Anti-LGBTQ+ Discrimination in Historic Votes
UM Queer Collective Collaborates in Pursuit of Progress
CHARLOTTE – The General Conference of The United Methodist Church (UMC) has eliminated anti-LGBTQ+ legislation from its Book of Discipline, effectively ending 52 years of institutionally sanctioned discrimination. The global body of 862 voting delegates (about 740 seated) has spent almost two weeks in unusual civility removing prohibitions against same-sex marriages; ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy; bans against funding education about LGBTQ+ affirmation; and the belief that “the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
The advocacy of the new Queer Delegates Caucus (QDC) has been instrumental to these historic advances in the world’s third-largest mainline denomination. The QDC contains 58 delegates, 26 of whom are General Conference voting delegates.
At this General Conference, the efforts of the QDC have been augmented by longer-time caucus groups including Affirmation, Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), and the United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus (UMQCC). The organizations refer to their collaboration in this General Conference as the UM Queer Collective.
The UM Queer Collective acknowledges the labor of organizers, caucus staff, and allies throughout the Church, as well as past advocates whose work contributed to this progress. Says Rev. Austin Adkinson, co-convener of UMQCC: “Whether LGBTQIA+ people even have a place in our Church was the sole topic of debate the last time United Methodists met as a General Conference. Five years ago, the UMQCC proposed A Simple Plan to the General Conference. It seemed preposterous to most of the church then, but its essence is Church law now. A new era for our Church is emerging, and we look with awe at where God is leading the UMC.”
QDC delegate Rev. Effie McAvoy affirms the importance of these legislative victories: “This means that those who are LGBTQIA+ and called into the ministry of the ordained will be able to do so. This will empower the called to do the good work of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!”
RMN Executive Director Jan Lawrence urges the Church to continue advocating for change. “It’s not over until every place of worship, every community, affirms the sacred worth of every queer and trans child of God. We should celebrate today. And then, next week, let’s walk in the sunlight and get back to work.”
The UM Queer Collective is holding a brief news conference at the Press Room in the Charlotte Convention Center at the first plenary break, estimated to be at about 9:45 AM ET.
For more information, contact:
Ophelia Hu Kinney, Director of Communications Reconciling Ministries Network ophelia@rmnetwork.org (207) 899-6956
Reconciling Ministries Network expresses our joy that this General Conference voted to initiate the process of worldwide regionalization. We affirm that true connectionalism cannot occur until all regions of the Church possess equal access to self-determination.
Our faith calls us into connection, and that connection impels us to collaboratively transform inequitable systems in pursuit of a radically Christ-like Church. A Christ-like Church de-centers those in power and centers those on the margins. Through the passage of worldwide regionalization petitions #1, #2, #3, #4, and #8: our Church is making meaningful progress to dismantle our systems of white supremacy and geographic inequality.
Each of us has a role to play in the co-creation of a Church that testifies to the inclusive and revolutionary love of God. Today’s decisions must be followed by the creation of vital partnerships across the connection as annual conferences begin to pursue ratification.
Moving forward, RMN will continue to equip annual conferences for the conversations and organization needed to ratify worldwide regionalization. Meanwhile, we re-commit to locating the ways that U.S. dominance and white supremacy inform our theology and work. We confess that we have colluded with a colonial, patriarchal, and white supremacist institution. RMN has participated in the culture, norms, and systems that this legislation now seeks to transform.
We now re-commit to empowering the Church – its diverse, beloved peoples and its diverse, beloved communities – to advocate for an anti-colonial future.
“There are two questions that we must ask ourselves,” said the theologian and civil rights leader Howard Thurman. “The first is, ‘Where am I going?’ The second is, ‘Who will go with me?’ If you get these questions in the wrong order, you are in trouble.”
RMN is on the threshold of significant change. In this letter, we want to give you a glimpse into where we’re going.
Do you know your board? Take a look at their photos.
They are stepping across the threshold into the next opportunity for RMN – coming out of the background and stepping into the leadership of a dynamic future. Please take time to see them.
Each one is a person who lives in the intersection of their identities. Each brings all of themselves. They provide diverse and needed perspectives on The UMC and RMN. (As the new chair of the board, I am especially grateful to Rev. Kimberly Scott for her prior leadership and for preparing a slate of incredible leaders for this strategic time.)
