RENWL

Six faith-based LGBT organizations are splitting a whopping grant award of $1.2 million to expand the number of churches that welcome LGBTs into their congregations as well as support these churches in building a strong LGBT infrastructure.

The 6 recipient organizations are:

• National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Foundation’s Institute for Welcoming Resources (IWR), which works with the welcoming church movement in 30 Christian denominations.
• Integrity, which works within the Episcopal Church
• Lutherans Concerned/North America, which works within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada
• More Light Presbyterians, which works within the Presbyterian Church (USA)
• Reconciling Ministries Network, which works within the United Methodist Church
• United Church of Christ Coalition for LGBT Concerns.

We think this is fantastic news. Since ironically, it more or less copycats in some ways the method the Bush Administration employed when it infiltrated urban black churches across America doling out funding in exchange for support from black ministers and their congregations against same sex marriage. Hey, it worked for Bush. Maybe it’ll work for us.

The $1.2 million Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund —was actually awarded last Fall. This story somehow eased under the wire with the majority of the LGBT press—including ourselves. We came across it last night and after some quick fact checking discovered that virtually nothing had been written about this grant and the recipients. Call us crazy, but we think this is a big deal. That much money to do LGBT outreach to churches?  Ohhhh, we see this as significant alright. According to the Web site United Buffalo We Stand, the funds will be dispersed over a two-year period to the organizations.  The goals are to support a strategic, collaborative effort to expand pro-LGBT faith-based organizing efforts and allow the groups to fortify their respective infrastructures. Here’s  a quick summary  we lifted from the United Buffalo We Stand site of how the outreach is going to look like:

Through the welcoming church movement, congregations decide — through a formal vote — to offer an unconditional welcome to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. To date, more than 3,100 congregations across the Christian spectrum have explicitly welcomed LGBT people to full inclusion in the life and ministry of their congregations. This is largely due to the longtime and tireless work of these organizations, most of which have worked together for years to build the strong foundation of the existing welcoming church movement.

Nice. We do have one question however. We wonder will there be outreaching to churches in people of color communities? While the Episcopal, Methodist, Lutheran and Presbyterian Christian denominations all have churches in communities of color, we wonder if they too, will be approached to participate in creating LGBT inclusiveness in their congregations.

We certainly hope so. It would be a big wasted opportunity if these organizations just focused on primarily white churches. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and keep you updated if we find out any more developments.

For more details on this post: $1.2 Million Grant to Support Pro-LGBT Faith Work

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