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By Conference Minister Diane Weible We are trying to do something new in our Conference. We want to create opportunities for deep and important conversations around the topic of race. This is leading up to a resolution that will be brought to Annual Gathering inviting us to consider a commitment to continuing these conversations and changing a culture that has allowed racism to continue. I listen to a lot of podcasts and lately it feels the topic of our habits is one that is talked about a lot. Our habits become so ingrained in us that we don’t even realize…

By Conference Minister Diane Weible This is the fifth part in a series about impressions and thoughts from the trip I took to Alabama with the other Conference Ministers in November. We visited Civil Rights sites in Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham. At one of the museums in Birmingham, in a glass case, was the pocketbook and shoes from 11-year-old Denise McNair, one of the victims of the bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. I stood looking at that glass case for a long time. I was picturing Denise arriving at church that morning and carrying her purse,…

By Conference Minister Diane Weible This is the fourth part in a series about impressions and thoughts from the trip I took to Alabama with the other Conference Ministers in November. We visited Civil Rights sites in Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham. On Monday, the day we honored the birth and life of The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I went to see the movie “Just Mercy”. Having been to the Equal Justice Initiative sites in Alabama in November, I was particularly moved by one of Bryan Stevenson’s quotes that I heard repeatedly when I was there in November and…

By Associate Conference Minsiter Daniel Ross-Jones It may only be 14 days into the year when I sit down to write this article, yet already I think we are all going to be exhausted by ‘clever’ references to 2020 vision by the time we write the book on this first year of the decade. So forgive me as I already continue the metaphor here. During the 2010s, Christian practice shifted in ways that accelerated many numerous trends that had already been emerging. The rate of change seemed to increase exponentially, and indeed that was the case in a number of…

By Conference Minister Diane Weible This is the third part in a series about impressions and thoughts from the trip I took to Alabama with the other Conference Ministers in November. We visited Civil Rights sites in Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham. As the 2020 Presidential Race heats up and the first Democratic primaries are just around the corner, I’m thinking a lot about the right to vote. I still remember one of the first primary elections I voted in. Our polling place was at the Catholic School just up the street from my neighborhood. During primary elections, you had to…

By Conference Minister Diane Weible This is the second part in a series about impressions and thoughts from the trip I took to Alabama with the other Conference Ministers in November. We visited Civil Rights sites in Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham. One of the things that made a huge impression on me last month when Conference Ministers visited the Civil Rights sites in Montgomery, Selma and Birmingham, Alabama, was that slavery did not end with the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation or even the 1865 passage of the 13th Amendment. Slavery just evolved. After slavery was abolished there was a very short-lived…

Our Let’s Talk article this week is by Rev. Cheryl Ward, inviting us to sacred and difficult conversations on race. This initiative is part of the work we have agreed to at our last Annual Gathering—a commitment to difficult conversations in the hopes of bringing awareness and forward movement in hearing other stories and seeing how we are called individually and together to work for racial justice and equality. We invite your participation in this work. Please click HERE to respond to a brief survey indicating your interest and availability to be part of these small group conversations in the…

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By Conference Minister Diane Weible This is the first part in a series about impressions and thoughts from the trip I took to Alabama with the other Conference Ministers in November. We visited Civil Rights sites in Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham. When I was a child, the term “Grandfather Clause” always bothered me. But, not for the reasons it should have bothered me. Whenever someone says, “It was Grandfathered in…” or mentions, “the Grandfather clause,” I quickly say, “Grandparent—It was Grandparented in” or “the Grandparent clause”. I have always been proud of my correction of what I considered to be…

By Associate Conference Minister Daniel Ross-Jones As many of you know by now, your Conference staff is once again on the move. We learned a few months ago that the lease for the Conference House, our beloved ministry home for the past two years, was not being renewed. Moving is never a simple task. Finding a space that works for our evolving ministry needs was only one part of moving, and it will come as a surprise to no one who has moved in the past few years that aligning price, space, value, and amenities within our Bay Area geography…