At the board’s February meeting in Charlotte, NC, we reaffirmed RMN’s focus, mission, and vision:
Our focus to celebrate and affirm persons who are LGBTQ+
Our mission to work intersectionally for justice within and beyond the UMC
Our vision of a transforming Church that ensures justice, equity, and dignity for all of God’s children.
Legislative Priorities at General Conference
The writer and educator Audre Lorde said, “Without community, there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression.” At RMN, we’re committed to moving past the ‘temporary armistice.’ Therefore, the board unanimously supports the proposed transformations to the Church listed below.
Removal of all the discriminatory language in the United Methodist Book of Discipline to make Church law neutral and end the explicit harm toward persons who are LGBTQ+
Revision of the Social Principles to honor the global nature of the Church and those who undertook this years-long process of revision
Regionalization of the denomination’s structure to acknowledge the harm of U.S. colonization and to provide an equitable and liberating context for mission and ministry.
Here, you’ll find the RMN board’s statement of support for these critical legislative priorities.
The board is also working collaboratively to build a community of the harmed, threatened, blamed, and marginalized laity and clergy who are LGBTQ+ in the UMC with their friends, families, allies, pastors, and congregations. The Love Your Neighbor Coalition (LYNC) and Reconciling Ministries Network are deeply engaged in creating activities, community gatherings, and collective calls to action when delegates, advocates, and volunteers gather in Charlotte from April 22 to May 4. Email Dr. Mittie Quinn at umcmittie@gmail.com to inquire about volunteer opportunities where you live or in Charlotte.
RMN’s Strategic Direction
In addition, the RMN board has laid out plans for the organization’s ministry after General Conference 2024. The work of creating worshipful communities for LGBTQ+ people is needed more than ever, but no decisions of any General Conference will achieve that goal. That is RMN’s role. Your board recognizes the landscape in which the mission of RMN will unfold over the next few years.
We hammered out details of RMN’s infrastructure needed to strengthen Reconciling congregations, expand community organizing, resource the movement, and develop leadership. In the meantime, RMN is launching its next major fund development campaign next month, planning its next Convocation for 2025, and identifying strategic objectives for the next five years of robust change in the UMC.
Pray for us and work with us
It is a pleasure to work with this board and staff who are unmatched in skill and experience in the UMC. RMN is a clear leader for change. Your involvement and support have sustained it and prepared it for its next steps. Thank you.
Finally, your board and I are interested in your input and feedback. Do not hesitate to reach out to any one of us. No matter what, pray for us, work with us, and support us as you can. The kin-dom of God is near!
Rev. David Meredith Mychal Boyd Rev. Rachel Cornwell Janet Duke Mary Gladstone-Highland Rev. Joey Heath-Mason Rev. Dr. Ron Hoellein Rev. Dr. Valerie Jackson Jan Lawrence Rev. Kennedy Mwita Rev. Michael Parker II Rev. Mina Nau Karen Prudente Derrick Scott III Rev. Kimberly Scott Sutton Smith Rev. Dr. Deb Stevens Eric Swanson Jacob Vaughn Ben Weger Alice Williams Rev. Anjie Woodworth
Reconciling Ministries Network envisions a transformed Church that ensures justice, equity, and dignity for all of God’s children in their diverse intersecting identities (RMN’s vision statement). To that end, RMN supports the passage of legislation and resolutions that make possible this vision of a Church for all of God’s beloved children.
Removal of the Discriminatory Language
For the sake of LGBTQ+ people, who are created with love in the image of God: removal of the discriminatory language would initiate a long path of reconciliation. The United Methodist Church is hostile toward LGBTQ+ people, demonstrated by our denomination’s explicit policies. Exclusion of LGBTQ+ people from the full life and leadership of the Church has impoverished our ministry and fellowship, and it attempts to stanch the flow of God’s grace.
Therefore, RMN supports the complete removal of all prohibitions against the full participation of LGBTQ+ United Methodists in the life and leadership of the Church.
