Healing wounded spirits

My dad brought an article to the Thanksgiving dinner and read it to us. Over the last half year or so, the First United Methodist Church of Birmingham has been bringing supper to the Ruth Ellis Center once a month. I'm glad to see them (the quality of food goes up and I have less cleanup to do) and they appreciate having me guide them around the kitchen. Last week, Rev. Laurie Haller was part of the crew that came. She has been pastor of the church since July and has been seeing what all the ministries of the church are doing. She wrote about her experience in her personal blog. This is what my dad had printed out and read to us. Haller's story was reposted to The Methoblog for a wider audience. I recommend the post because it explains a lot about what Ruth Ellis Center is.

In the post Haller describes how important it is for a church to be serving the meal. Many of the kids at the Ruth Ellis Center were thrown out of the home based on the religious convictions of their parents. A church saying being gay is just fine with them, and doing so while showing compassion while serving a meal, goes a long way towards healing wounded spirits.

I'm pleased to hear Birmingham is considering bringing supper twice a month and other area churches, not just United Methodist, are talking about it.



In another bit of United Methodist news, the General Council on Finance and Administration has declared that it will extend employee benefits to same-sex couples who work for any of the denomination's national boards and agencies.

It is likely this will go before the denomination's Judicial Council when it next meets. That's because there is a phrase in the Book of Discipline that says no board or agency may use funds to promote the acceptance of homosexuality.