Revised Social Principles
RMN also supports the adoption of the Revised Social Principles as written by Church & Society. This revision was created by and for the global Church in a process of deep collaboration. It is therefore a faithful representation of the values for which we strive today. Across the connection, United Methodists have experienced fifty years of social progress and scientific discovery. Therefore, as we ground ourselves in timeless Christian principles, we commit ourselves to Wesleyan ministry updated for our global context.
RMN believes in the inherent and equal worth of people of all races, languages, ethnicities, nationalities, tribes, religions, sexual orientations, gender identities, disabilities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. The Revised Social Principles address the most pressing concerns of our day.
The Church has the obligation and opportunity of prophetic witness. Therefore, the Social Principles to which we uphold ourselves must reflect the social issues we experience today.
Regionalization
In addition, RMN supports legislation for worldwide regionalization for the sake of a more globally equitable Church and world. The current Church claims regional equity and connectionalism but is built upon U.S.-based, white-majority dominance. The Church’s geographic inequity cannot be untangled from the racism built into its foundation.
Because the American Church currently wields an outsized influence on the denomination, true connectionalism cannot occur until regions of the Church possess equal access to self-determination. Worldwide regionalization would require a radical restructuring of the UMC, but such a transformation is needed in the pursuit of a radically Christ-like Church.
While the General Conference can initiate the process of worldwide regionalization, the UMC’s transformation requires the vital partnership of local church members. Passage of regionalization legislation by the General Conference must be followed by annual conference ratification in order to take effect.
Each of us has a role to play in the co-creation of a Church that testifies to the inclusive and revolutionary love of God.
Multigenerational, adaptable resource released in time for Summer 2024
News Release For immediate release November 13, 2023
Reconciling Ministries Network announces the release of JUST Like Me: an innovative and adaptable, multigenerational Vacation Bible School (VBS) curriculum for congregations and communities of all sizes. The curriculum package contains dynamic original music, games and activities, and more.
JUST Like Me centers the deep and active faith lives of children and engages the real-world contexts in which children live. Built on theologies of inclusion, this unique curriculum uses First and Second Testament Bible characters to help students build vital social and spiritual skills to support active faith development.
Created in collaboration between scholars, writers, youth ministers, and more, this resource is designed to help kids celebrate their own and others’ identities as beloved creations of God — just as they are. Writing team members from across the U.S. developed a biblically based, theologically informed curriculum that will allow young people and their church families to explore essential Christian concepts of community, inclusion, and intersectional justice while prioritizing the agency and experience of children.
The JUST Like Me curriculum package also includes Youth and Adult resources to help churches plan summer small groups or a JUST Like Me lock-in. Learn more and purchase the curriculum at justlikemevbs.org. Adult and youth curriculums are included in the full package and can also be purchased separately.
Ophelia Hu Kinney, Director of Communications Reconciling Ministries Network ophelia@rmnetwork.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 19, 2023
RMN National Convocation 2023: Onward to Perfection
The Reconciling movement gathers for the first time since 2020 in Charlotte, NC
In a time of unprecedented anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in our civil society and in the midst of our Church’s splintering, the Spirit of God still urges us “onward to perfection.”
That is the theme of RMN’s 2023 National Convocation: Onward to Perfection. John Wesley encouraged Methodists toward perfection in the lifelong pursuit of love. Love looks like affirmation in the face of persecution, like kinship in the face of isolation, and like courage in the face of despair. It is in that spirit that we’re gathering on Friday, October 13th – Sunday, October 15th at First United Methodist Church in Charlotte, NC. Pre-Convocation workshops and an evening gathering will take place on Thursday, October 12th, and post-Convocation workshops will take place on Monday, October 16th. Programming for youth and young adults is available throughout Convocation.
For those unable to join in person, RMN is offering a virtual attendance pass for the first time. Virtual attendees will have access to worship, Bible study, and plenary sessions, as well as certain workshops and designated virtual points of connection.
With Convocation, RMN kicks off the celebration of 40 years as a movement and a people purposed for justice. We invite you to join us in Charlotte to reflect on our history and boldly claim the future of the Church for all God’s children. There’s work to do, and there’s joy to share. And we want to do it all with you.
![interior [Love Train] Boarding the All Stations Train banner image](https://rmnetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/love-train.jpg)
